What’s in a Name?

by franky-loveaudrey | Apr 6, 2011 | Creative Living | 10 comments

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”

So said Juliet as she sat on the balcony pondering her fate.And we all know how that turned out, don’t we?

You may have gathered that I had to wait a while for Carl to pluck up the courage/pull his finger out and pop the question. We’d been together 6 1/2 years when he proposed last summer and by the time I walk down the aisle we’ll have celebrated our 8 year anniversary (24 hours before the ceremony to be precise!).

I’d love to tell you that I waited patiently all those years, elegant to the end, and at peace with our unmarried, yet deeply committed, status as a family.

But if I did, I’d be lying.

So I’m going to come right out and admit it.

I nagged.

Not constantly, you understand, but enough to get my point across.

One of the things that bothered me most during those years of living in sin (!) was the fact that I had a different surname to the children.

They’re Shanahans you see, like their father. It’s an exclusive club of 3 in our house, and I really hated being the odd one out.

When Isabel was born it didn’t occur to me to give her any other surname. Carl was her father and I think I wanted him to have a sense of ‘ownership’ over her, believing that it might make the whole thing seem somehow more real, more permanent.

It wasn’t until after she was born that I realised that my not being a Shanahan made things a little complicated. On more than one occasion, I was asked to provide documentary evidence of the fact I was her mother and I came to resent being asked to ‘clarify my relationship to the child in question’.

That said, I wasn’t about to give her baby brother a different surname, as if one child belonged to me and the other to Carl. So two little Shanahans they are.

I remember being sat at the dinner table one evening with the children, some months before we were engaged, listening to Izzy say ‘I’m a Shanahan, Jesse’s a Shanahan, Daddy’s a Shanahan BUT Mummy is a LEON. You’re the only LEON Mummy. Why aren’t you a Shanahan Mummy, why, why, why?’

Adorable, no?

But Isabel had hit a nerve, I was sick of being the only Leon.

The rational part of my brain was completely aware that it’s just a name but another part of me felt slighted every time I looked at my signature.

So you can imagine my confusion at the fact that now, with just 9 months to go before the big day, I’ve suddenly started feeling very possessive over those precious 4 letters that are my surname.

I am Franky Leon and, suddenly, the thought of being anything else horrifies me.

A few years ago I relished being mistaken for Mrs Shanahan by hotel receptionists and the like. I’d fail to set them straight, giggle and grin at Carl knowingly. Now, I jump to correct them before they can finish their sentence.

If I say ‘Mrs Shanahan’ out loud it makes me feel like I’m Carl’s mother. I’m convinced people are going to start asking me if I’m Irish (not that there’s anything wrong with being Irish it’s just that I’m not) and when I practice my future signature (lovesick teenager styleee, repeatedly in my exercise book) it just looks plain ugly. There’s too many letters and I can’t make the h’s look pretty.

Heck, sometimes I can’t even spell the damn thing.