Today I needed to fill in some paperwork to pick up an official birth certificate for my kid, and was struck how, as a woman, I’ve needed to repeatedly confront who I am just to complete simple paperwork.
I wonder how other women find themselves in exhaustive quandaries around this? Especially young women. Especially married women who did the “usual” thing, or hyphenated, or tried something different to buck the status quo.
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 belief systems and processes don’t all rest inside science, justice, consistency, or even common sense.
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 kid’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 confuse 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.”
A decision followed by lots of necessary action, because that carries more weight than words alone.
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 deep meaning in family history. Still does.
Like all women who do this, I wrangled bureaucratic paperwork to make the change happen. With additional costs, bank accounts to change, change of delivery forms, and explanations to people I knew.
I also had 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 getting hired. I was a creative SEO person after all, so being find-able has always been aligned.
Regardless, naming is still confusing: I constantly 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”?
And, I’m guessing this line of questioning is not uncommon. It is tiring at times. And all this naming work has been pushed into the domain of women, which is honestly, feels preferable to that of those who feel ownership like in the days of slavery, so I’m not complaining. Just noting.
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. And I relabeled 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 feel like myself. I wasn’t sure I should build my future using a once-lied about family name from my father’s side: it felt a bit distant from who I was. I also felt I barely knew the man, nor he me, even though he is certainly my biological dad (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, and 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. It meant more syllables and more writing.
That name reboot was beautifully confirmed when I saw Cate B 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 v. moniker badass maneuvers, and likely always have been. I wonder if every woman who’s faced some name-based decision-making has found ways to feel like ourselves 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. ↩︎