Today I needed to fill in some paperwork to pick up an official birth certificate for my youngest child and was struck how, as a woman, I’ve needed to repeatedly confront who I am just to do simple tasks like this.
Because, you know, names.
I wonder if other women find themselves in quandaries or irritations around this? Especially young women. Especially married women who did the “usual” thing, or hyphenated, or tried something different to buck the status quo.
Women are still the ones doing 99% of the busy work around this, and it literally costs us cash too.
I’m struck by the conventions like taking names, because of the inconsistent belief systems that underlie how people are perceived and treated in our culture. The logic and processes that govern names don’t all rest inside science, justice, consistency, or even common sense. Filing for paperwork being one of the ways I’m reminded.
And I’ve felt annoyed by again seeing how women and minorities get threatened with an undue burden just to vote. Wait, what? It’s 2026!
This all came to light again today, because I noticed my child’s birth certificate does not include me listed by my married name, even though I was married at the time of birth, and took my husband’s last name long before my child was born with thoughtful gravitas, consideration of convention, and much love.1
Also, I was (and perhaps am still?) living in a patriarchy, so you know, supposedly this kind of stuff matters.2
At 36 I gladly “took” my husband’s last name, stuck it right on the end of my mine supplanting my own. Without hyphens because why complicate love with errant punctuation? Taking his name was a declaration of intent to be “all in,” because why would anyone change their name for any other reason?3
I also wanted my husband to know my traditional nature when it comes to marriage. You know a “see, I’m committed, and old-fashioned.”
And in order to do that, I had to move my given middle name into oblivion, a no-man’s land of non-existence, even though that name had meaning in family history. Still does.
Like all women who change names, I wrangled bureaucratic paperwork to make all the things happen. And this work came with additional costs, bank accounts to change, post office delivery forms, billing updates, and explanations to people I knew.
I also needed to shift my business, which had been run under my name alone. Fortunately domain names could stay the same with nothing but a WHOIS record to update, letting me show continuity, and carry on working without another undue burden of re-branding just to keep going. I was a creative SEO person after all, so being find-able has always been aligned.
Regardless, re-naming is still a bunch of busywork: and I still wonder, should I be known by my maiden name, my married name, all the names (the easiest), or as I later decided to introduce myself for fun at yoga as, “Elizabeth. You know, like the queen”?
I’m guessing this line of questioning is not uncommon. It is tiring at times. And all this naming work and costs have been pushed into the domain of women and minorities.
Like something we’ve got to do, but you know who doesn’t? White guys. Hm.
Naming & Identity
My identity has gone through a number of reboots, and like most women, I’ve hid them all from view.
At 14, I decided that something that happened to me, hadn’t. I renamed myself a virgin, while also acknowledging inwardly that the science of my situation indicated I was definitely not one – living two truths at once.
In my 20s, I changed the meaning of my maiden name, so that I could avoid an official name change and still feel like myself. I wasn’t sure I should build my future using a once-lied about family name on my father’s side: honestly it felt a bit distant from who I was. At the time I also felt I barely knew my dad, nor he me, even though he is certainly my biological father (we look the same and there is no reason to think anything other than monogamy for my parents).
So, I created a new meaning for that name so I could feel I owned it, and again, carried on.
At 23, I needed a new start after a painful betrayal, so I changed how I introduced myself to my full first name, ditching a nickname I’d been known by through childhood. This meant more syllables and more writing. Also the potential to be seen as pompous.
That name reboot was confirmed when I saw Cate Blanchett in the movie Elizabeth and felt I’d chosen wisely. Who wouldn’t want to be associated with an illegitimate daughter of a brilliant, beheaded short-lived queen, who rose to the throne outside of ordinary succession, only to usher in the age of Enlightenment?
Women are full of identity, moniker-making, and badass maneuvers, and likely always have been. I wonder if other women who’ve faced name-based decision-making also find ways to feel genuine regardless of any definitional pretzels we’ve needed to twist into existence?
What’s in a name?
A: About a thousand amazing things.
And as for the GOP’s attempts to make voting more burdensome for We the People: I say No Way.
Thank you for reading, E
- For what is worth, I understand that these papers are meant to show family history for later tracking, but my maiden last name also comes by from another male-owned & given name–my father’s. And my mom’s maiden name is not represented, and her first name was erased from my official moniker when my middle name vanished too. This is, in a word, impractical and untrue from a number of standpoints, but a choice I made attempting to do right by a new life. ↩︎
- In older matriarchal cultures, maternal bloodlines were the only ones that counted, because they are provable with common sense, and without tech enterprises profiting like 23 & me. ↩︎
- …or maybe the witness protection program. lol. ↩︎