What's In a Name?

I've touched on this topic before. One of my favorite posts that I've written on the subject is this one.

It was a little while ago, obviously. But it is still a very well written post in my opinion, and it totally sums up what I was feeling. That's one thing I love about blogging, I can go back and remember exactly what I was feeling right then. It's interesting to say the least.

So why has the subject come up again? Well it's not because of an anniversary or anything. That's still a ways off.

But quite a few people I know are either recently engaged, are getting engaged soon, or have very recently gotten married.

Most of them are coworkers. But BC is planning on purposing to his girlfriend in April, and SS recently got engaged. So yeah, it seems the marriage virus is taking hold of a lot of people I know.

I don't call it a virus to say that marriage is a horrible thing, because to me it's not. I love being married.

But it does seem to come in waves. Like no one is getting married or engaged for the longest time, and then suddenly.. *bam* Almost every "single" person you know is engaged or just got married.

I do have to say that I am surprised by how many of the women I know are taking their soon to be husband's last name, or have.

I am one of those people. When Master and I got married, I took His last name and I am very glad that I did. It makes me feel closer to Him in a way, and I also see it as a way of marking myself as His property in a very public and "acceptable" way.

So why am I surprised by this? Well.. it just seems the not-so-new thing to do is to hyphenate your name or keep your maiden name.

It's almost like some women are afraid to totally take that plunge. I've heard some women state that they feel is taking part of their identity away. I don't really understand that. But I don't think that way, so of course I wouldn't understand.

I was honestly kind of glad to be rid of my maiden name. It's not that I hated it, because I didn't. But almost no one could fucking spell it right without asking. It was annoying. My married name is very easy to spell, unless you're a complete and utter idiot.

Another thing I've heard women say is that they are too proud of their heritage to give up their last name. Um. Okay? I mean I'm proud of my heritage, or at least what I know of it. But my heritage, and my last name are two completely different things in my eyes. My heritage is part of who I am. It is in my blood and so can never, ever be lost.

My last name lets others know what "clan" I'm a part of. I was part of my maiden name's clan.. and I always will be because that is where I came from. But now I am part of Master's clan, and my name shows that.

And while Master has a very large family on His father's side.. I don't really know any of them. And I don't think of them as my clan. My clan is very, very small. It consists of Master and myself. Just because I share a last name with His extended family doesn't really mean a lot to me. Probably because Master is not extremely close to that side of His family.

I don't really know where I'm going with this post... just something that's been rattling around inside my head today.

But it makes sense to me, so I guess that's what counts.