Sentence:  To my surprise and pleasure, it was Olwen that Esme chose to use when speaking of, and to, the baby - though she showed an unhappy tendency to shorten it to <WSD>Ollie</WSD>, in spite of my protests that this brought to mind not a stately princess, but the fat man in the Laurel and Hardy comedy series. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A diminutive of the female given names Olivia, Olive and Olwen.