In traditional Spanish culture my name is Maria Elizabeth Thaden Hahn de Bishop. That's the representation of my two given names, followed by the paternal surnames of my mother, my father, and my husband. Using this system, the maternal surnames of Bright and Romeo are lost forever, even though those names are just as much a part of me as Thaden and Hahn.
I am not Spanish. I am Italian-German-British-Syrian-Belarusian-American. I was born Maria Elizabeth Hahn, and by tradition I was expected to become Maria Elizabeth Bishop when I got married. I couldn't bring myself to do the expected thing and live the rest of my life without Hahn. Representing a tiny piece of who I am, Hahn has been with me all my life and I couldn't imagine it being lost forever.
Dusty didn't want to change his name (because it's not the manly thing to do I guess), and both of us agreed that the hyphen was not for us. We asked ourselves why I had to change my name at all. We believed it was appropriate to have the same surname to set ourselves apart as an individual family unit. In the end, I replaced Hahn with Bishop, but also replaced Elizabeth with Hahn. I became Maria Hahn Bishop.
Surnames are a funny thing. It's natural to assume someone's background by their surname, even though it represents only a tiny part of an individual. I was born a Hahn, but I am not 100% German. Dusty was born a Bishop, but he is not 100% English. If I really wanted to go crazy and represent every ancestor who has in some way influenced my genes, I would have to determine how far back to start the representation. Fortunately for me, my pedigree is well-researched and backed by evidence.
Using my great-great-great grandparents to represent my background in 32 portions, my name is: Maria Elizabeth Hahn-Harless-Rhoads-Day-Lutz-Younger-Tingley-Johnson-Romeo-Cosentino-Rapisarda-Motta-Motta-Cristando-Chité-Longo-Thaden-Deckner-Meigs-Rowland-Hadadeen-Ladkin-Ladkani-Yazigi-Bright-Crawford-McDaniel-Wilson-Moore-Murphree-Garvin-Madden de Bishop.
Even though Hahn represents 1/32 of my background if my background could be divided into 32 parts, it represents even less of me as the pedigree chart retreats into the past. My last name indicates nothing about my heritage, except that the Hahn family line always had a son to carry the name since the name became a name hundreds of years ago somewhere in Germany.
As you can tell, I have done the same thing by signing my name as Angela Thaden Hahn, and for the same reason. By blood I'm a Thaden. I can't just drop it. Although I do appreciate my middle name, too, because it is my mother's as well.
ReplyDeleteThen there is the surnames Bright and Romeo. In our families they fizzled out because there were no sons to carry them forward. But you are just as much Bright and Romeo as you are Thaden. You're right, it's a curious thing, surnames.
ReplyDeleteIt was difficult for me to replace Elizabeth with Hahn. My ultimate decision had to do with census and other applications, and having to choose one middle name for ease of record-keeping, and I had to choose Hahn. Although, I still regard myself as Maria Elizabeth Hahn Bishop in spirit :)
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