Handles & Hashtags: Taking Names and Giving Them Back

When Ed Housewright wrote his piece on reclaiming his last name from his ex-wife titled, Can I Please Have My Name Back?, I actually spoke out loud to the computer, saying, yes, yes, you can.  But then I stopped; who would I give my name back to?  And which name?

I’ve never really had my own name, least not for very long. At birth, the paperwork read Brandi Megan Squire, a perfectly respectable name for a girl born in a sea of 1974 Jennifers.  It wasn’t because of the song.  My mom says it just popped into her head when they announced it’s a girl; she expected a boy, someone to be named Chad.

This name suited me just fine, until my mom remarried. This was the 80s — yes, divorce happened; yes, people remarried, but not like today.  Once, after a girl banged my head into a paper towel dispenser, the principal told my mother that bullying happens to children from single parent families, even though at that point my mom had been remarried to my awesome step-dad for six years.  Our different last names served as a notice to the world.  A world that for some reason held onto bias like a drowning person clings to a life raft.  Luckily, later that year, with the help of some paperwork and a bit of cash, I officially joined my family in name, becoming Brandi Megan Tarnowski.

At 19, I found myself in a somewhat fool-hearted marriage.  At first, I resisted changing my name.  I held out for a year.  Then in an act of solidarity or maybe a whim of the heart, I drove down to the Division of Motor Vehicles and started the process.  My first publications and my Bachelor’s degree bore this newly minted name, Brandi Megan Scollins. Six months later, we divorced.

When I married the second time, I waited a full eleven years before changing my name.  When I floated the idea of changing it, my daughter cast the deciding vote.  Apparently our lack of a common last name bothered her.  So again, I filed the mountain of paperwork, figuring at eleven years strong, the worst was over, and this one was a keeper.  My driver’s license and the back of my USA Archery shirts now read Mantha.

But apparently I guessed wrong about the worst being over. Once again, I am left with a name that isn’t really mine to keep.

To read more, visit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brandi-megan-mantha/handles-hashtags-taking-n_b_1214783.html