Tonight I went to the baby shower of my college friend, V. We were college roommates more than once and office-mates in our early years out of college when we lived and worked in Boston. As us party-goers sat around talking and holding the week old little boy of our friend, B, the subject of names came up. B was sharing that she and her husband had had boy and girl names picked out each of their children, but that none of those names were recycled when they were expecting a new baby. Another of our friends confirmed this. Each mother had felt that each child was clearly distinct; a different name came with thinking about each new family member.
The mommies then started talking about experiencing a moment when they realized that they had given a child a name and that child would have that name for the rest of their lives. The great responsibility had impressed upon each of them. However some people will change their names, either because their "given" name doesn't seem to fit or, as I will soon do, because of marriage. A week after getting engaged, I starting thinking deeply about the meaning of names.
For the last 10 years or so, I have been sure that when I got married I would drop my middle name and take my maiden name as my middle name. I have never really loved the sound of my last name, but I have had it for too many years now to let it go. And my last name connects me to my family in a way that my middle name doesn't. My new name will tie me to my husband and to his family and it will be the name of our children.
Names are meaningful. They identify us to others but I think they also help define us to ourselves.
I had thought about the significance of my name before marriage was on the horizon. I call myself different names at different times. When I'm mad at myself I use my full name. When giving myself a little pep talk, I usually use the abbreviated version that only my closest friends use. I never refer to myself by my last name. More often than not, my name appears in my mind as a kind of picture. It isn't an image of my face and I don't see it as Courier New or Times New Roman font. Rather it is a kind of feeling or color (blue) that I recognize as "Me."
After getting engaged I started to have anxieties about loosing my middle name. This didn't happen until I was talking to my brother. He was upset by the fact that I am planning to drop my middle name. Wrapped up in my middle name were some of his most distinctive memories of our childhood together. We have never been very close and I was touched. And then I began to reconsider my decision.
What kept worrying me was, where would my discarded name go? If it ceased to be on any government ID card or as an initial on my credit card, did that mean that my name was gone? It would always be on my birth certificate and I would always know that it was mine. If it wasn't documented or my initial changed, did that mean that it was gone, floating around in name limbo with my own mother's former middle name (and my future mother-in-law's as well?) If names are what we use to identify ourselves to ourselves, does our identity change if our name does?
Intellectually I think that names don't make us who we are; they are just one of many imposed labels that help distinguish us within a community and assist the government in taxing us. But emotionally I think they are something more. They are a little bit like clothes; certain titles, names or labels make us more comfortable than others and no matter how hard we keep trying to feel like ourselves in that pair of white jeans, they will never really be us. My middle name may disappear from forms and my initials will change, but my middle name will always be a piece of who I am. My new name, like our wedding, is a testament to the new family we are becoming. And that feels like a good fit.
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