Dillards 78: Taste the Rainbow

[VelociRapture]

1 hour ago, adidas said:

My kids are 19 and 22 years old. It’s too late and is a long lasting guilt. 

I’m sorry.  

My mom told me when I was a teenager that she kind of wished she had hyphenated our last names too. She didn’t think of it at the time because she’s the eldest child of four in her family - one sister and two brothers - so she always assumed the name would carry on through one of them. Her sister died as a result of suicide when I was almost five and neither of her brothers ever had kids, so it didn’t happen. I’m kind of glad they didn’t hyphenate though because our combined last name would have been 16 letters long and it would have been a pain to write that out all the time.

Funny enough, it’s now my dad’s family name that isn’t being carried on though. My cousin, sister, and I all chose to give our kids their respective father’s last names and my brother chose to take our mom’s maiden name when he legally transitioned to male. I don’t think my brother plans to have kids, but now mom has a chance to see her maiden name continued for our branch of the family tree while dad doesn’t. His name dies out with my cousin, who is the only one of our generation to still have it. It makes dad sad sometimes, but I always just remind him that the important thing is everyone is healthy and happy and the family stories and traditions will still be carried on regardless of who has what name. That does seem to help perk him up a bit and he always gets so excited to see me include my daughter when I make his family’s Christmas cookies (they’re a huge part of our family.)

So all that to say, I’m sorry that you’re feeling so sad about this. Life has a funny way of surprising us sometimes though and you never know what might happen, but even if your name doesn’t get carried on your children will still carry on the stories and traditions you passed to them. I hope that helps a little bit.  

[libgirl2]

1 hour ago, VelociRapture said:

I’m sorry.  

My mom told me when I was a teenager that she kind of wished she had hyphenated our last names too. She didn’t think of it at the time because she’s the eldest child of four in her family - one sister and two brothers - so she always assumed the name would carry on through one of them. Her sister died as a result of suicide when I was almost five and neither of her brothers ever had kids, so it didn’t happen. I’m kind of glad they didn’t hyphenate though because our combined last name would have been 16 letters long and it would have been a pain to write that out all the time.

Funny enough, it’s now my dad’s family name that isn’t being carried on though. My cousin, sister, and I all chose to give our kids their respective father’s last names and my brother chose to take our mom’s maiden name when he legally transitioned to male. I don’t think my brother plans to have kids, but now mom has a chance to see her maiden name continued for our branch of the family tree while dad doesn’t. His name dies out with my cousin, who is the only one of our generation to still have it. It makes dad sad sometimes, but I always just remind him that the important thing is everyone is healthy and happy and the family stories and traditions will still be carried on regardless of who has what name. That does seem to help perk him up a bit and he always gets so excited to see me include my daughter when I make his family’s Christmas cookies (they’re a huge part of our family.)

So all that to say, I’m sorry that you’re feeling so sad about this. Life has a funny way of surprising us sometimes though and you never know what might happen, but even if your name doesn’t get carried on your children will still carry on the stories and traditions you passed to them. I hope that helps a little bit.  

I know someone who hyphenated 4 kids names. The mother's surname is quite long so their football jerseys are rather interesting. 

[viii]

I always envy people who have nice maiden names that can work as a first name for a child, so it's still carried on in a way. 

Our direct family name will die out, because my dad only had two full blooded sisters, and then he had three daughters. Both my sisters are married and have given their children their respective spouses' name, and so I'm the only "Smith" remaining. If I did have a child on my own, I would obviously use Smith as a last name, but I doubt I'll ever have children. 

Luckily no one in my family believes that legacies depend on last name. 

Edited August 16, 2019 by viii

[Bad Wolf]

Back to Lutherans: a Lutheran church near me has a gay pastor/priest/minister. Sorry, not sure what he's called. 

[mollysmom]

This thread drift reminds me of something I've been thinking about. When my divorce is finalized I don't really want to keep my married name. No hard feelings, honestly, but I just feel like if/when I meet someone else he might not appreciate the fact that I still have my married name. I absolutely will not go back to my maiden name. As I've shared on here, my family was and still is ultra fundie and we don't speak because I left the cult. Also my mother was so abusive in every possible way, that last name just has horrible memories so that is a definite no. I've thought about coming up with my own new last name. I googled it and it doesn't sound like it's something I can include in the divorce (with that lawyer) but it does sound like something I could pursue separately. It sounds costly & like a pain in the neck so I'm not sure what I'm going to do but yeah...

[Perrierwithlemon]

29 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

Back to Lutherans: a Lutheran church near me has a gay pastor/priest/minister. Sorry, not sure what he's called. 

