With our recent engagement, all sorts of questions have been popping up, one of which is if going to change my name.

Now, we could get into all sorts of stickiness here about feminism and identity of the self and individuality, etc. But I’m not usually that serious and generally hate debating and defending my opinions, so let’s get down to the truth about it.

It’s weird.

I’ve always thought it was weird when friends I’d grown up with suddenly had a new last name, and it usually takes me a few years to get used to it. And it’s double confusion if they’ve divorced and changed back or even remarried in a relatively short amount of time. I feel like I should slap a “Hello, my name is… ” sticker on them just so I can keep track.

Am I alone here?

So I hate the idea of changing my name. I like it. I’ve had it for thirty years. I’m associated with my family by it (usually a good thing). It’s modern times. Can’t he change his name?

Of course not. That idea was met with a scowl and a “hell no.”

He should know me better than that by now. I know he loves me like crazy and would do anything to make me happy. So I’m going to have some fun with this.

“We can always hyphenate our names. We can be the Linville-Cloyds. Or the Cloyd-Linvilles. Your pick.”

“No.”

“Come on! We can pretend we’re like Scottish clans coming together to make one ginormous clan. You’re part Scottish. We could make it work! As we walk down the aisle, we can be serenaded by bagpipes!”

“….What? No. Just no.”

“Ok, hmm. We could combine our names and come up with a new one for the both of us. How about the LiCloyds? Oh! Oh! We could even do it with our first names and have completely new identities. DaJessica LiCloyd 1, and DaJessica LiCloyd 2. You can be number 1 since you are older. Some consessions should be made.”

“OMG!”

“That’s it, isn’t it? I knew we could do this.”

“No. Go to sleep.”

“….Would it be better if we did Sr.  and Jr., to reflect the age difference between us?”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Ok, ok. I’ll shut up….”

It’s fun to jerk his chain. 😉

But for reals, I’m gonna change my name to his. I just had to give him a hard time about it.