The Name Game

It's time for another edition of

Controversial Topic Tuesday! 

This week's topic: taking your husband's name...

When getting married, you have a couple of options:

• Take your husband's last name.
• Take your husband's last name and move your last name to your middle name.
• Hyphenate your last name: Yours-His.
• Keep your last name.

Some brides have some very strong opinions about taking or keeping their last name.  Some feel that they are losing part of their identity if they lose their last name.  Where do I stand on the topic?

Let me start out by saying, I hate my name.  Okay, maybe "hate" is a little strong, but I really don't like it.  Don't like my first name, don't like my last name.  Sorry, Mom and Dad, but it's true!

Why don't I like my name?  Well, my first name, Casey, is both a guy's and girl's name.  I cannot tell you how many times I get e-mails at work that start with "Dear MR. Kuhn..."  (I probably get 20 or so a year.)  And growing up in school whenever we had a sub, you could tell they were always looking for a guy when they were calling role.  I also think I have a somewhat masculine sounding voice, so that doesn't help things when you're calling customer service or something.  But I guess "Casey" is me, and I'm not going to change it just becuase I don't like it (besides, I would have no clue what to change it to!).
And my last name, Kuhn... Well, NO ONE knows how to pronounce it correctly.  As a teacher, I have to teach my kids how to say it "Q"n (say the letter Q, then the n sound) not coon as in raccoon.  After the first week or so, I quit correcting people.  It's just too much hassle.  I'd say about half of the students know how to say it correctly.  The weirdest part of my last name: it actually used to be pronounced "coon," but my great-grandma refused to marry into the family unless they changed the pronunciation.  Cool story, not-so-cool last name.

So when given the option of changing my last name from some unpronounceable German jumble-in-your-mouth "Kuhn", to an easy to pronounce, flows off the tongue easily, everyone can read it "Becker," there really wasn't a decision to make.

The only bad thing about taking Jason's name?  I'll be Casey Becker.  Does that name sound vaguely familar?  No?  Well, maybe this will help jog your memory...

Yep, Casey Becker is the name of Drew Barrymore's character in the first (and the only good) Scream movie.  Funny story: the first movie Jason and I watched together at home (not at the theater) was Scream.  About 5 mintues into the movie he says, "Hey, Casey Becker.  That would be your name if we got married!" :o)

So Of COURSE I'm going to change my last name!
I'm not gonna move "Kuhn" to my middle name either... My middle name is the only part of my name that I actually like!

And although it makes me sad to think I'm not going to be a "Kuhn" anymore, I know I'll always be one at heart... one with a better last name!