A Rose by any name

Lately, I've been giving a lot of thought to names.  Specifically, surnames.  Specifically because I'm getting married later in the year.

So, surnames.  Preliminary research says they are based on:

• patronymics - you are the son of John, or daughter of John, or you take the last name your father had. 
• profession - you are a Smith, or a Cooper, or Farmer, or a King
• place - Fairfield, a pretty pasture, or Harrington, the town you came from.
• personality - a trait that describes the person, Quick, Strong, Tall, Blackbeard

Surnames were created to distinguish one Mary from another Mary, one John from another John. Then they were used to demonstrate family connections.  Then make new family connections.  In English traditions, sons kept the family name. Daughters were given away by fathers, and took the name of the husband's family.  A father passed on the care and responsibility of his daughter for another man to assume.

So, names... Juliet told Romeo that a rose by any name would smell as sweet, and he should stop being a Montague so she could love him without family politics. I suspect Shakespeare was a feminist, to tell a man to give up his name.  

I didn't struggle the first time I left a name behind... I ditched my middle name. It was seldom used except in highly formal occasions.  I wanted to keep my family name, and take my husband's family name.  So I did by moving my maiden name to my middle name, and adding a new last name. And I was married. And I had children.  And time passed and crap happened. And I was divorced.  And I kept the name I married into to maintain the connection of a family name to my children, as though the connection of body and blood and birth and love were not a strong enough bond in themselves.

And now what?  Now I am looking at the reality of a name that no longer fits me. I am no longer married to the man whose name I have. I love another man, whose name I respect, but does not feel like my name.  I am come to a time and place where I want my name to be my own, to reflect my own agency and the authority of my self.  I belong to me, not to my father, not to a husband, not to my children.  And yet, I will belong to them through the ties of body and blood.   But I want my name to be mine. To be me. The song of myself, as Walt Whitman put it. 

So what is in my name?  Not a patronymic. While I love my father, I am equally my mother's daughter. And where is her name in me?   My family shaped the person I am, in ways both obvious and silent. I carry them with me everywhere, and that is enough. Perhaps a profession?  Doubtful. Which profession or task names me best? I've been too many things, have too many interests, and don't believe that my work should be the definition of whole self.   Place?  I use it as my twitter handle, @minn_finn. My places of origin, both present and ancestral.  It suffices.  Which leaves personality.

In an attempt to get a handle on my own personality, I asked friends who've known me for longer than 6 months to share a word that describes me to them.  The results were uplifting.  It's not why I asked, but the responses told me that the values I hold and hope to make evident through action are indeed visible. Loving. Gracious. Awesome. Kind. There. Caring. Beautiful. Aunt. Genuine, just to list a few.  It was a long list, but in the end - inconclusive. There was no defining theme of personality to draw a name from. 

So the question remains - what's in a name when a rose by any name would smell as sweet?   What I can say is this; I want to acknowledge my heritage, to have my name remind me of what I value, or who I am.  It may be a name like "Kindness," even if that sounds like a Hippy name.  Or it may be a name like Hauskanainen,  meaning "Funny Woman" in Finnish.  Or perhaps Sulo which means grace, or Nokella, meaning wise, smart, or sharp.  Or maybe just Nainen, woman.

I will keep considering, because I feel as though I have taken a sufficient number of names already in my life, and the next one I assume, I have no intention of giving away again.