When I got married, I hadn’t wanted to change my name. My dad had three daughters, so his name would not be carried on past us and it was a part of my identity. But my ex was pratically apoplectic that I wouldn’t take his even though I tried to explain why to him (but it’s tradition he said 🙄). I compromised on a hyphenate. And one of the first requests he had during our settlement agreement conference was asking me to give up his name! A name I had compromised on 22 years earlier when I had really wanted to keep my last name 🤯.
And I said no. Did I choose to keep it out of spite? Partly yes because I wanted him to write ever alimony check to that name 😁. But the primary reason I kept my current legal name is I didn’t have the energy to change everyplace my name was hyphenated and it’s a lot! Now if I could have just popped the name change into a system that would globally alter my name wherever it appeared, I would have said “sign me up”. But you see it’s not that simple.
Here is just a partial list of places I would have to change my name: Social Security, DMV, bank accounts, credit card accounts, online accounts (running about 20 accounts right now), utilities, passport and Global Entry, property records, tax records, medical insurance (and with the ACA it is not a simple process), car insurance, homeowner’s insurance, and that’s just for starters. I’m sure I’m missing quit a few more. I’ll bet you’re dizzy just looking at the list. Imagine having to work your way through it 😵 (this is supposed to represent a dizzy face in case you were worried 🤣)!
So for now I’m keeping the hyphenate. Which brings up a different set of challenges of course 🙄. You see when people see a hyphenated name, many will shorten it – to the second name in the hyphenate (strangely enough, the CVS where I live always listed me under my family name 🤔). When I was married, I would do that socially because it was easier. Now my preference is to use my family name, which is complicated to pronounce, let alone spell 😆😆. So instead of asking, people just assume that it is ok to choose how my name will appear. And it can be a real pain in the ass to get places/people to change it!
Fortunately, my friends have made the adjustment easily (and with a fair amount of glee, I might add 😜). It tempers the times I have to fight with others to get my name corrected.
Some may think this is a silly battle to wage, that it’s just a name. But it is my name, and I should be the one to choose how it appears. And I’m betting there are more than a few of you that feel the same about your own name 😊.
My Lemons My Lemonade 