Changing Your Name: What would you choose?
Changing your name is many a name nerd’s ultimate fantasy (right up there with naming a dozen children, including two sets of twins.) What name would you choose, if you could choose anything? And why?
I first considered seriously the whole issue of changing your name at a large, riotous dinner with all my college friends, when the first among us announced she was expecting a baby.
We threw out the usual compliment of ridiculous baby names for her consideration, and then started talking about how we felt about our own names.
While a few of us were content with our names, most of us had…..issues. Pam, I’d always felt, was too bland, too prissy. And my husband’s name, Dick — fuhgeddaboutit.
And so we set out to rename each other, which became a huge joke of its own. The name I was given by my friends, Tish Tania, I liked even less than the one I was given by my parents.
It’s time, then, to take matters into my own hands and choose a name for myself. I think, if I had to pick this very minute, I’d become Eliza Bridget Redmond. Eliza because it’s been long and is still my favorite name, modern and classic at the same time; Bridget because it was my beloved grandmother’s name, and one she felt she had to hide when she immigrated to the U.S. as it had become an Irish joke; and Redmond, because, as much as I love my husband and even love his name, I wish I’d never given up my original surname!
If you were changing your name today, if you could wave a magic wand and have total control, what would you choose? And why?