What's your name and where do you come from?
Hi! My name is … my name is … my
name is … R – R – Richard Evans-Lacey!
I was christened (Not my choice – I was too young to decide
to live my life by the rules of a religion) Richard Eric Evans (without
the Lacey) shortly after my birth in June 1974 and I kept that name
until November 2002. This was the year that I decided to change
my life. I left my safe, well paid consulting job in order to study
Integral Philosophy and Neuro-Linguistic Psychotherapy. To mark
my decision to change myself I decided that I also wanted to change
the way I symbolise myself - my name.
I considered a number of options and particularly liked the sound
of ‘David England’ (my Grandad used to mistakenly call
me ‘David’; the ‘England’ came from the
idea that if I ever became famous then my name should look good
on a poster). But in the end I felt that abandoning the surname
of my father was disloyal and, therefore, wrong. Mum’s maiden
name was ‘Lacey’ and it struck me that ‘Richard
Lacey’ had a very nice actorish ring to it. So instead of
changing my name I added to it.
Changing my name was surprisingly (and almost scarily) simple:
I simply walked into my local solicitors’ with some ID and
£15 and they asked me what I would like to be called. It was
at that moment that I realised that I could call myself anything
I wanted. For a second I was tempted to add ‘Danger’
as a middle name but the gag had just been done by Austin Powers
so I thought better of it. I stuck to my plan and after getting
the certificate witnessed by the solicitor down the road I officially
became ‘Richard Eric Evans-Lacey Esq.’
The ripples from this change were relatively plain sailing. As
I had added to, rather than changed my name outright, it was easy
to keep using the same signature, bank accounts and even passport
(I simply inserted the certificate as proof). My friends thought
it typically eccentric but were not interested in making a big deal
of it. And new people who I meet occasionally assume that my ‘double
barrelled’ name means that I am more ‘posh’ than
I actually am. (When asked I favour Michael Cain’s response
in Get Carter: ‘Only relatively...’)
An important evolution
The idea that hyphenated surnames are posh comes from the 18th
and 19th centuries. When 2 ‘important’ families were
joined through marriage it was common for the couple to take both
family names rather than simply drop the wife’s in favour
of the husband’s. While this sounds egalitarian enough it
is worth remembering that the wife’s family name is most probably
her father’s family name and so, in my view, this hyphenating
is basically saying that this man and this woman both come from
important lines of men. Chances are that you don’t have a
double-barrelled surname. If you are male or an unmarried female
you probably have the surname of your father’s ancestors.
If you are female and married you probably dropped your surname
to take on the surname of your husband’s ancestors. This is
not a bad thing … it is just tradition.
The tradition of passing the male name from generation to generation
has it’s roots in a patriarchal society in which the man is
the hunter, the head of the family, the achiever; men make the rules,
police the rules and everyone is eventually judged by a male God.
I am reminded of Harry Enfield’s spoof 1930s ‘public
improvement film’ in which a woman at a 1930s dinner party
attempts to join the conversation with ‘a wild and dangerous
opinion of her own’ causing the men to look at her with contempt,
the party to break up and the earnest strap line ‘Women: know
your limits!’
Happily, thanks to evolution,
times have been a-changin’ at quite a pace. Most of us have
outgrown the fear of personal judgement by a supernatural God and
no longer feel the need to religiously follow the literal truth
in whatever holy book our parents happened to have on their shelves.
We are free to enjoy and achieve in the real world that rewards
talent and hard work with celebrity and material wealth. Fewer businesses
can afford to stock their boardrooms with fat, lazy old school ties;
glass ceilings have been smashed by ambitious women who are motivated
to prove their abilities and get what they want. And many of us
have begun to wonder if this selfish, consumerist society is what
life is all about. We are concerned with the environment, equality,
diversity, disarmament. We are guilty for what we have done to ‘mother’
earth in the name of God and capitalism and we are motivated to
care for it and nurse it back to health. In short, I believe we
are seeing a gradual rejection of the patriarchal in favour of the
matriarchal.
Given where we are at I wouldn’t be surprised if a reasonable
number of people (including some apologetic men) could be convinced
that it should be the woman’s rather than the man’s
name that should be passed on from generation to generation. After
all, it is her body and her who decided to have the child and sperm
is just a commodity nowadays anyway, isn’t it? And it goes
without saying that the world would be a better place if it was
run by women, right? Wrong. We do not need weak men and strong women
to make the world better: we need balanced and well developed men
AND women. We need a society that values the virtues which used
to be embodied in the metaphorical Gods and Goddesses that were
lost to us so many centuries ago; where the strengths of masculinity
and femininity are recognised and celebrated. This is a society
in which the contributions of mothers and fathers are different
and important.
It works like this:
If you are single and decide you want to honour your masculine
and feminine lines take your father’s surname and your mother’s
maiden name and simply put them together. (Your mother’s maiden
name is probably her father’s name … it would be nice
to have your mother’s, mother’s, mother’s …
maiden name but where do you stop? Start with your mother.) If you
are male your father’s name goes first, if female then your
mother’s.
Nice in theory but why should I bother?
Just pause for a moment and consider how close you feel to your
parents. Are they together or apart? Are they in your way, holding
you back, kept at arms length or at a distance? How different would
things be if they were completely on your side? And what if your
parents had their parents on side too? And so on, back through the
generations. How would life be if you knew that your entire lineage
is stable, solid, supportive and open to the love and wisdom that
flows through it to you like the blood that is so much thicker than
water?
For many of us this sense of belonging in our family is a fantasy.
Fault lines permeate the structure and are held together by fear.
Open wounds spill blood and may have been there for generations.