I think that you would be correct in calling him a pastor.

Source: my grandma is Lutheran, and she calls her "pastor" a pastor.

[Bobology]

2 hours ago, mollysmom said:

This thread drift reminds me of something I've been thinking about. When my divorce is finalized I don't really want to keep my married name. No hard feelings, honestly, but I just feel like if/when I meet someone else he might not appreciate the fact that I still have my married name. I absolutely will not go back to my maiden name. As I've shared on here, my family was and still is ultra fundie and we don't speak because I left the cult. Also my mother was so abusive in every possible way, that last name just has horrible memories so that is a definite no. I've thought about coming up with my own new last name. I googled it and it doesn't sound like it's something I can include in the divorce (with that lawyer) but it does sound like something I could pursue separately. It sounds costly & like a pain in the neck so I'm not sure what I'm going to do but yeah...

I'm on team choose your own last name. First make certain you cannot do that in your divorce papers. If the paperwork is awaiting finalization it would be too late. Twenty years ago it cost $150 in my county for a person to change her name. So while your cost would be high, you would have it the rest of your life (assuming you wouldn't change your last name with a future marriage.)

If you do change your last name, ask for about 15 copies of the final paper with seals on it. Each time you have to change it somewhere (SS office, bank, employment, etc) you have to give up one of the official decrees (or whatever it is called.)

Edited August 16, 2019 by Bobology
additional info

[mollysmom]

8 minutes ago, Bobology said:

I'm on team choose your own last name. First make certain you cannot do that in your divorce papers. If the paperwork is awaiting finalization it would be too late. Twenty years ago it cost $150 in my county for a person to change her name. So while your cost would be high, you would have it the rest of your life (assuming you wouldn't change your last name with a future marriage.)

If you do change your last name, ask for about 15 copies of the final paper with seals on it. Each time you have to change it somewhere (SS office, bank, employment, etc) you have to give up one of the official decrees (or whatever it is called.)

Good advice/information. Thank you!

If anyone has anything else to add I'm open to it! 

 

[Timetostoplurking]

@mollysmom  Maybe look through your family tree and pick a last name from an ancestor.  That might be fun and a way to honor your history.  

[Smee]

That’s basically how the surname “Newman” came about - men who changed their last names to “new man” after a significant life event.

I used to have an occupational surname so I think if i was picking a new surname now it would be fun to use my own occupation, or a derivative of.

[apandaaries]

For those saddened by not hyphenating names, do be aware that a lot of adults with hyphenated names don’t quite appreciate them. My SIL was excited to change her five syllable, hyphenated last name to our relatively uncomplicated one when she married into the family. She warned me that she’d hated having both names, as I was pregnant when she and my brother wed. I wound up giving my kid two middle names, one of which was my last name. Her first name sounded better with my ex’s last name as well. Naming kids is just a complicated process at times.

[Snarkasarus Rex]

I had every intention of not changing my name, but then I caved.  I don't regret it, however.  We were 22 and 21 when we married tho, so that had something to do with it, and I've now been married longer than I ever was single.  If something ever happened to Mr. Rex and I married again (very doubtful), then I would keep my current married name.  And we wouldn't be merging our finances either.  

I joked that at least I had an easy name to spell after I got married.  Ironically, more people misspell my 5-letter married last name than my mouthful of German maiden name.  I guess I didn't realize there was more than one spelling...I'm like, 'how can you misspell it, it's on my shirt you idiots' (I'm retired military).  

[Casserole]

I feel pretty strongly that if *I* am the one birthing the children, then my name should carry on through them. If current boyfriend becomes husband/father of my children, he is on board with hyphenating the kids' last name, with mine coming first (alphabetical order and it just sounds better.) However, he has a last name that is a pretty widely accepted first name that is also unisex and would make a phenomenal middle name, so we'll see. He'd actually be on board with just using my last name, but I think worries what his parents would think.

But also, I'd like to thank the LGBTQ+ community/his sister and her wife for getting married and hyphenating/naming their kids however they wanted to for kind of opening his mind on the subject a bit. Funny how that worked out. 

 

I will not be changing my name, that's not even up for debate. 

[VelociRapture]

3 hours ago, mollysmom said:

Good advice/information. Thank you!

If anyone has anything else to add I'm open to it! 

 

I think picking your own name sounds like a lovely idea.

If you don’t want to look to your family tree for ideas then maybe you can consider names from interests you have. For instance, if you really love the Harry Potter books you could consider one of the last names used in the books. 

