I Only Kinda Sorta Took my Husband’s Name When I Got Married
It Didn’t Work Out the Way I’d Planned
Have you ever wondered what would happen if two hyphenated last-namers got married? Like, let’s say Harrison VonHarrison-Lundquist married Muffy Worcester-Wolfe. (All names are completely fabricated. If anyone out there has either of those names, I’m sorry…in so many ways.) Would they name their children Maximillian and Genevieve VonHarrisonlundquist-Worcesterwolfe???
Notice the last names I’ve fabricated. Not so very ethnic, are they? Jews don’t hyphenate. Take me, for instance. My maiden name is Rabinowitz, my married name is Friedman. I considered hyphenating for about twelve seconds. But as Nancy Rabinowitz-Friedman; I might as well have introduced myself as Nancy Double-Jew. Twice the guilt!! Twice the neuroses! I suppose we could have combined our names to create a new one. We could have been the Friedowitz family, or the Rabinimans. But that day at City Hall, I chose to lose the middle name I’ve never liked, and become Nancy Rabinowitz Friedman. No hyphens, the clerk explained, would allow me to legally use either my maiden or married name.
What’s in a name? A lot. If there weren’t, there wouldn’t be name discrimination for so called “non-normalized names” affecting hiring practices. There wouldn’t be websites devoted to helping us choose names…