How many of the issues and problems that you experience now can
be traced back to your pre-teenage years? Perhaps you have memories
of times when your parents were unreasonable or uncaring and you
learned the meaning of anger, sadness, fear or guilt? Do you still
feel those emotions now when you remember what your parents did?
Do you start acting like a child again when you go home to visit?
Do you swear to yourself that you will not be like them?
According to NLP originator Richard Bandler ‘It’s
never too late to have a happy childhood’. The first step
to healing the self is to become aware of the possibility that things
could be different. The next is to understand and forgive the people
(including yourself) who made it that way in the first place. And
finally to either re-connect with those people (if you want to maintain
a relationship with them) or to let their memory go (you can always
re-establish a relationship if they come back into your life). For
the problems that go back through the generations then you can heal
back through those generations. Easier said than done? On your own,
yes. But with your commitment and the support and guidance of a
talented therapist or coach these deep transformations are probable
rather than possible.
The first step to transforming your life is to decide to. And whatever
route you choose I am confident that at some time, in some way,
you will end up proactively forgiving and asking forgiveness of
your parents. Taking responsibility for unilaterally healing the
relationships within your family is an important turning point that
deserves to be marked and celebrated.
“Hey, I know! Let’s do a ritual!”*
(*This is a quote from the Charles Band movie "Ghoulies".
In the movie this is definitely NOT a good idea. But don’t
let that put you off!)
[This section is not yet complete]
The time we really decide we will do whatever it takes to forgive
and love our parents for doing the best that they could is a turning
point which I believe marks the start of true adulthood. An ideal
time to gather your friends about you and perform a re-naming ritual.
What happens when I get married?
Some people gripe that many of the fun things in life stopped happening
when they got married. But I am not talking here about the kind
of marriage that constrains people, but rather the kind where 2
people come together and decide that they will be together as one
for as long as this is in their best interests. Whether or not you
decide to have a legal contract, a re-naming can symbolise the sharing
of identity you are undertaking.
Traditionally, of course, it is the woman who takes the man’s
surname when they get married. As we enter the integral age the
idea of a man ‘loving and protecting’ and the woman
‘serving and obeying’ are amusing (in an ironic kind
of way) but inappropriate. I believe the equality of the partnership
is better shown by a giving and receiving of names – much
as there is a giving and receiving of rings. The man gives his father’s
surname to replace her father’s surname. The woman gives her
mother’s surname to replace his mother’s surname. Both
partners then share the same names.
The only issue with this convention is how to refer to the couple
as a whole. It would have been Mr & Mrs Evans but this is no
longer accurate and both partners carry mirror images of the surname.
If we are going to use the Mr & Ms (or, of course, Mrs or Miss)
pre-fix then I suggest that the surnames are in the order masculine
then feminine: Mr & Ms Evans-Cowper. If addressing the couple
as Ms & Mr then the it would be Ms & Mr Cowper-Evans. Sorted.
And when we have children?
When kids come along it is simple: sons take the father’s
married surname and daughters their mothers. If these children marry
and have children of their own the boy carries on the masculine
line and the girl carries on the feminine line.
And if relationships change?
I believe that one of the most damaging things a couple can do
is to stay together ‘for the children’. Even if a couple
try not to argue overtly the children will still pick up on the
atmosphere. It is easy for a kid to pick up beliefs that may inhibit
them for life, for example, commitment is painful, women (or men)
are weaker than men (or women) or that the unhappiness of their
parents is their fault for being born. At its worst the confusion
can lead to a child becoming ‘difficult’ or physically
or mentally unwell.
If the partners decide to move apart and become single or re-marry
then it is natural that they will want to revert to their original
parents names or take on a new married name. But what of the children?
Their parents have not changed and so neither should their names.
Some interesting questions
The following questions push the boundaries of my ideas on naming.
The answers are my musings and are not intended to be prescriptive.
If you have other ideas please let me know.
What if it is a same sex marriage?
If a same sex couple want to have the same surname then I would
suggest that they take the same sex component of the other partner.
If a man is marrying another man then he would swap the feminine
component of his surname for the masculine component of his partner’s
surname.
What if the names simply sound terrible together?
Whether something sounds terrible or not is subjective. If you and
your partner love each other then perhaps you could learn to love
an unusual sounding combination of names? At the end of the day
it is your choice: when you are filling out the deed poll form you
can choose to be called whatever you like.
What if the woman becomes pregnant by accident or against
her will?
Irrespective of the circumstances of the conception it is the father’s
genes which are being passed on. It is the father who is connected
by blood to the child. I would argue that as a general principle
the child should always take the biological father’s surname.
Even if the mother and father are not in a loving relationship they
have come together and are producing a new life. If the mother chooses
to have the child then she is choosing to have his child. In making
this decision it will greatly help the child if the mother has fully
forgiven the father for any actions she judges as bad. Acknowledging
the truth of where we have come from helps us to fully appreciate
the situation we are in right now.
What if the father’s name is not known?
If the pregnancy is as a result of a sperm donation or one night
stand then the mother may simply have no way of knowing the father’s
name. In this case I would suggest that the child takes both elements
of their mother’s surname (in reverse order if the child is
a boy). If, at some time in the future, the name of the father is
found then the masculine component of his surname can be inserted
into its rightful place.
What if the child is adopted?
It would be nice if a name could honour both genetic and adoptive
parents and if I had to choose one set to suggest over the other
I would go with the genetic parents’ names. This may take
some coming to terms with for the adopting parents but if they are
cool about this then the chances are that the child will be too.
Acknowledging the biological parents in the child’s name in
no way undermines the love that develops between a child and their
adoptive parents and may well help the child to keep a loving connection
with their biological parents – however far apart they are
in reality.
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