2 hours ago, apandaaries said:

For those saddened by not hyphenating names, do be aware that a lot of adults with hyphenated names don’t quite appreciate them. My SIL was excited to change her five syllable, hyphenated last name to our relatively uncomplicated one when she married into the family. She warned me that she’d hated having both names, as I was pregnant when she and my brother wed. I wound up giving my kid two middle names, one of which was my last name. Her first name sounded better with my ex’s last name as well. Naming kids is just a complicated process at times.

It really is. We had no issue naming our daughter, but our son? I’m 26 weeks pregnant and we still can’t choose a first name. Middle name and last name were no problem, but husband is having the toughest time picking from the list of names I came up with (we’ve been through three or four lists by now.) At this rate, I’ll be pleasantly surprised if our son has a full name by the time he’s actually born.  ?

[Cheetah]

6 hours ago, Bad Wolf said:

Back to Lutherans: a Lutheran church near me has a gay pastor/priest/minister. Sorry, not sure what he's called. 

I'm Lutheran and we used to have a gay pastor.  Super glad we hired him... turns out I have a gay kid and a trans kid and there's another LGBT high school kid at our church as well and we managed to find an adult role model for them.  

On the title thing - I have a phd (also in physics, although not astrophysics) but don't work.  I use the "Dr" when I'm forced to choose between "Mr", "Mrs" and "Dr" on a form, otherwise I don't.  I used to feel like, well, I did the work, I might as well use it occasionally.  Now I kind of feel like it's the old me or something when I see "Dr and Dr lastname" on the list of who donated to the school auction or whatever.  (I did change to hubby's last name... my maiden last name was really common and his wasn't and that was probably the main thing that tipped the decision). 

[Snarkasarus Rex]

8 minutes ago, VelociRapture said:

It really is. We had no issue naming our daughter, but our son? I’m 26 weeks pregnant and we still can’t choose a first name. Middle name and last name were no problem, but husband is having the toughest time picking from the list of names I came up with (we’ve been through three or four lists by now.) At this rate, I’ll be pleasantly surprised if our son has a full name by the time he’s actually born.  ?

Same issue with both our girls.  Middle name and last name?  Easy.  First name?  Problem!  I would give Mr. Rex multiple names and he would shoot them all down. 

For Sporty, I picked a random name from the baby name book that I liked that also happened to also be a soap opera character, and I started calling her that.  The thought was, he'd get sick of me calling her that name and offer up another name instead of shooting down the ones I thought of.  Well, that backfired...lol.  We ended up naming her the name I randomly picked out of the baby book. 

For Baby, I randomly texted him one day with a name that came from my favorite soap opera after months of disagreements.  I said, "If you let me call her (soap character's nickname), then I am OK with naming her (soap character's first name)."  He replied. "Send out the announcements." ?

So my kids are named after soap opera characters.  Mr. Rex is not aware of this. ?

[PennySycamore]

My youngest daughter's boyfriend has the same last name.  She'd never wanted to change her name and now she won't have to if they get legally married.  They consider their relationship a common-law marriage, but our state did away with common-law marriage several years ago.  

[Vivi_music]

I do have a pretty lengthy and strong opinion of family names because I grew up with hyphenated names and received so many comments over the years. Of course, everyone asked me if it was a bother to use in everyday life. I also hear a lot of people say hey would hate it themselves if their name was a long as mine. I even heard people say that my mother must have been a feminist (which she was, and which to me was not an insult, but seemed to be in their eyes). Overall, I think famiy names should be an invidial's choice and not necessarily dictated by traditions. If someone wants to change their name once married (or not), or hyphenate their children's name (or not), it should always be a personnal choice.

I know for me, my attachment to one side of my family is a really important part of who I am. While it is true that it's longer to spell, I have not really seen it as a ''problem'' while growing up. Seriously a few more letters are not what is stopping me from enjoying life. Haha! Besides, I have not known anything else. For me, I am very proud to have my Mom's family name in there. I identify with her family the most and the fact she was so strong raising us alone makes me more connected with her name.

My siblings (who are step-siblings because we don't have the same father... but screw the concept of ''step'' anyway) also have hyphenated names. My sister dropped her dad's name. She refuses to even be called by her paternal family name because the man literally abandoned her. She had not passed it down to her son. I do not blame her. And to the contrary, both my brothers kept their father's name and have passed it down to their kids. For them it was a way to show that the ''Smiths''(generic example) were not all bad fathers and were gonna be present in their children's lives. That is valid too and I'm happy that they are able to connect with their last name in that way. Everyone has a different relationship to their last name and the meaning we associate with it can be deeply personal or not. It should totally be up to each person to decide.

