What’s in a Name?

   I feel deeply connected to Judaism. When I decided to marry my Christian husband, there was no disagreement about raising our children as Jews. My husband does not observe his  religion. Our first bone of contention came upon naming our youngest child.  I had named all of my older children, and he felt entitled to have his son named for him.  Since he intensely dislikes his first name, he suggested his middle name.  He cannot comprehend why I feel embarrassed that my Jewish son is named Christopher.

I know, Jesus Christ was a Jew. But the name Christopher implies a connection to the Christian faith which rankles my nerves. Consequently, I often call my son by his Hebrew name, Shmuel.  Names are often a big deal in families.  Huge feuds have been known to occur with hard feelings and grudges harbored for decades over the choice of a baby’s name.  I have no desire for altercation or confrontation.  I like to keep the peace. And when my youngest was born, all I wanted was to make my husband happy.  “After all,” I told myself, “I get to raise them as Jews with no disagreement, so what’s in a name?”

   Now, I find there is a lot in a name.  In marriage, I took my husband’s last name. I kept my maiden name as my middle, and use it for my professional name in writing. More and more, I wish to go back to my more Jewish sounding maiden name. It indicates a large part of who I am. It is part of the face I show to the world, and I am proud of being a Jew.  Wearing my husband’s last name feels shameful. I feel like I am hiding who and what I am.  I feel disconnected. Even in my first marriage, which was to a Jewish man, I was uncomfortable wearing his name.  I wanted my own name.

   Perhaps it is part of my independent personality that keeps me from “clinging unto my husband” and gaining my identity largely from being a wife.  Honestly, the role of mother has always been more strongly tied to who I am. I choose to be married to someone. I simply am my children’s mother.

   Recently, I had an enlightening conversation with my oldest son and his girlfriend. They are a couple of very bright, sensitive, forward thinking young adults.  We talked about the possibility of children in their future. For an unremembered reason, we spoke of names for children.  They told me that her children would bear her last name because otherwise the name would die out.  There were no male children to carry the name in her family.  Suddenly, I had an epiphany.  The Judeo-Christian world recognizes a child’s religion to be the same as its mothers, since the baby grew inside her, and there is no question ever of his/her maternity.  For this reason and others I will explain, I told them that in that moment I had decided that children, and if to a larger extent the family should indeed, take the mother’s name. 

   My older three children carry a different last name than their two younger siblings or myself.  If there is ever a situation where a woman has children by another man, all of the children, and the mother, would still retain the same last name if they carry the mother’s surname. There is continuity.  Generally, the mother is the one involved in school and activities with the children, and here again, maintaining the same last name is valuable. 

   For me, I long for the connection to my family, and my heritage.  I wish I had the chutzpah to stand up for myself years ago, and insist that Christopher carry a different name.  I also wish I had the wisdom my son and his girlfriend do, and had given all of my children my maiden name as well as kept it for myself.