Names can stick, so choose wisely

Just when I think I’ve heard the last of my former last name, someone at a July 4th party asked one of my least favorite questions: “Didn’t you used to be Doni Greenberg?”

Arrggh. Yes. At this point I’ve been without that name three years longer than I had it, but still, it lingers.

As much as I dislike answering this question, it has turned into a teaching opportunity for me to get on my soapbox and declare my opinion: Women who are inclined to take their husband’s name in marriage should use their newly adopted married name for their social life, but keep their birth name for their legal and professional lives.

For one thing, it’s a major hassle for women to change their names on all their legal documents and paperwork. It’s an even bigger hassle to change everything back following a divorce, or multiple divorces. In my case, I took my husband’s name for my first marriage, then reclaimed my birth name after the divorce, hyphenated with my married name. I vowed to never remarry, but added the caveat that if I did, I would never take a man’s name again. I blew it on both counts: I remarried and accepted my new husband’s name: Greenberg. Two big mistakes. Big, big mistakes!

So here I am, 16 years post divorce, and I’m still asked if my last name is Greenberg, which was my byline at my newspaper job for 10 years, and for another three years in A News Cafe’s infancy. It wouldn’t have been an issue except I had a job that was extremely public.

All that aside, why should women be expected to change their names after marriage? Here in the United States it’s a cultural practice for women to automatically lose their birth name upon marriage and accept their husband’s name. However, worldwide, places like the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, France, Spain, Islamic and African Cultures, Latin America, Malaysia, Korea and China place a high value on women retaining their family names.

Truly, I think it’s time to drop the practice altogether.

Grandparents: Choose your own name, or live to regret it

My second name-related soap box has to do with grandparents’ names. I love my grandmother name: Noni (rhymes with Doni). I planned it years before my children had children, thanks to a dear friend’s serious advice: Choose your grandparent name early, before someone chooses it for you.

She said the days of all grandparents being called Grandpa and Grandma were over, that there were myriad grandparent names, and some are a better fit than others. She said it’s best to not leave it up to chance, or worse yet, to newly verbal toddlers. That’s what happened to friend Dan, whose first grandchild couldn’t say Grandpa, but he could say CaCa, so that’s what stuck for not just that child, but all the subsequent grandchildren to infinity and beyond in Dan’s family. Dan, quiet, reserved and proper, is the least ca-ca like person I know, but it doesn’t matter. That’s the name he’s got. And I cannot help but laugh each time I hear reference to a man known by his grandchildren as “damn pa” a name that stuck after the first grandchild had difficultly pronouncing “grandpa”. 

But back to my friend who issued this early warning to me, right around the time my son and daughter-in-law were expecting their first child. My friend explained that she’d grown up with two grandmothers, and, early on, to keep them straight, the grandchildren took a practical stance and called the hefty grandmother Big Grandma and the diminutive grandmother Little Grandma.

My friend quickly sized things up when she met her son’s fiancée’s family for the first time, including her son’s future mother-in-law, a tiny creature.

“There was no way, when they started having kids, that I was going to be called Big Grandma,” my friend explained.

Behold, “Nana” was born, a name that suited my friend well, but best of all, she likes it.

I remember my own father, who was barely comfortable with the title of Dad, let alone Grandpa, so a few years into his grandfather stint he requested my little kids switch from his previous title of Grandpa, to Oompa. It was too late by then. The kids knew him as Grandpa, and that was that. Grandpa stuck.

Friends Pat, Judy and Cindy are respectively, Mimi, Nonni and Gran.

My two eldest grandchildren have a slew of grandparents, thanks to blended and extended families. They’re blessed with one Grammy, a great-grandma, one Nana, one Gigi and yours truly, Noni. They have a Papa, and they had a Grand dad and a Grandpa. Poor kids. I don’t know how they keep us all straight.

I lucked out with Noni, which I made up. It’s a derivative of Nonni, because I’m a wanna-be Italian. But my Noni name is not pronounced the Italian way, with a long “o”, but rather, my version of Noni rhymes with my name, Doni. My grandkids were excited to see the pizza place downtown called Noni’s, but I had to break it to them that the pronunciation isn’t the same as their Noni’s name.

No offense to all the Grannys out there, but I knew for sure I didn’t want to be one, because it conjured up images of Ma Clampet; some old gal with a gray bun, a shotgun, and, of course, granny glasses.

Pardon me for interrupting your reading, but no matter what name you go by, I hope you will consider becoming a sustaining subscriber to A News Cafe. Thank you! 

But Granny is exactly the name one of my children threatened to have her offspring call me as a punishment if she gave birth to identical twins, as if that would be my fault, just because I happen to be an identical twin.

Also, it’s true that my father’s family is riddled with identical twins.

This Chamberlain family portrait from the early 1900s shows multiple sets of twins, including Doni’s grandfather, one of the twin boys wearing a dark tie and a light-colored shirt..

So far, no twin grandbabies, so I’m still Noni, the only name my grandchildren know to call me, to the point where they look confused and wrinkle their noses if someone mistakenly refers to me as their grandmother. She’s not our grandmother! She’s our Noni!

Be still my heart.

Yes, there was a time when all American grandmothers were simply called grandma or grandmother, and grandfathers were simply called grandpa or grandfather. And in previous generations, the most extravagant titles that departed from the standard Grandma and Grandpa were strictly for clarification: Grandma and Grandpa Smith, or Grandma and Grandpa Jones, for example.

Blame his naming game on us Baby Boomers, dis-satisfied with the grandparently status quo, because we shun old age, including old-timey titles. Even so, it’s mainly we grandmothers who’ve embraced this second chance for a shot at a new name, helped along by more options, such as Mimi, Gigi, Nana and Nonni. Granted, there are also names that few grandmothers would want, such as Mee Maw, but to each her own.

Pity the guys, because there aren’t many options after Grandpa or Grandfather, other than Papa, or PawPaw.

Times have changed, and so have grandparents’ names. If you or someone you love has grandparenthood on the horizon, you get one shot to pick a name and stick with it. Choose early and choose wisely. Or end up being called MeeMaw and CaCa. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

What are your thoughts about women losing their birth names in marriage? And how about grandparents’ names? What are some of your favorites?

Editor’s note: Portions of this column were adapted from an earlier post.