Another example I know is a good friend of mine who was thinking briefly of maybe changing her last name as an adult. She bears the name of her adoptive father, who was abusive psychologically and physically. She wanted to change it for her maternal grandmother's maiden name, because of the strong bound they share. Her grandmother was and still is very present in her life. I know she often took the kids in when her parents were fighting and tried several times to signal the situation to CPS. In the end, the trappings for changing her name legally was more extensive than she thought so she kept it. She is now pregnant. Considering how she hates this man and his name, she has no intention of passing it down. In this case, she is a woman so I guess her choice respects the more common naming traditions in the western world, but I would support my friend if the situation was reversed. If it was a guy who had been abused by his father and decided to not pass it down to his kids, I'd see it has a reasonable reason. Some people decide to pass down names so they don't die out. Sometimes a name is chosen over another because the other family name just sounds awful. It is not a problem in my book, as long as the person is also allowed to choose (either in a mariage situation, in naming their kids or changing their last names as an grown adult).

[lumpentheologie]

12 hours ago, mollysmom said:

This thread drift reminds me of something I've been thinking about. When my divorce is finalized I don't really want to keep my married name. No hard feelings, honestly, but I just feel like if/when I meet someone else he might not appreciate the fact that I still have my married name. I absolutely will not go back to my maiden name. As I've shared on here, my family was and still is ultra fundie and we don't speak because I left the cult. Also my mother was so abusive in every possible way, that last name just has horrible memories so that is a definite no. I've thought about coming up with my own new last name. I googled it and it doesn't sound like it's something I can include in the divorce (with that lawyer) but it does sound like something I could pursue separately. It sounds costly & like a pain in the neck so I'm not sure what I'm going to do but yeah...

I think choosing a new name is a great idea if that's what you want for yourself: a new name, a new start in life. 

I wouldn't worry too much about what a potential future partner would think about you keeping your married name, though. In my experience, divorced women keeping their married name is very common, I would say even more common than changing back to the maiden name. I don't think anyone would see it as you still being attached to or not over your ex. 

[SorenaJ]

Why do people think it is a problem with a long name/surname? You literally never have to write it out. I have only ever had to write out my name (not even full, just first and last) for exams and registering with a GP, and once in full when I had to fill in my details for my PhD. And everything is on the computer. The computer memorises your name so you never have to write it out, just as it saves your email/password/address etc. Everything is online. You will never have to write out your name in full. It is really a non-issue, says the person who is planning on giving her future kids 5 names and a long hyphenated surname, and I am not the slightest worried about the time it'll take for me/them to write their name. All forms and stuff will be digital. And so what if it takes an extra 5 seconds? People spend hours on random time-waste stuff every day. 

Just timed the name I would give a hypothetical future child. Took 18 seconds. I can spare 18 seconds once in a while. My own name (4 names in total) took 11 seconds, but I cannot remember more than one time I had to write it out on paper. 

Edited August 17, 2019 by SorenaJ

[StraightOuttaArkansas]

@mollysmom I really think you should do whatever makes you happiest! Since everyone is sharing, I will give you my story too in case it helps.

When I was born my mom was still legally married to her first husband (but they were separated, living in different states for 3 (?) years at that point) and she still had his last name. My male parent did not want anything to do with me or even believed that I was his and so refused to sign my birth certificate and I got her last name. I loved that name, it was long and Italian and complicated to spell. Fast forward, my mom spent several years and two more kids (both boys who immediately were claimed as his own) hounding him to finally sign my birth certificate and change my name to match my brothers. He finally did when I was like 9 or 10. I was so upset and did not want it. He was a terrible, abusive, violent, manipulative, man. He did everything in his power to control everyone around him. It was not a good situation nor a good relationship. I was happy to shed that name when I married my ex. I happily took his very German name and thought nothing more of it. At that point, I had spent so much time identifying with my first name that it really didn't matter to me. Also it seemed important to him. We divorced a couple of years later and as I was in Germany, I figured it would be to my advantage to keep the German name and I really did not want to go back to my maiden name because I did not want anything to do with that man and how he treated me (I finally cut him out of my life a couple of years ago and it was the very best decision ever). Again, I still did not care so much about what name had, just which one I did not. It was in this period of being single, navigating a life on my own, parenting my child (who has an entirely different last name, that has bugged me for years, but again, better than my maiden name), that I really became attached to my then last name. I adored my ex's parents and they were and continue to be all these years later there for me. I have that name on several things (like my Uni things) and it came to be really mine, completely separate from my ex. When I married again couple of years ago, Mr Outta was not at all opposed to my keeping the name I had if I wanted, but as his name is a bit unique he wanted to keep his. I really wanted a family name so I decided I would be changing mine (also his roughly translates to "Awesome" in English which is family joke now). I did struggle though. I miss being "A_____" "W_______". I like my new name and I like sharing a family name and can't wait until Little Outta 1 shares it too, but I do still miss my identity and have a different understanding of names now because of this experience.

