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last name

Guest Posts, Starting Over

A Rose by Any Other Name

August 10, 2018
rose

By Dana McKenna

I remember when I decided to do it.

I was going to change my name.

I had just filed for divorce.  It was liberating, knowing I’d done something proactive for my emotional and psychological well-being.  After I gave my (now) ex the ultimatum of ‘me, or everyone else in a skirt’ (guess which he chose?), I hired a lawyer, filed the paperwork, and was on my way (little did I know he would stretch it out over two+ years, quickly making it the Big Bad Awful, but that’s another story).

So, changing my last name.  Not back to my maiden name; no, I hadn’t been that person for nearly 20 years.  And I didn’t want to wait until after the divorce was final, I wanted to do it now.  It was a further step to heal, another step in the direction to reclaim my own life. And it was the right decision.

Now, what name did I want to reflect me?  What name did I want to represent “me” to the outside world?

To be, or not to be, Smith or Jones. That was the question.

I wrote down or typed into my cell phone every name I came across that I liked.  From looking through books on my coffee table, watching TV and movies; perusing magazines, bookshelves at the library, FaceBook, and bookshelves at Barnes & Noble; mulling names over-heard in conversations standing in line; to (more) perusing of used-books store shelves, place names on maps, family trees, cemeteries (really, headstones are a bounty of monikers!), other people’s bookshelves…you get the idea.

My long list devised, now needed some serious weeding.  I would practice introducing myself out loud using the names I’d found.

That lopped off at least 1/3 of the list. Continue Reading…