A Rose By Any Other Name...

After 16 months and 1 day of marriage, I have finally changed my name. The process has been both unremarkable and shockingly emotional. I have never put too much weight on my name. I like my family and the last name is just fine. It’s common and easy and very hard for little kids to make fun of. Yet, there was never any question when Roger and I married that I would take his name. I’m untraditional in a lot of ways, but I did (and do) feel strongly about having a family with the same surname.

So, what took me so long? Convenience. We got married just before the holidays when things were hectic. We were traveling and I needed plane tickets and an ID with a name that matched. Then when things settled down in the new year, I was commuting to work 2 hours each way. Leaving as early as 4:30 am and coming home around 7 or 8 pm every day, did not leave me much (or actually any) time to get to the social security office. Add to that the fact that Sacramento is one of only a handful of places where the social security change must be done in person and changing my name quickly turned into a seemingly impossible feat.

As the months wore on, the importance of changing my name waned for me. I started to wonder what the big deal was. Our friends and family addressed mail and introduced me using Roger’s last name. I changed my Facebook profile to reflect his name. At times, I even hyphenated my last name with his in my signature block at work. So what if legally I still used my maiden name? Well, it was a big deal to Roger. He started wondering if the inconvenience of it all was more of an excuse not to do it then an actual roadblock. And I admit that I started wondering that too. Suddenly, I noticed my name everywhere. It was on my driver’s license, the title to both of our cars, on our mortgage. It’s on bank accounts and credit cards. It was on diplomas and my PE license. It was even in published work of mine. I realized that my name preceded me at work. People had heard of me and my (old) last name had a really good reputation attached to it. I did an experiment at work one day. I used Roger’s name to identify myself when I made phone calls. It amazed me how many people were unavailable to speak to me. Calling back just a few minutes later and identifying myself with my last name…people were suddenly available and willing to talk to me. And before too long, I actually considered that changing my name wasn’t as important as I thought it would be. The symbol of our union did not have to be reflected in our names. We are a family, we know that we love each other and that’s all that matters.

Well, it all came to a head when Kaelyn was born. As far as the hospital was concerned Kaelyn was born to me….with my last name. They would not admit her using Roger’s name, even though that was what he had listed on her birth certificate. To make matters worse, at one point a nurse came to tell me that if I wasn’t married to Roger, he would have to take a paternity test and then we’d have to petition the court to have her last name be the same as his. And when I told her that we were married, she paused. I half expected that she was going to tell me that we had to prove it and provide our marriage certificate before we could name our daughter. (Luckily, my word that our marriage was legal was good enough). Still, Kaelyn was admitted under my name…which meant that anyone who called to check on her while she was in the NICU and didn’t use my name, was told that she didn’t exist. My last name was prominently and boldly displayed on her crib. I saw the hurt in Roger’s eyes when he saw that for the first time and immediately regretted that I hadn’t taken care of things before she was born. At that moment, I made a promise to all three of us that I would fix it.

Unfortunately, it still took me six months to do it. And now that I have, I’m wondering what the big deal was. I managed to slip into SSA after work one day, just before they closed and today, I took a couple of hours off work to go to the DMV. Sure, I still have to get a new passport, credit cards, and PE stamp, but all that can be done over the phone or through the mail. All in all, this was easy.
And as far as my identification at work goes…well, I admit that I considered using my maiden name. But, I’m still the same person and I figure it should only be during a short period of transition that I won’t be immediately recognized by my name. I’m still the same person. Everything that I’ve accomplished in the past is still my accomplishment, even if I did do it under a different name.

I love my husband and our family. And when Roger looked at my list of agencies and people I had to contact and forms I had to fill out to get my name changed, he was awed. When he grabbed me in a tight hug to thank me for going through this process, I beamed. For me, this process is truly a labor of love and the fact that my husband understood that, made all the trouble worth it!