Sunday, January 22, 2006

Why I Changed My Name

Hi. I just wanted to clarify why I changed my name for my feminist professional friends, since I've been enduring a fair amount of teasing on the subject... :)
  1. I can't very well hyphenate. Can you imagine how bad Wilson-Olson would be? Very bad indeed.
  2. It would be really confusing to have Wilsons and Olsons in the same house. People would still call me "Celia Olson," and they'd get confused and call Keith "Keith Wilson." Annoying, yes? Changing my name simplifies social matters for both of us.
  3. I really don't feel that changing my name is degrading myself. I'm sure if I made a big enough stink, Keith would take my name. I love him and I can trust him not to look down on me because I'm a woman. He respects me, and I respect him.
  4. I also don't feel that I am losing any professional status by changing my name. Those who matter will remember my first name which is unique enough. Furthermore, I doubt too many people will notice that I changed my last name, since it's really not all that different...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, mine and Peter's went together naturally...we thought Cama-Lekx sounded perfect, totally unique and not too many syllables.

You could have done a combo like Wilolsen. Weird. People do stuff like that.

-Rachel

Anonymous said...

that's just rediculas, I think Celia amd a very good point that Olson and Willson don't flow well in any way you try to combo them and I think it is slighly rediculass that she is getting gruff for changing her last name. not to mention there is nothing wrong with the last name Olson.
Way to go Celia, perhaps you are making the biger case for feminists by not making a big fuss and changing your last name.
-Becca