I'm collecting consonants

If I add M's last name to my collection, I'll have yet another. And since I've gotten into the habit of initialing official paperwork with all of my initials, the string of unutterable sounds will continue unmarred by a vowel's presence. Nothing against vowels, really, they're just outnumbered in all but my first name.

Every so many months, I revisit the thought of name changes and willfully reformatting my legal identity. I've tied a lot of importance to my names, for better or worse, and I feel somewhat attached to them. Even the middle name I never use, and don't particularly like, is useful. Anything that comes to me with it spelled out in full is suspect, and if it's not a formal document I probably didn't request it. Growing up, it was my unique identifier in our family. My dad, brother and sister had the same set of initials. I had the same first init-last name as everyone, but I got my own middle initial.

I am particuarly opposed to hyphenating my names. My last name is a suffix in English, so it's difficult for my ears (and eyes!) to see it run together with another name either pre- or post- appended.

My current favorite is MyFirst MyMiddle MyLast HisLast, but only for very formal things.

At work, and on most legal documents (that don't require that middle initial), I could be MyFirst MyLast HisLast. It'd be fairly easy to figure out who I was, and no great leap of logic to link my degree and prior employment to my new name.

Socially, I could be MyFirst HisLast. If we someday have kids, the whole family could have one surname (so simple!).

And I'd still have my litmus test of a middle initial/name for weeding out junkmail and separating out very important things.

M's last name is not a familial name, but even that may actually remove a layer of confusion from the collection of family names we have. My parents have different last names, his parents have different last names, most of the step-parents (or parental SOs) have their own last names... Why wouldn't we, as a family, from a child's perspective, have our own last name too?

I tried reading up about name changes after marriage from a legal and cultural perspective. In California, there's ready information about how to take your husband's name, or how to have him take yours. It's easy to find what to do if you create a new last name for yourselves, or hyphenate and both take that concatenation. I was very surprised though at the number of commentators on social sites that are bitterly opposed to a woman doing anything but taking her husband's surname. At first it caught me off-guard, and then it made me a little angry.

Our families may be the statistical norm now -- divorced, remarried, confusing -- but they're not the culturally perceived norm, or norm of what people think "should" be. Either way, M and I are screwed for picking a traditionally accepted surname. M's not going to choose one of his family names over another, and him taking mine makes those traditionalists even more upset than me keeping mine (which can be almost excused for professional reasons).

So rather than try to make any sense of the traditional nomenclature rules, I think I'll keep collecting consonants. At least I'll be getting one I really like -- K. :)