What's in a Name?

When my brother mentioned Matt as a potential set-up for me, I balked. "But I can't even pronounce his last name!" I said. My brother asked, "Would it help if I told you it's hyphenated?" That did help. I learned later that Mom is Ginder and Dad is Vogel, and they hyphenated the kids. When Matt's little brother Dave was born, the nun at the hospital told his mom she couldn't hyphenate his last name on the birth certificate. She said, "Yes, I can!" and did.

So when Matt and I got married, the entire three-month wedding-planning period involved discussions about whether I would, or should, change my last name, and if so, to what. He was surprised I would consider changing it at all. I thought it would be nice to have the same last name as him, and, presumably, our prospective children. His mom was surprised he didn't take my name, but he's not willing to change his, because a) he likes it, and b) he's published under it. I tried to use the argument that on future papers, he could just write, "Matthew Beman (formerly Ginder-Vogel)," and got a bemused stare. I suggested that since the cat has my last name, so could the kids, but he vetoed that, so rather than fight a losing battle, we made a deal that they could have his last name if I got to pick the first names. Personally, I think he's being a little inflexible, but he does it with such a cute giggle, who am I to argue? I'm the one making a big deal out of it.

The other piece of it is that I thought it would be kind of fun to have a new last name. I'd suddenly become someone else on Google searches. My current last name is easy to spell, yet people misspell it, and it's not exactly a great pen name or actor name or anything else. I'm a lot more attached to my first name (well, my nickname, anyway--the entire year I spent going by "Kathleen" felt like an identity crisis). You can make the case that last names are a big deal, or you can argue the exact opposite. They are a big deal if you like them, and not if you don't. More importantly, they are a big deal if no one has your last name--or if the person who has your new name is a tool. My friend Megan is quite distressed because now that she has a baby, she changed her last name to be the same as his and her husband's, but Megan Freund is some teenybopper girl with a silly MySpace profile.

I had a great idea that I could take his hyphenated last name, lose the hyphen, and be Katie Ginder Vogel. Flexibilty: I could hyphenate when I wanted my name to look identical to his, or just be Katie Vogel or Katie Ginder or whatever when I wanted something different. Only then my mom expressed so much angst that I might drop Beman and my middle name, Elizabeth, that it gave me pause. Elizabeth was her mother's middle name, she said. "So?" I responded. "That's why I'm naming my daughter Alison. After Grandma." She looked at me with those woebegone eyes, so now I've promised to name my next cat Elizabeth. I did a Google search for myself. Kathleen and Katie Beman have not changed. Same old links. Katie Ginder-Vogel and Kathleen Ginder-Vogel--nothing. I'd be brand new! Then, for kicks, I searched Katie Ginder. She exists. Scratch that. Then I searched Katie Vogel. She's a singer! I checked out her web site: http://www.katievogel.com/. She's adorable, but I could not be less like her. Katie Ginder-Vogel, on the other hand, is brand new. Somewhat defined by her husband's scientific papers and swim times from college, but ready to carve out her own identity soon.

This will not be the end of this discussion. I have yet to legally do anything. Who wants to change five frequent-flier profiles, every investment account, not to mention deal with the DMV and Social Security? I keep reminding myself that plenty of Hollywood types have fabulous-sounding names with different legal names, like Winona Horowitz (a.k.a. Winona Ryder). As Matt's dad says, "You can be a.k.a. any number of names."

Well, I hope Poppy Elizabeth Beman Ginder-Vogel doesn't have too much trouble signing her checks. :)