'Oh to be in England, now that April's there...' well, not so much when you've looked into a clear azure sky on a warm spring morning and seen two hawks and an eagle gliding on the air currents.
Not what I wanted to cogitate on however. So far in my entire life I have never actually met anyone outside of my own family who had my surname. Yep, I know there was that actor who peeped over the fence every week in Tim Allen's annoying 'Home Improvement', and that was exciting enough, but I didn't meet him. There's also apparently a town with my surname in Texas. And I know there are others with my name living mainly in the North of England.
Women very often start life with one man's surname and then take that of another man, and so we focus on our father's family. It doesn't have to be that way of course. I could have decided to take my mother's maiden name but in my case, that was a far more common name and so made me feel less part of a particular family, and my mother herself had taken my father's name when they married, so I was identifying with her in that way.
My father and mother, last with the name, had two daughters, so that could have been it. But mighty oaks from the last acorn on the tree, sometimes grow. My son had my surname, and he now has a wife who has decided to take his name, and they now have two children. I have returned to my own name, that makes five. So all of that is good, a start. And of course, even if the traditional ways continue, I would be able to expect that the surname would carry on through Edward. Of course my great hope would be that Holly decides not to change her name should she decide to marry a man.
But the oak tree now has some surprising offshoots. My sister has also returned to using her own name and without a word from her, and in fact in spite of anxieties she has about it, both of her children have also decided to take her surname, and again, one of her children is a boy. So now we are eight.
Does any of this matter? Hell yes. Austen has done a great deal of work on our family tree. As you see the branches spread out - albeit backwards, you start to feel an affinity with the people from the past. Sometimes all you know is a name, but not always. Austen found a house in Portsmouth where my great grandfather used to live. (He'll correct me if that's wrong). He has traced the family back far enough that it's looking like maybe all those others up there around Preston are actually related to us.
Back in the present day, it feels as though we are growing, and we are growing not through tradition, but through choice and that feels very good indeed. I'm lucky. Here in Canada you don't even have to choose, you can use your husband's name or your own at will and when convenient.
On one of our Canadian shows last night, 'Godiva's', a character asked another, a Chinese man, why he had changed his name when he came to Canada. He said that it was because he wanted to make a new start and leave the past behind. And because he could.
What's in a name? In my opinion, part of who you choose to be. A rose by any other name.... ? Maybe it would still smell as sweet, but if it could choose, it might like the name 'Rose', it says more about it than 'cabbage'.
3 comments:
Having just gone through naming a child, I went through this. I think it is decidedly unfair that the mother does all the work yet at the end of it all, the child gets the father's name (and looks). Being one of those "F words", it was a real struggle personally to decide but in the end my daughter got her father's name, simply because her cousin already got my last name and her father is an only child and the only one left to pass his name on. However, if we do have another, that child shall get my last name. What I would have given in school to have a different last name than my siblings :)
What an amazingly good idea, Gail. I'm impressed. When I divorced I thought about returning to my single (father's) name, but decided that my ex-husband's name was much more interesting, so I kept the married (husband's) name. My two daughters who married both kept their single (father's) name -- I think more for easiness than anything else -- banking, work, etc. But they did it and I didn't tell them to. A move forward at least. But your idea is totally wonderful and I wish we had thought of it. But in that case everybody would eventually be using some man's name anyway, wouldn't they? Unless you went back a thousand years or so when nobody had any last names.
In the year 1000 I had a Scottish ancestor (this is actually true and was verified by my incredibly brilliant nephew who does family history) who was a minor king (probably a Viking) and his name was Aycha. His wife's name was Augusia, son's name was Alpin, son's name was Kenneth McAlpin (son of Alpin). So it all started there. But strangely enough HIS son's name was Constantine (the goddam Romans stepped in, I guess. So maybe we should all be 'whatever' Augusia in our family -- to be descended through the female line. So here I am -- ANNE AUGUSIA. Okay all of you. KEEP THAT IN MIND.
I think it's brilliant that you sat down and discussed it, at least what you did was agreed upon rather than just acquiesced with.
Ms. Augusia - so noted ;)
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