After having my second baby just a few weeks ago, I’ve now decided that my name officially sucks.
How did this happen? I loooooooooved my name. I still love my name. But it just doesn’t have the same magic anymore.Reality has hit me after one wedding and two babies in the last three years: My name doesn’t match the people that are most important to me… and that makes me sad, guilty, confused and scared.
Like most women, my maiden name has always represented so much of who I was, who I am, what I once strived for, what I’m still working towards. When I got married, I opted to keep my maiden name because I managed to score a big job the week of my wedding and I didn’t want any paychecks delayed because of a name change. Ok ok… that’s a lie (but that was the story I told my parents).
I really didn’t change my name because I just didn’t want to part with it. I liked the way it sounded. I liked the way it looked across the bottom of the TV screen (I was working as a TV reporter.) I liked the way I felt when I heard myself say it – remembering all the things I’d gone through and the person I’d become with that name. “Jill Simonian.” My maiden name was who I was… it was the girl who grew up in Fresno, CA, who moved to LA for school, who fought for certain dreams and learned how to become a strong young woman through heartbreaks, good plans gone wrong and other things that life throws all of us.
For some odd reason, other people thought my last name was cool too. My husband’s last name seemed too long (still is, haha)… and it just didn’t sound like “me” when I said it or saw it behind my first name. And hyphenating was a no-go (thanks to the ridiculous length of letters should I put our names together in a row). So that was that. Jill Simonian, I should stay.
Now I just feel like a fraud with a different last name than my husband and daughters. My hospital bracelets from when my girls were born seem wrong (with my maiden name). I wince inside when someone addresses me as Ms. Simonian when I’m out with my hubby. I dread the day when my girls are old enough to ask me “Why don’t you have the same name as the rest of us, Mommy?”
But if I change my name now, what will happen to that girl I used to know? Will I still feel like me? As immature as I know that I sound, I just can’t seem to let Simonian go. Not yet. I’m so conflicted it’s ridiculous!Anyone else had a woman/wife/mommy identity crisis like me? What did you do?
Did you change your last name when you got married? Was it a tough call or a no-brainer?
