My Name

I strongly believe that the names we carry around with us have a lot to do with the personalities we develop.  And if that is true, it follows that parents have a great responsibility to choose names for their children that will allow them to grow and become good human beings.  We could all site poorly chosen names of others, ordinary or famous.  For example, Ima Hogg, known as "The First Lady of Texas," was an American philanthropist, patron and collector of the arts, and one of the most respected women in Texas during the 20th century, despite her ill-chosen name.  One can only wonder what her legacy would have been had she not been born into money.

A couple of years ago, there was a great to-do in a nearby town when a supermarket refused to decorate a birthday cake with a child's name.  I don't recall the child's last name, but his first and middle names were Adolph and Hitler.   Seems he had three siblings with similar Nazi names.  Ultimately, the children were taken from the parents for (one assumes) unrelated reasons.  The story involves devil-worship and spousal abuse and all kinds of creepy stuff to which children should not be exposed.  You can google "Child named Adolph Hitler" and learn as much as you want about this story.  The last I read, the Nazi father is still trying to regain custody of his children.

But think about that child and his siblings.  Might be tough getting a job with names like theirs.  And that might be the least of their problems.

Anyway, where am I going with this?  Oh, yeah, my name.

I was named after my mother, which is rather strange, as I have an older sister.  My mother's first name, in my opinion, is not a pretty one.  And despite it being on my birth certificate, I have never been addressed by that name.  The name I have always used is actually my middle name, and more people know me by my nickname, Terry, than any other name.

Nonetheless, post 9/11, the Social Security Administration decided that one's name had to match the name on one's birth certificate, so they rechristened me with a name I've never used and one I dislike intensely.  (Sorry, Mom.)  Further, it doesn't match the name on my passport, my driver's license, my diplomas, my bank accounts, my titles and deeds, or anything else, for that matter.  Whenever I receive mail addressed to that name, I think it is mail for my deceased mother.  And then I realize it's for me.  Creepy.

For years, I've been considering legally changing my name.  And today, push came to shove.  I had to make a phone call to the pension system regarding their dental plan offerings.  A new plan is less than half the cost in premiums as the one I currently have, so I wanted in.  As a result of the phone call, I found out there are two of me, one of whom qualifies for the new plan and one who doesn't.  I felt so schizophrenic, unsure which one was the real me.

So I spent the rest of the afternoon filling out the several forms necessary to file a complaint with the court for a name change.  I made the required copies, I wrote out the check, I included the SASE, and on Monday, I will send the complaint certified mail, return receipt requested.  Then I will wait for a court date, notify the local newspaper that I am "changing" my name, send the required documents (along with various checks) to the appropriate agencies, and after all of that, merge the two MEs into one entity named Therese.

The name I love.