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A Word About Names
Mar. 6th, 2010 05:30 pmLast names have two basic functions which boil down to the same basic function: they make it harder to confuse you with someone else. Which John are you? You're John Overton - oh, yes, I've heard of you. And if you're John Smith, there's a follow up: John Smith of the Park Avenue Smiths? Yes, I've met your cousin. You're Ellen's son John, not Gertie's son John.
In other words, the specifics of your last name only matter if you're in a society of the right size - a social group that's big enough that people can't tell who you are by your first name alone, but small enough that they might know someone in your immediate family. Otherwise, they might as well be numbers: This is John 34. If you're trying to arrest John 21, he's somebody else. We use names because they're better than numbers, because it's easier to recognize variations; I'm going to remember that John Dingleberry is a real-estate agent faster than I'm going to remember that John 34 is a real-estate agent. I can guess some information about John Dingleberry; I can guess that he's white, from a family of English extraction. I could be wrong, though; maybe he's an Asian guy who uses that name so I won't mispronounce it, or maybe he's African American and there was once a slaveholder named Dingleberry. I won't really know unless I meet him, in which case he's John that I met the place where I met him. Also, I would make the same guess based on "John." I don't need the Dingleberry.
I say this as someone who is rarely mistaken for anyone else. Most people have never met another Romie. If they have, their Romie probably doesn't spell it the same way. I was named after my grandfather and great grandfather, and nobody has ever questioned whether it's a woman's name. Nor have they ever confused me with my grandfather, who died when I was three. People mistake me for my mother, but that has nothing to do with names. We look alike. I also look like my father, sister, cousins, and uncle. We smile the same way. We move the same way. We laugh at the same things. Some of them have the same last name as me and some of them don't, and it doesn't seem much connected to how similar to them I am.
I don't even really care when somebody pronounces my name wrong, first or last, as long as it's clear we both understand it to mean me. When it's material, I correct people so that they don't confuse anyone else. I correct them because I recognize that this kind of consistency is useful, that somebody should be able to run a google search on my name and come up with a list of my films. That's about it. It doesn't hurt my ego. I know who I am and they do too. I work in a few fields where my name is a brand, but I also differentiate that brand into different identities with different names (and different pay rates). As for people who knew me when I was a kid and want to find me . . . they can. There is not a single case where this has led to more than "hi, how are you." The people who have a good legal reason to need to track me down have my social security number and my driver's license - and if I want to be in contact with them, I probably already am.
It pisses me off when people think they have the right to tell me what to do with my surname. It pissed me off when I was married to Patrick and didn't change my name, and it pisses me off now that I'm married to Ciro and did change my name. It's my goddamn choice. It's my choice just like it's my choice to perm my hair or not and whether I wear pants or skirts and what time of day I sleep or eat dinner. It's a matter of what suits and amuses me. Does anybody doubt that I'm the same person I was a few months ago, or that I still support human rights? Is it equally confusing that I lost weight, or when some days I wear different shoes and am thus a slightly different height?
There are terrible things happening to women all around the world. We get killed a lot. We get stolen from a lot. Our ideas and are work are belittled because we do them and our time is not worth much. We are kept out of power. We are controlled by physical threats directed at us and at our children. Even when we are the majority, our voices are disregarded. Not only do we make less money, but we get less say in how that money's spent.
Feminists made a horrible mistake when we decided to embrace the idea that the personal is political. We liked the idea because it made us protagonists, and it meant we didn't need anybody else. All we had to do was have pure thoughts, talk loudly, and dress correctly - just like nuns. We didn't need communities. We didn't need real solutions. We didn't need to bring black women or gay women or poor women to the table, let alone men or children. We could be self-centered and feel noble about it. It was a triumph of posmodernism. A triumph of folk magic. We could change what was true just by using different words. Just by using different names for things.
Whether you are a friend of mine or a stranger, something to bear in mind: If I did something that took effort and which was not mandated, I probably did it because the result made me happy. End of story. My personal is not political. My personal is personal. And if you want to disrespect me and tell me that I was co-opted by the patriarchy when I made my own decision that I and my mom and my sister find delightful and that was resisted by my husband and my dad based on how they feel about their identities, I think you need to re-examine your feminism and why you feel a need to control me.
