Bjorn and Name Changes
Apr. 15th, 2003 11:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
same_skyBjorn now has 25 users, and they've seemed tremendously excited about it, for the most part. I've even gotten emails and private messages! This has made me very excited all day. *laugh* My main reservation about doing the site was whether it would have visitors and active members, so I'm feeling a little less anxious. I have a theory that Swedes in general have a somewhat easier time in the US than Americans do in Sweden. I don't know if that's universally true or if I have a skewed perspective from Magnus adjusting so well and hearing people gripe at Amerikanska all the time. :) Anyway, I'm glad to see that it's beginning to go somewhere, and I rather hope it continues. M and I are having great fun with it! He says that now we're Alpha Dorks. ;)
And now for something completely different. Changing names upon marriage was mentioned today, and I remembered something I wrote and set aside for proofreading later on and forgot about. Turned out that I wrote it over a year ago. *laugh* Oops. See, I told you I procrastinate. Anyway, it's fairly decent, though a little more.. harsh than I would be if I wrote it now. At the time, I was feeling somewhat guilty for changing my name when we got married, and I suppose I was justifying it to myself more than anyone else. I have these "ideas" of "equality" and "feminism". (Pardon the sarcasm.) Anyway. Ignore if you wish, just getting it out of my system, since it was meant to be a journal entry at the time. :)
For 21 years, I assumed that my name would change upon my eventual marriage. Like a lot of little girls, I've been raised to dream of white satin and lace as the realization of A Dream, and not necessarily the dream of a lifetime of love and joy. No, a wedding is more than that for females. It's about safety, security, and well, ironing shirts, or whatever.
For just six months, I considered what it would actually mean to me to be someone else.
In some ways, I don't think I really had time to develop a lasting attachment to my name. I'd always considered it so fleeting, after all. A temporary pitstop on the way to better things, so to speak. It sounds so horrifying, when I put it down here now. It's really not my fault, though. Oh, I could lay the blame on my family, or on society, or I could accept it myself for not being quite what I want myself to be.. but ultimately, would it matter? You just can't raise a child with pink ribbons, Barbie and Raggedy Ann without leaving some kind of imprint of what being a female means to the world.
And being a female still means becoming Mrs. Someone Else.
By the time wedding plans were on the horizon, I had considered the matter heavily. To stay with Gilliam or go with Yayer? It was not something I did without thinking about it or without discussion. It was really not the blind assumptions of my mother's generation.
On one hand, there were the years of tradition standing at my back. It was explaining to my sometimes old-fashioned family that I was not taking my husband's name, and trying to make them understand that I'm someone in my own right, and all without offending them for their own choices. It was telling my fiancee that I'll just keep my own name, thanks. It was the censure in the eyes or thoughts of people I knew. It was explaining to my future children why mommy and daddy have different names.
And it was also looking at myself with the eyes of a feminist and knowing that I would be the one to look myself in the mirror in the morning and not these other people. It was remembering the struggles of countless other women--and even men--to get to the point we are right now with equal rights.. it's certainly not perfect, but it's better than 100 years ago. It was realizing that I could not live as an extension of someone else. I would be the one who would have to sleep with the decision.
None of those were insurmountable obstacles; I did it anyway, as I'm sure you realize by now. And while I don't regret it, sometimes I still feel somewhat guilty for it. Would I change it, if I could do it over, with the additional time to ponder? Nope. I firmly believe that I made the best decision for us. It wasn't that important to me personally to keep Gilliam as my name. I heartily applaud the principle, but not so much the implementation. And that's just the thing. I want to live in a world where it doesn't matter. We may be moving towards a society where families are not necessarily even supposed to have the same name, and that's more than fine by me. But we're not there yet, and while it may be selfish to admit it, I was simply not willing to fight tradition this time just to make a lifelong statement that I don't necessarily agree with.
But you can certainly ask for my rabid opinions on how this lovely society we live in has oppressed women to the point that my seven-year-old niece drinks water simply because there are no calories in it--and you can rest assured that your feminist sensibilities won't be offended. :)
And now for something completely different. Changing names upon marriage was mentioned today, and I remembered something I wrote and set aside for proofreading later on and forgot about. Turned out that I wrote it over a year ago. *laugh* Oops. See, I told you I procrastinate. Anyway, it's fairly decent, though a little more.. harsh than I would be if I wrote it now. At the time, I was feeling somewhat guilty for changing my name when we got married, and I suppose I was justifying it to myself more than anyone else. I have these "ideas" of "equality" and "feminism". (Pardon the sarcasm.) Anyway. Ignore if you wish, just getting it out of my system, since it was meant to be a journal entry at the time. :)
For 21 years, I assumed that my name would change upon my eventual marriage. Like a lot of little girls, I've been raised to dream of white satin and lace as the realization of A Dream, and not necessarily the dream of a lifetime of love and joy. No, a wedding is more than that for females. It's about safety, security, and well, ironing shirts, or whatever.
