What’s In A Name?
August 4th, 2008 by ComputerBob
Regular readers of this Journal — and those who’ve spent some time reading this site’s Domestic Violence Information section — know that, after decades of violence and abuse, my wife and I finally cut off all contact with my biological family and then, two years ago this month, legally changed our last name.
We chose our new last name through a very thorough process. First, we discussed many different possibilities for a new last name for several weeks, to see if any of them sounded right to us. When we ran out of ideas, I went online and printed out a list of the 100 most popular last names in the U.S.A. Then, one night, we took two copies of that list with us to the beach.
We sat side by side on our beach chairs at the water’s edge, and as the golden-orange sun set over the beautiful blue-green Gulf of Mexico, and the warm, calm waves gently danced in the white sand around our toes, we chose our new last name.
Each of us individually rated each of those 100 most popular last names, giving each name 0-5 points. When we had both finished rating all 100 names, we went through the whole list, one name at a time, and added up the points. We quickly discovered that we had both given one of the names 4 out of 5 points, for a total of 8 points — the next closest 3 names had all earned 3 points from each of us, for a total of only 6 points. I had given our previous last name zero points — my wife given it -5. We had a good laugh about that.
Right then and there, we agreed that our top choice was going to be our new last name. And now, two years later, we’re still very happy with that choice.
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