Earlier this year, the last name “problem” came to the forefront of my mind once again. I was now in a committed, long-term relationship, and there was a good chance that this was the last name I would be adopting someday.
For anyone else out there with a name that is hard to pronounce, odd, or just spelled in a way where you know your parents were trying really hard to be different—No, Sara without an “h” or Ann without an “e”, you do not count—you’re probably all too familiar with what I like to call, the “Five Step Program to Not Smelling as Sweet by Any Other Name” a.k.a. “Why you really shouldn’t name your child Pilot.”
I’m dating two guys with practically, but not quite exactly, the same name.
When I say legal reasons, I already know what is being thought: “Oh, so she’s not changing her name because she thinks the marriage will end in divorce.” No. Although it’s statistically very possible, I wouldn’t be getting married in the first place if I had any doubt in my mind about the strength of my relationship with my fiancé.
A woman named Felony might have to put up with sleaze-ball pick-up lines about “arresting beauty” or “so good-lookin’ it should be against the law,” but a face-full of apple-tini and a Prada pump in the groin will shut them up quick.
If they leave you with only their memories sticking to your skin, don’t try to cut it out in hopes that you might bleed art.
In later years, Mother, I will learn that it was your husband, your foolhardy husband, who chose the spelling. The name started as Sachi, said as it’s spelled, which is the wife of the Hindu lord Indra. This developed into Saachi, meaning truth, as we discussed before. Then, sometime between your first trimester and the moment I ruined your lives, it turned into “Scaachi.”
Maybe it’s my new stint in sobriety, and/or the amount of time I have on my hands but today, but a pile of information fell upon my lap and I couldn’t help but laugh.
Yet I am that Robert, a name worthy of leading the Confederacy but dateless at prom; ready to be quarterback of the Washington Redskins or play your favorite Hufflepuffian vampire but never scribbled inside marble notebooks, adorned by hearts and kisses. It’s sobering.
