Rebellious Magazine, My Last Name and A Squinty Lady
What do you think about your name? Did you change your name when you got married? What terms of endearment do you like? These were some of the questions asked earlier this month as an essay prompt for Rebellious Magazine for Women.
I immediately thought of the testy exchange I had with this woman at the driver services office. Take a look at my essay and the others here.
Loved the essay. I took my husband’s name about a year after we married. It took me that long to decide. I didn’t want to do it, but as a lover of words I didn’t like my maiden name either. So my maiden name is officially my middle name, though when people ask, I still say “Ann”.
Thanks for the compliment on the essay. I’ve often wondered what kinds of jokes you used to get with your maiden name. And, I love Jessica Ann. 🙂
Funny enough—the name I was born with—Yount—rhymes nicely with cunt. I sort of totally own that now and esp. in my poetry. I couldn’t dream of giving up one of the reasons I’m such a bad ass 🙂 Even 10 years after marrying my husband, I’m still the same Susan Marie Yount or Cunt or however you like to pronounce it, that I was born (though our son has his father’s last name). The endless taunting of asshole juveniles actually made me want to keep it. Huzzah!
I know this is such a belated response, but I love that your comment included the word “cunt.” I always pronounced your name as Yooww uuuunnntt. Keep on keepin on Miss Yount
Great piece Mel: Short, charming and entertaining. My wife told me up front she wasn’t cool with carrying my last name. Given that I already had an ex-wife still using it, I was in no position to dig in. My biggest pet peeve about social media is I can’t find my female friends from over the years because they’ve all changed their last names.
That’s a good point. I have a hard time finding some of my girls as well because of their married last names… That could be a blog post within itself. Not only are we expected to change our names, but we lose some of our identity in that down the road, people can’t find us because we’re hidden behind someone else’s name…