Don't Call Me Names

Well, there I was searching Google how to go about "renaming" myself after the wedding. Do I use a dash to hyphenate my surname/s? Use only the new surname? Or for reasons of familiarity, still use the old one? And then I found this interesting article by Rosella Melanson.

Saying your name can be a political act....Do I honour the laws and customs that, until recently, dictated that a man and a woman who marry become the man, and the woman becomes 'civilly dead'? Or do I keep my name because ... because it's my name, dammit.' (emphasis mine)

Yep, it's my name. Dammit. =)

It's actually a witty article that doesn't really take sides, it just presents a different view as compared to what we're used to. Did you know that "in Quebec and France, birth names are the only legal names for official documents; socially, married women can adopt any name but they must sign their birth name"? (It must be a dream to live there). And there's Lucy Stone, an American from the 1800s who by the simple act of keeping her name, gave birth to the Lucy Stone League and the Name Freedom movement. 'My name is the symbol of my identity and must not be lost', she had said.

And...moving on, did you know there are men who actually changed their surnames to merge their surnames with that of their wives? Very interesting....