What's in a name?

I've been thinking a lot lately about last names and the importance they hold for some people. Traditionally, you are born, assigned a surname, and that is what you live with for the next few decades. That is, of course, until you are wed and take the name of your significant other or randomly decide to change it because you find the name "Banana Hammock" too hilarious to pass up.

My story is a little different. I can still remember that day when my mama taught me and Bear how to spell our new last name while we waited in the terminal for our flight to Okinawa. I was a mere four years old. I had no idea what was going on. For all I knew, people changed their names every couple of years or so for... security reasons or something like that.

It wasn't until we moved back to the states that I realized that this last name thing was going to be a problem. You see, while I had grown accustomed to my new last name, it was never legally changed. On on the first day of the fourth grade they called out my old name I raised my hand and mumbled, "here," and then, when no one would notice, I would head up to the teachers desk to ask her to refer to me by my new name. And every August, I continued this ritual all the way through my senior year of high school.

I knew that my new name wasn't legal. I simply had no desire to walk around sporting the old one. The whole dead-beat-dad thing, but I won't delve into that until we know each other a little better. When I was in junior high, people started to notice that I would, each year, change the last name that I was to go by and they started asking questions. And while I knew the real reason I would play dumb and blame the continued "mistake" on the faculty and staff of the school. Such an elaborate (moronic) facade.

Post high school, I let the whole thing go. College professors didn't get to know their students well enough, or care enough to remember the girl with two last names; one real and one fake. My friends and family still called me by my new name. But any real conversation/application/etc brought me out of my fantasy surname world. Eventually I caved and accepted my fate, the fate of the last name that I had been hiding from for years. I asked friends, family, and, yes, even Bridge Man to use my old last name. People thought it was strange at first but everyone is now used to it.

So after all of that, you'd think that I would jump at the opportunity to change my last name. But now, as this wedding comes closer I've started to rethink the whole deal. Don't get me wrong, I still despise where the name originates. But it is still my name. Yes, I buried it under the new name for so many years. But I always knew it was there. Yes, I hated it because of how much it segregated Bear and me from the family. No one in our family has our last name. But now, instead of it being a source of segregation, it brings me and Bear (and now my nephew) closer than ever. I can't help but feel that the moment I become Mrs. Bridge Man I will have lost that connection.

This fear, I'll admit, is ridiculous. A last name doesn't define who a person is. But, if that is true, why are there people who fight to keep their original surname? Why are there people who judge those who don't change their last name after marriage? If this isn't a big deal... then what's the big deal?