My fiancée, light of my life, and
reason for getting up each morning, Lori Frankforter, has a ridiculous name. My
own name, while not ridiculous, is boring. Boring even by the standards of
American males born in the ‘50s.
Mike Taylor. Not as boring as the
names of my brothers, Bob and Bill, but still, Snoozeville, USA.
When it came to handing out
names, my parents were concerned with an economy of letters, rather than creativity
or panache.
I’ve whined about the dullness of
my name before, but it turns out I may, at long last, be in a position to do
something about it. On Sept. 11 (I know, it wasn’t our first choice of dates,
either; sometimes you just have to roll with the punches) I’m getting married.
And when you get married, you can change your name.
It’s legal and it’s not even that
hard, or so I’ve been lead to believe by the first and only website dealing
with the subject I visited. I’m sure there’s the usual government paperwork to
fill out and probably a fee or two – can’t blow your nose without giving the
Feds their 10-percent – but it’s do-able.
So now the question is, what name
do we want? Tradition has Lori taking my last name, so she’d be Lori Taylor and
we’d both be boring as all get-out. A lot of guys would be dead set on this
one, since it (supposedly) establishes male dominance in the relationship. I’ve
been married often enough to know there’s no such thing as “male dominance,”
not if you want to sleep soundly at night and wake up without a salad fork
sticking out of your ribs.
Also, “Taylor” is my adopted name
and I’ve never been that attached to it. My actual surname remains a mystery,
though I’m hoping it’s “Onassis” or “Gates” and that the error will be detected
and my inheritance check mailed any day now. At any rate, keeping my own last
name is no biggie for me.
I’d be happy to take Lori’s name.
Mike Frankforter has a nice ring to it. It’s ridiculous, but I’ve always felt
ridiculous is better than boring. Lori won’t have it, though; she’s always
hated her last name and is in a big hurry to unload it at the wedding. (If you
had heard as many “hot dog” and “wiener” jokes as has my beloved, you’d hate
the name, too.)
Another option – one that’s
gaining in popularity, according to the Internet – is to somehow combine our
two last names. “Tayforter” or “Frankentaylor” were both possibilities we
considered. For about two seconds. Turns out any combination we came up with
was even more ridiculous and/or boring than the originals.
Likewise, we decided against the
hyphenated thing. “Taylor-Frankforter” is both boring and ridiculous. And
besides, the whole point of the exercise is to lose our boring and ridiculous
names altogether.
That leaves the option of picking
a shiny, brand new last name, one we both love. I, as always, voted for
“Papageorgiou,” since there’s considerable evidence my biological father was
Greek. (I’m basing this assumption on my abundance of back hair.) If we went
with Papageorgiou I’d also change my first name to Dimitri, since “Dimitri
Papageorgiou” just kicks butt, in my opinion.
Lori has other thoughts. She’s
not sure what she wants, but she knows what she doesn’t, and Papageorgiou tops
that list. Likewise, my second and third choices – Papalexopoulo and Moe – also
got the thumbs down.
We considered hippy names like
“Sunshine” or “Moonbeam” but decided too much time has passed since the days of
black lights and Donovan LPs.
I’d be happy with a Hollywood
action-star name like “Max Steele” or “Vance Riprock.” But again, Lori won’t
listen to reason.
We have only a few weeks until
the wedding and despite several lengthy discussions on the matter we’re no
closer to a decision.
How are we supposed to get
married when we don’t even know each other’s names?
mtaylor@staffordgroup.com
(616) 745-9530
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