What's in a Name?...

I've been working on tracing my family lineage (off and on between projects) and it has been such an interesting challenge.

I've traced my father's line back to Barbados, where they settled for generations after coming from England. I've traced my mother's line back to their roots in Germany and Holland... and have been fascinated by the evolution of last names as 'my people' jumped continents.

This resulted in my analyzing my own last name... still shared with an extended paternal line in Barbados.
I also share the same middle name as my mother and my daughter... a tradition for the first girl born in our generations. (And incidentally, my daughter is the spitting image of her namesake, four generations removed.) My son shares the same middle name as my father, which is also a bastardization (ironically) of my first name.
In every line of my family, there are examples of common family names being passed down from generation to generation. When looking at my family tree, it can get very confusing with all of the Roberts and Josephs and Franks and Johns, Marys, Katherines, and Anns. We've gotten more creative with first names in later generations, but the family names are all still there - if not prominent - then tucked neatly between first and last.
How fun it was to discover that my son shares the same first name with several of my relations from Tyrone, Ireland in the 1700's! I'm also a (skeptical) believer in 'genetic memory' (which is its own blog post entirely) and have been curious as to what else has been passed down via DNA from those long-lost relations.

As I reveal more and more holy men and artisans along the family line, I'm convinced that 'names' are not all that we share; but that the genetic legacy is far more complex than I have even begun to discover.

The thing is... I like my last name. My maiden name.
No offense to my former husbands, but I hated both of my married names. They just didn't... fit. It was like wearing someone else's panties. And not just wearing someone's panties, but having other people acknowledge that you're wearing someone else's panties. That's how it felt any time someone called me Mrs. So-and-So.
Taking into account, of course, that they would eye me suspiciously... my married name being the equivalent of Xhang - while I'm decidedly not Asian... but I digress...

I don't know if I'll ever get married again, but I loathe the discussion about whether or not I'll take my husband's last name. I am only partially saved by the argument that I have to keep my 'stage name' as it has already been established. Plenty of actors and actresses change their names legally, but keep their stage names.

I love my family, dysfunctional as they may be, and have always been proud to descend from the line of extraordinary people that make up my lineage.

I find a certain amount of comfort and identity in my family name and have been loathe to give it up or trade it in. I don't know if that makes me a raging feminist or a selfish partner or what... but I know it's not always popular opinion. But damn... I figure if I'm going to cook and clean for, support, encourage and remove the skid marks from some man's drawers; the least he can do is let me hang on to some semblance of my own dignity and identity, right?

Oh, who am I kidding? I don't cook, clean, support, encourage or remove skid marks for anyone. But I digress... again...

I don't know... maybe I'm making too much of it.
It's not really an issue that needs resolution any time soon. But I do know that I can't be the only woman who feels this way. Convicted... but conflicted about feeling convicted. If that makes any sense.
I guess that's the story of my opinionated life. :)

Who knows... maybe later in life, I'll be less attached to my name. But for now, it's a very comfortable and reassuring pair of panties that I don't aim to change any time soon.