In other words, the specifics of your last name only matter if you're in a society of the right size - a social group that's big enough that people can't tell who you are by your first name alone, but small enough that they might know someone in your immediate family. Otherwise, they might as well be numbers: This is John 34. If you're trying to arrest John 21, he's somebody else. We use names because they're better than numbers, because it's easier to recognize variations; I'm going to remember that John Dingleberry is a real-estate agent faster than I'm going to remember that John 34 is a real-estate agent. I can guess some information about John Dingleberry; I can guess that he's white, from a family of English extraction. I could be wrong, though; maybe he's an Asian guy who uses that name so I won't mispronounce it, or maybe he's African American and there was once a slaveholder named Dingleberry. I won't really know unless I meet him, in which case he's John that I met the place where I met him. Also, I would make the same guess based on "John." I don't need the Dingleberry.
I say this as someone who is rarely mistaken for anyone else. Most people have never met another Romie. If they have, their Romie probably doesn't spell it the same way. I was named after my grandfather and great grandfather, and nobody has ever questioned whether it's a woman's name. Nor have they ever confused me with my grandfather, who died when I was three. People mistake me for my mother, but that has nothing to do with names. We look alike. I also look like my father, sister, cousins, and uncle. We smile the same way. We move the same way. We laugh at the same things. Some of them have the same last name as me and some of them don't, and it doesn't seem much connected to how similar to them I am.
I don't even really care when somebody pronounces my name wrong, first or last, as long as it's clear we both understand it to mean me. When it's material, I correct people so that they don't confuse anyone else. I correct them because I recognize that this kind of consistency is useful, that somebody should be able to run a google search on my name and come up with a list of my films. That's about it. It doesn't hurt my ego. I know who I am and they do too. I work in a few fields where my name is a brand, but I also differentiate that brand into different identities with different names (and different pay rates). As for people who knew me when I was a kid and want to find me . . . they can. There is not a single case where this has led to more than "hi, how are you." The people who have a good legal reason to need to track me down have my social security number and my driver's license - and if I want to be in contact with them, I probably already am.
It pisses me off when people think they have the right to tell me what to do with my surname. It pissed me off when I was married to Patrick and didn't change my name, and it pisses me off now that I'm married to Ciro and did change my name. It's my goddamn choice. It's my choice just like it's my choice to perm my hair or not and whether I wear pants or skirts and what time of day I sleep or eat dinner. It's a matter of what suits and amuses me. Does anybody doubt that I'm the same person I was a few months ago, or that I still support human rights? Is it equally confusing that I lost weight, or when some days I wear different shoes and am thus a slightly different height?
There are terrible things happening to women all around the world. We get killed a lot. We get stolen from a lot. Our ideas and are work are belittled because we do them and our time is not worth much. We are kept out of power. We are controlled by physical threats directed at us and at our children. Even when we are the majority, our voices are disregarded. Not only do we make less money, but we get less say in how that money's spent.
Feminists made a horrible mistake when we decided to embrace the idea that the personal is political. We liked the idea because it made us protagonists, and it meant we didn't need anybody else. All we had to do was have pure thoughts, talk loudly, and dress correctly - just like nuns. We didn't need communities. We didn't need real solutions. We didn't need to bring black women or gay women or poor women to the table, let alone men or children. We could be self-centered and feel noble about it. It was a triumph of posmodernism. A triumph of folk magic. We could change what was true just by using different words. Just by using different names for things.
Whether you are a friend of mine or a stranger, something to bear in mind: If I did something that took effort and which was not mandated, I probably did it because the result made me happy. End of story. My personal is not political. My personal is personal. And if you want to disrespect me and tell me that I was co-opted by the patriarchy when I made my own decision that I and my mom and my sister find delightful and that was resisted by my husband and my dad based on how they feel about their identities, I think you need to re-examine your feminism and why you feel a need to control me.