All that to say, if for some reason you get stuck with your married last name after your divorce, don't get too sad. You may find that you can own it completely too. I wish you all the best in this new phase of life and really hope you are able to do all that makes you happy ❤️

Edited August 17, 2019 by StraightOuttaArkansas
forgot a word

[Iamtheway]

10 hours ago, VelociRapture said:

At this rate, I’ll be pleasantly surprised if our son has a full name by the time he’s actually born.  ?

Miniway was named ten days after his birth. Boynames are hard! 

Mr Way still says he wishes we would have chosen another name but the names he says are ones that I would never have agreed to so they were never really in the running. 

Miniway has three names, one from each family and his own.

I find it a bit weird to name your kid before it’s born. Mostly because I didn’t want to jinx it. We tried for so long and had a loss just before that pregnancy. I was sure something was going to go wrong the whole time. We had a carseat, a pram, a bassinet and some clothes but I organized all of that as late as I could. 

We had a list of names but we didn’t share them with anyone because people always feel free to comment when the baby hasn’t arrived. It’s harder to complain about the name when the baby is there and already named. Unless you’re my mother ofcourse. Then it’s still easy ... 

Edited August 17, 2019 by Iamtheway
Missed a word.

[VelociRapture]

1 hour ago, Iamtheway said:

Miniway was named ten days after his birth. Boynames are hard! 

Mr Way still says he wishes we would have chosen another name but the names he says are ones that I would never have agreed to so they were never really in the running. 

Miniway has three names, one from each family and his own.

I find it a bit weird to name your kid before it’s born. Mostly because I didn’t want to jinx it. We tried for so long and had a loss just before that pregnancy. I was sure something was going to go wrong the whole time. We had a carseat, a pram, a bassinet and some clothes but I organized all of that as late as I could. 

We had a list of names but we didn’t share them with anyone because people always feel free to comment when the baby hasn’t arrived. It’s harder to complain about the name when the baby is there and already named. Unless you’re my mother ofcourse. Then it’s still easy ... 

We actually had our daughter’s name picked out for about two or three years before she was born. We used family names on my side that meant a lot to me and that we both loved, so that made it much easier. If this next baby were a girl we’d already have her name too - first name from my husband’s side and middle from mine, both names we loved. You’re right though - boy names are just really tough for us. We tried the family inspiration route again and it worked for the middle name (from husband’s side), but we can’t find a first name we like from either side (my sister already used the one mane from my side we both adore and we don’t want to reuse it.) I wanted to name him in honor of my grandpa, but we couldn’t come up with a name we really loved that honored him - so I’ve dropped that idea and now we’re just bouncing around two names we both like to see which one sounds better to us. Fingers crossed we figure it out otherwise this kid may just end up being called Kid Two or something. ?

We definitely don’t share our name ideas ahead of time either and for the same reason you mentioned. We have enough to think about and be concerned about without dealing with unsolicited name opinions. 

We haven’t gotten anything ready for this baby yet. We’ve been too busy selling our place and house hunting, plus we don’t want to move a bunch extra stuff when we move out of our current place next month. We hear back today about whether the offer we made on the house we love was accepted. We don’t think we’ll get it because there were other offers, but we have another option we love that we’ll be putting an offer on if this one doesn’t work out. So hopefully we’ll be getting things ready by early October. 

[SilverBeach]

15 hours ago, Smee said:

That’s basically how the surname “Newman” came about

The surname "Freeman" was adopted by many black slaves after emancipation because of the significance of the event.

[Iamtheway]

1 hour ago, VelociRapture said:

I wanted to name him in honor of my grandpa, but we couldn’t come up with a name we really loved that honored him - so I’ve dropped that idea and now we’re just bouncing around two names we both like to see which one sounds better to us.

Miniway has my grandad’s name as one of his middle names. It’s also my dad’s middle name. And then he has Mr Way’s dad’s name as his other middle name. 

My grandmother actually had a brother that shares Miniway’s first name, but he is not named after him at all since I never met him.

Both my grandfathers were amazing and my sister named her oldest after the other one. So if you need an awesome grandad name I offer you Erik. Good solid name. Genuine great guy.