Saying goodbye to my old last name is weird

So, Lori Frankforter and I finally decided on a last name, the one we’ll be using after the wedding ceremony this Sunday. As I mentioned earlier, we’d considered an amalgam of our two, current surnames (my favorite being “Frankentaylor”), but in the end decided they all sounded too much like something that would rise from the slab in a mad scientist’s castle.

We also looked at the traditional fallback route: using my admittedly boring last name. She actually liked the idea of being “Lori Taylor.” I guess when you’ve gone through life named after a much-maligned meat product, anything seems an improvement.

I’ve never been happy with my own last name. For one thing, it’s my adopted name. My “biological” name remains forever shrouded in mystery, which is my way of saying I couldn’t get my mom to talk about it and now she’s passed and with her the opportunity to discover my true origin. (I assume it has something to do with being rocketed to Earth from my native planet, Krypton – something like that.)

Also, Taylor just doesn’t fit with the rest of my name, which was visited upon me by my Irish grandparents: Michael Patrick Kevin … Taylor? See, it just doesn’t fit.  Should be O’Malley or Shaughnessy or Sweeney.

I figured, since Lori and I were getting hitched anyway and name-changing would be happening as a matter of course, now was the time to take the plunge. Now or never. We opted for now.

Turns out it’s harder than you may imagine to pick a new last name for yourself. After six decades as Michael Taylor, everything else sounds … weird. After weeks of discussion – in large part “mostly in jest” names like “Papageorgiou” and “Fizzlebottom III” – we had all but given up.

Nothing felt right.

Then my lifelong buddy, Terry Cavanaugh, whom I’ve known since ninth grade, left a Facebook post suggesting “Guinness.” Why? Because, for the past 20 years I’ve been making music every weekend with The Guinness Brothers Band.

Now, other than the fictional character I “play” onstage, there never really was a brother in that band named Guinness.

I named the band after the beer on a whim because I couldn’t think of anything better and our first gig was coming up fast. I needed a name for the then-fledgling group and figured Guinness Brothers would do in a pinch. The name stuck. And against all odds in a business rife with musical mortality, the band has managed to hold together all these years.

At any rate, Lori Frankforter saw Terry’s post and decided she liked it. I have to admit, I do, too. Michael Patrick Kevin Guinness. I can live with that. And, as I mentioned earlier, for Miss Hot Dog, anything’s an improvement.

We’ve already filed the paperwork at the county clerk’s office. After saying our “I do’s” Sunday afternoon, we’ll be Lori and Mike Guinness.

Yeah, yeah, it’s kind of a silly thing to do, but what the hell. You only live once. Or maybe twice. I’m not here to argue theology.

Naturally, there’s a truckload of paperwork to be done following the ceremony; trips to the Social Security and Secretary of State’s offices. Probably a lot of red tape beyond that even. Nothing’s easy once the Feds get involved.

But I know my Lori. She will persevere and cut through that red tape like a hot knife through butter. I’ll sign where she tells me.

I just hope we’re not making a mistake here. I mean, we could have gone with “Fizzlebottom III”.

This column brought to you by Dimitri Papageorgiou

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