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Sunday, August 2, 2009

LOL 7: What's in a name?

My second Living Out Loud entry.
When people ask me my middle name I ask, "which one?". I was born Sarah Catherine Elizabeth. Sarah Catherine was my great-grandma on my dad's side and Sarah Elizabeth was my great-great grandma on my mom's side. I love my name. Not many people will actually admit it. I love having family history right there.
I'm very protective of the "H" at the end of Sarah. People at work constantly leave the H off even though we've worked together for 12 years. It's annoying. When people ask, "Is that Sarah with or without the 'H'?" I proudly answer, "With." I can't explain my attachment to one letter other than it's my name. I always do my darnedest to make sure I spell other people's names correctly and feel the same courtesy should be made to me.
Putting all my names on "official" documents was interesting. Sometimes I was able to put Sarah Catherine E. on these documents, but I usually ended up having to drop the Elizabeth all together.
I was the last of my surname to get married. I had always said growing up that I was just going to tack on my husband's last name to the great list of names since all of them meant something. Then I got engaged. There began the internal debate on keeping all of them and having five names. On the way home from meeting the florist, I brought up to my mom that I was thinking about dropping Elizabeth when I added on my hubby's last name. I promised her that when we had a kid and if it was a girl that I was use Elizabeth in her name. Mom agreed and when I filled out the paper work after getting hitched, I dropped the Elizabeth and kept my maiden name as my second middle name.
I miss Elizabeth sometimes when I fill out paperwork. I didn't think I would. It's just a name after all, right? But it was a part of me, who I was and what I was known by for 25 years. I think I'm allowed to miss it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's definitely a book to be done about women changing any part of their name due to marriage. It's such a rich topic.

My sister is Stefanie (with an "f") and gets soooo peeved when someone spells it with a ph, especially when they've known her for a long time.

acorndreaming said...

I know why your "h" is important. It's the same reason I'm "Megan" without an "h" or any extra "a" or "g" or whatever other loose letters floating around someone wants to stick in there. I'm Megan not Meaghann or Meghan or Meagen. If it's not spelled correctly, people are talking to someone else, not me.