I finally caved and bought the rights to Prepfordwife.com (it’s how you got here today unless you followed the link in the bio). My social media presence has been Prepford Wife every since my husband thought up the puny little name six years ago for my tumblr account. We were engaged at the time and eventually would marry and so why not incorporate that name into my account early.
With a simple click and a complicated password and, eventually the purchased of my domain name (two days ago! Woohoo!), I was easily Prepford Wife. In my real life? Not so simple. I have been married over three years as of last fall and still wrestle with the concept of changing my last name.
I love my husband and I love his name but I just can’t seem to shake the feeling that it’s a problem to change it. While I am of the “feminist, hear me roar persuasions” it has less to do with the idea of ownership, since my current last name belongs to my father and my new last would belong to my husband (honestly down with the patriarchy. I belong to no one). But also to do with emotional labor as it pertains to women, why should I have to do all the work on the name front? Why are women responsible for sitting in the social security office and changing their names. I didn’t marry myself, I feel like my husband should have to do some of the work as well.
But it also has to do with the importance of names and naming in my life. I am someone who remembers everyone’s name, first and last, if you tell it to me. I remember instagram handles and their spelling. I will remember your name if we have only met once ten years ago. I have names picked out for children I may never have based on meanings because I think what you name someone is important and determines a lot of their path in this world. My name is Victoria and my husband’s name is Marcus and together our names mean “Victorious” “Warrior”. Yikes. That’s a recipe for intense arguments if I’ve ever seen one.
But I digress, when you first meet someone, even if they are insignificant in your life and you may only see them once, all you have of them is their name. We place a lot of emphasis on them from how people of color with unique names are judged in interviews to how trendy moms keep changing the spelling of “Aiden”, all you know about this person is their name. It’s their entire being. That’s a concept that’s so important to me and I carry it with me. And I feel the same about myself.
All I am is this person that I was for the first twenty four years of my life and because I married a man who is apart of my life, but not a part of me, I should change this very defining characteristic about me. I just have a very hard time wrapping my mind around the concept. And I love him and I want us to share a name and be a family. One unit. But he is not the one who will have to change his very being to make it happen. He is not the one who has considered changing his very being to make it happen (because tradition? idk). Are we not partners in this thing called life?
I am not sure that I ever reached a conclusion about what to do but for now, the PrepFord Wife is still just the PrepMaiden Wife. In real life I’ll continue to use my maiden name and on the internets and in monograms, Happy Wife Life. Until checks start rolling in with Ford then I might consider. LOL.
Tell me, what did you do? What do you plan to do? Do you even take stock in names meaning things?
XOXO PrepFord Wife Sorta