What's in a name?
My name is Mary, or, it may be Mary Beth (Marybeth). No one, including my mother, is quite sure. I know that my family calls me Mary Beth and my friends call me Mary, Mar (like a goddamned horse), Steiny, Whitebread, Whitey Stein (ok, maybe that one just once, and by one person), or my personal favorite, Steinberg. (I truly do LOVE my last name. So please, oh anonymous reader slash Internet creep, indulge me this one narcissistic quirk.)
I didn’t like having two first names when I was growing up, so over the course of many years I successfully marginalized the Beth half of my name to no name’s land--the middle initial. The result of this action was fourfold:
1. Firstly, the United States Postal Service, to this day, does not know the difference between my mother and myself. I like to think that this is not indicative of anything further.
2. Secondly, I get to be normal like everyone else, and actually have a middle name.
3. Thirdly, for my part, essentially renaming myself over many many years (in quite frankly the most passive, lazy-to-the-point-of-illegal fashion,) made me feel very powerful and bad-ass like Prince, only, I’m not successful, I’m not black, and most importantly, I am over five feet tall.
4. Further to number one (see above), there are other less-than-positive consequences for changing one’s name via lying on paperwork for years. Filling out forms for my passport renewal caused some major drama--I felt like lying on my school lunch ticket or emergency contact form was one thing. But these are the Feds. If I don’t play my cards right in logging my middle name, I just KNEW that ten men with AK-47s would appear from the woodwork and cart me away to Gitmo.
So, I did what every young person who doesn’t know what their name is would do, I called the giver of the name.
I didn’t like having two first names when I was growing up, so over the course of many years I successfully marginalized the Beth half of my name to no name’s land--the middle initial. The result of this action was fourfold:
1. Firstly, the United States Postal Service, to this day, does not know the difference between my mother and myself. I like to think that this is not indicative of anything further.
2. Secondly, I get to be normal like everyone else, and actually have a middle name.
3. Thirdly, for my part, essentially renaming myself over many many years (in quite frankly the most passive, lazy-to-the-point-of-illegal fashion,) made me feel very powerful and bad-ass like Prince, only, I’m not successful, I’m not black, and most importantly, I am over five feet tall.
4. Further to number one (see above), there are other less-than-positive consequences for changing one’s name via lying on paperwork for years. Filling out forms for my passport renewal caused some major drama--I felt like lying on my school lunch ticket or emergency contact form was one thing. But these are the Feds. If I don’t play my cards right in logging my middle name, I just KNEW that ten men with AK-47s would appear from the woodwork and cart me away to Gitmo.
So, I did what every young person who doesn’t know what their name is would do, I called the giver of the name.
“Mom, is my name Mary or Mary Beth?”
“Hmm. I don’t know really.”
...
“Um, would Dad know?”
“Um, would Dad know?”
“Well, I wanted you to be Mary Beth. And I wanted it to be spelled without a space. And your FATHER (exasperated sigh that only divorces have mastered) wanted you to be Mary Elizabeth. But I guess Massachusetts messed it up.”
Blame it on the state. That’s always a good call.
“Mom, when have you ever seen Mary Beth spelled without a space??? People would just think we can’t spell!”
As my mother offered no satisfactory answer, I decided that I had essentially made my name Mary through twenty years of false paper work, and “Beth” would remain banned to the middle initial category. Which, after all, is a better place to be than Gitmo, at the v. least.
Blame it on the state. That’s always a good call.
“Mom, when have you ever seen Mary Beth spelled without a space??? People would just think we can’t spell!”
As my mother offered no satisfactory answer, I decided that I had essentially made my name Mary through twenty years of false paper work, and “Beth” would remain banned to the middle initial category. Which, after all, is a better place to be than Gitmo, at the v. least.
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