A Rose By Any Other Name
FreiFem2011Blogscredit: ouistitis
Let’s say my name is Miriam. It isn’t, but let say. When I was a teenager, I told my new non-Jewish friends to call me Maria. “Maria” was part of my new identity. But now, as an adult, I go by Miriam again. It’s the name of my childhood. Denying Miriam felt like denying my past. Maria was a costume. It wasn’t me.
But I did change my last name – I’m no longer Miriam Cohen. I’m Miriam Harris. I needed to discard my parent’s last name, and I’ve never had one moment of regret over that.
When I recently renewed my passport at a place in Boro Park, the frum guy was very confused as to why I didn’t have my husband’s last name. “Are you sure you don’t want to change it on the forms?” he asked.
I was sure.
“Harris” is a precious token of my independence that, together with the history embodied in “Miriam”, is the exact vocalization of my identity.
How about you? Have you kept the names of your birth or marriage? Do you have a separate name for the new parts of you? Do you wish you did? Are you glad you don’t?
2 Responses
Ironically, I did the exact reverse. I kept my maiden name. I didn’t exactly change my first name but went with the Hungarian turned English one. I never liked my Yiddish first name, it’s an obscure one, but I kept that quiet because I was named after my paternal grandmother, which is a great honor.
I did not take my husband’s name. For a variety of reasons, chief among them feminism and professional identity. But mainly, odd as it sounds, I wanted some rootedness, some connection to the family that raised me.
I changed my name from the Frum “Pinchos Goldberg” to the more secular-like, short “Pinny Gold.” Partly for technical reasons (fooling the Israeli Government – a story for itself) and partly because the “pinTCH-OAS” I used to get constantly; the result of Ashkenazic parents who had face the biggest Jewish dilemma of spelling names with the eighth Hebrew letter in English…
The first time I identified as Pinny was when I first called Hillel (the one in Israel), and since then the only folks who still call me Pinchos are religious folks, and the number of those who use that one declines by the day.