For just six months, I considered what it would actually mean to me to be someone else.
In some ways, I don't think I really had time to develop a lasting attachment to my name. I'd always considered it so fleeting, after all. A temporary pitstop on the way to better things, so to speak. It sounds so horrifying, when I put it down here now. It's really not my fault, though. Oh, I could lay the blame on my family, or on society, or I could accept it myself for not being quite what I want myself to be.. but ultimately, would it matter? You just can't raise a child with pink ribbons, Barbie and Raggedy Ann without leaving some kind of imprint of what being a female means to the world.
And being a female still means becoming Mrs. Someone Else.
By the time wedding plans were on the horizon, I had considered the matter heavily. To stay with Gilliam or go with Yayer? It was not something I did without thinking about it or without discussion. It was really not the blind assumptions of my mother's generation.
On one hand, there were the years of tradition standing at my back. It was explaining to my sometimes old-fashioned family that I was not taking my husband's name, and trying to make them understand that I'm someone in my own right, and all without offending them for their own choices. It was telling my fiancee that I'll just keep my own name, thanks. It was the censure in the eyes or thoughts of people I knew. It was explaining to my future children why mommy and daddy have different names.
And it was also looking at myself with the eyes of a feminist and knowing that I would be the one to look myself in the mirror in the morning and not these other people. It was remembering the struggles of countless other women--and even men--to get to the point we are right now with equal rights.. it's certainly not perfect, but it's better than 100 years ago. It was realizing that I could not live as an extension of someone else. I would be the one who would have to sleep with the decision.
None of those were insurmountable obstacles; I did it anyway, as I'm sure you realize by now. And while I don't regret it, sometimes I still feel somewhat guilty for it. Would I change it, if I could do it over, with the additional time to ponder? Nope. I firmly believe that I made the best decision for us. It wasn't that important to me personally to keep Gilliam as my name. I heartily applaud the principle, but not so much the implementation. And that's just the thing. I want to live in a world where it doesn't matter. We may be moving towards a society where families are not necessarily even supposed to have the same name, and that's more than fine by me. But we're not there yet, and while it may be selfish to admit it, I was simply not willing to fight tradition this time just to make a lifelong statement that I don't necessarily agree with.
But you can certainly ask for my rabid opinions on how this lovely society we live in has oppressed women to the point that my seven-year-old niece drinks water simply because there are no calories in it--and you can rest assured that your feminist sensibilities won't be offended. :)
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no subject
Date: 2003-04-15 08:39 pm (UTC)I haven't completely decided what I'm going to do yet. My sister has her first married name though that marriage ended 10+ years ago and she'll probably change again it if she remarries. My mother has reverted to using her maiden name... I have no brothers and my father's only sib is a woman who changed her name. All this combined with the fact that I've had this name for almost 40 years, well, I'm attached to it to put it mildly.
I'm leaning towards:
Darci Chapman Hanning or
Darci Lee Chapman-Hanning
As it stands today, Darci Lee Hanning is unlikely...
*sighs*
no subject
Date: 2003-04-16 06:06 am (UTC)The first one sounds quite distinguished. ;) I hate decisions.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-16 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-16 06:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-16 03:32 am (UTC)And Brushammar is an old family name (T's maternal grandmother's maiden name) that had died out. All of the three siblings (T's mom and 2 brothers) and their offspring have it now. We are 9 or so total in the whole world.
On one of our first dates, Tobias explained this too me in his then VERY broken English and said "Someday maybe you can be a Brushammar." He freaked me out, but I have been one for almost 6 years now :) Hoping to be able to make sure that the name doesn't die out again :)
no subject
Date: 2003-04-16 06:17 am (UTC)Geijer isn't THAT uncommon, but it's pretty important to Magnus and his family. There's a lot of history and such with it, apparently, and I didn't have that connection with mine. That sort of helped me decide. :)