Names are not always what they seem
This week I was talking with a coworker about hyphenated names. She personally hyphenated her name, and I asked her if it was for the same reason as one of my other friends who kept debating what to do but never could decide and just ended up keeping both names by default. She said that was pretty much her thinking, and then she said, “It’s kind of traumatic to change your name.” Which I completely agree with. For a good part of my first year with my new name, I felt as if I was playing a role, and that my “real” identity was my maiden name, which people didn’t know anymore. Even now, almost five years in, I still feel a twinge of nostalgia from time to time about my maiden name. I wanted to have the same name as Mike, and my names weren’t easily hyphenated, so as much as Mike tried to convince me that he should take my name (which he did try) or that we should create an entirely new last name for the two of us (which he also tried), in the end I decided to take his name and keep my maiden name as my middle name.
In the Christian church, hyphenating your name brands you as an uber-feminist type who doesn’t submit to her husband. I am sure that’s true in some cases (although I would venture that there are plenty of women who do change their names who don’t submit to their husbands, but that’s another discussion altogether), but I can understand the urge to want to keep your name. You wonder, “How will old friends be able to find me?” You feel a sense of loss of who you are (which, in some ways isn’t necessarily bad, but I suppose that depends on your view of individuality in marriage, which, again, is another discussion) that men in this country (often the ones insisting the loudest that the woman must change her name in order to be a good Christian woman) never have to face. It was my decision, and Mike let me choose what I wanted to do, and I think I made the right decision . . . and yet I still cried tears over my lost name, the name my parents chose for me because they wanted the name to mean something for me, now gone forever.
I guess all this ranting is just to say: It’s hard. It’s not an easy thing, to change your name, and even though I did the socially/spiritually acceptable thing, it wasn’t an easy transition for me. I hate to see people within the church branding hyphenation or the like as “absurd” or “ridiculous” when, really, it’s between the two people in one couple who have to do what’s best for them. And since there’s not a clear directive that I have ever seen, just societal pressures, I say there’s room for lots of different variations at the table, so please pass the grace.
May 21st, 2005 at
Amen. So, when you changed it, how did you do it? Did you keep your middle name?
Personally, I love what my dad’s folks did; Dad, the first-born son, has his mother’s maiden name as his middle name [Spencer Ainsworth Morris]. I wish my folks would have done that with my brother, because Mom was an Adair, and I think that would make a great middle name.
But yeah, that only works when you have kids, and it’s still awful weird to think about … I still think of a couple of my friends’ wives by their maiden names from time to time.
May 21st, 2005 at
At the time, I thought it would be easier just to keep my maiden name as my middle name, but I wish now that I had kept all four names.
May 21st, 2005 at
I never heard of moving your madian name to your middle name till I lived in the South. Id never do that, but with the last name Smith, who would? Ive always looked forward to giving up Smith for a new last name, unless its like Butts then Im gonna have to pass on that one. But I like my middle name. Its staying. Why didnt you keep your birth middle name Kari?
May 21st, 2005 at
Because, if I dropped my maiden name entirely, I felt like no one would know who I was. I needed to keep some link to my maiden name. And I just didn’t think about keeping four names.
May 22nd, 2005 at
My wife chose took the four name route. She’s a bit attached to all of her given name, but also wanted to take my name. It’s great except when the question of middle initial comes up. We never know which to list (so her maiden name is usually selected).
My mom did what you did and dropped the middle name she had grown up with.
I would have been ok if Jessica had wanted to keep her last name, but after years of having the last name ‘Drewrey’ she was ready for a last name that people could actually spell correctly
May 22nd, 2005 at
Heh … Rick’s wife is one of those aforementioned friends’ wives. I don’t ever say “Drewrey”, but sometimes I think it.