Names

I've been thinking a lot lately about how I introduce myself and what usually happens when I do. I met someone recently who I'd sent emails to prior to our meeting. My sign-off in emails is Lil, since that's the shortened version of my name that I currently am mostly addressed by these days. The first thing this person said to me was "you're the rapper!" I understood that she didn't really think I was a rapper but that it was a fun comparison to Lil' Wayne or Lil' Kim or any of the other Lil' somebodies. And then we talked about how Facebook won't let me be called Lil, and I was introduced to a girl named Disney who had the same problem.

A lot of the time with "Lil" I have to repeat myself a couple of times, but if I introduce myself as "Lilly" they get it straight away. I guess that's the advantage of "Lilly" or "Lily" being one of the most common names around at the moment. Sometimes I miss being a "Lilly". I was one for most of high school, after all. It's got that extra cute feel to it that I get nostalgic about. I like to add a "y" to almost anyone's name in my head as a sort of affectionate tic. Every so often I start feeling a bit indecisive about my name.

New banner vs old banner. I guess I downsized my name!

And that's without even mentioning last names. One thing that confuses me about the marriage tradition of the wife taking the husband's name is that I think if I was someone's husband I'd be kinda sad to see them make such an incredible change to their identity. The maiden name is part of the person you fell in love with, right? So isn't it a little sad to see it go? And if I was the person changing their name in such a scenario I'm sure it would feel like a huge and strange change to suddenly be called something different after decades of being alive as a person with my original name. It's really weird to me to think of not being [my current name]. That's me. That's what I'm called.

Having said that, I have fantasised a thousand times about making up my own cool new last name, or being known by one tiny name like Cher (whose full name at birth was Cherilyn Sarkisian). I like being "Lil" because it's so small and simple, because it's a palindrome, and because I can say my name is "three lines and a dot".

I also like to pretend my last name has an immense mystical and historical meaning and that because of it my happiest place would be somewhere with a high count of ash trees.