Hi ,
So I hate my last name. My last name is Landon with an extra letter. Lately I’ve been debating on whether I should change it when I turn 18 next year.
Reasons why I don’t like it –
– It gets confused super regularly. I get London , Lamden , Lanton and I’ve even gotten Lambert a couple of times. This is not helped by the fact that my name Maddison is often confused for Madeline , Madelyn or Maggie/Mattie when people call me Maddie.
– It is the last name of my only living grandparent who I have a very complicated relationship with.
– I don’t think it sounds great with my first name.I wouldn’t change my first name or my middle name because I like them and they have significant value to me due to the fact my mother and her mother chose them together before I was born (her mother is no longer alive and I sadly never met her).
There is two reasons why I would not change it. The first is my mother is not a fan of the idea. My dad (whose last name it is) doesn’t seem bothered but I’d have to chat with him about it again before I made a decision. The second is that I am an only child and my dad only has one other sibling who her and her children have different names. That means the last name would die with my dad if I didn’t use it. So even though I don’t like it there is that weird pressure. Is that crazy?
With a new last I would prefer something easier to wear and can’t be confused for anything else. My ideas so far are Brooks , Baxter (which is the maiden name of the grandmother I never met) or Sorenson (which breaks all my rules but a similar style would be nice).
So what do you think should I change it when I turn 18 next year , wait a few years then change it , wait until I get married or not change it at all?
Thank you for your time.
Maddison
Last names are so often problematic: hard to spell, hard to pronounce, unfamiliar, easily mistaken for each other. Pretty much everyone is accustomed to spelling their surname every time they give it, and none of the options you’re considering seem immune from that. I am reminded of a family friend with a difficult surname who, as she was dialing a pizza place, told us that she was going to give her surname as Smith to avoid all the usual spelling/pronunciation complications. At this point the pizza place answered the phone, and all we heard was our friend’s side of the conversation: “Yes, I’d like to order a large pepperoni pizza for carry-out. Uh huh. Smith.” Then a pause and a huge heavy sigh, followed by a clenched-teeth “S…M…I…T…H.”
I think if I were you I would wait a bit. It sounds as if you’re not sure yet what kind of change you’d like to make, so deliberately choosing a holding pattern for now might reduce the stress: knowing that you CAN change it and probably WILL change it, but that there’s no reason to rush it and make a change before you feel pretty comfortable with what you want.
While waiting, I recommend the combination of enunciation + automatic spelling. Really work your lips wide around the letters: it feels foolish at first, but I swear I’ve reduced by 95% the number of times I get called Christine instead of Kristen, just by saying my name with slightly overdone lip movements. You: “My name is Maddison LAANNDDONN, that’s L-A-N, D-O-N.” If you notice one particular error being made more often than others, you can clarify that section with additional clues: “That’s L, A, N-as-in-November, D-as-in-dog, O, N.” It’s possible the whole thing would bug you less if we could reduce the error rate—or if that doesn’t help at all, that’s good information to have, too.
Around here we often suggest “the Starbucks test”: this is a test in which a parent considering a baby name goes to Starbucks (or anywhere they ask your name) and gives the potential baby name as their own. It’s a good way to check for issues and reactions: maybe “Pebbles” seems like an adorable name when you’re picturing a sweet baby girl, but it suddenly seems like a terrible idea when you have to say it to the barista. When Paul and I were engaged and considering choosing a new surname for both of us, we tried out various options at restaurants with waiting lists: we’d have to say it to the hostess, and also hear it called out when it was our turn. This test is probably obsolete now that most restaurants give out vibrating pagers. But you could try out the various names on friends: tell them the name as if you were introducing yourself (“Hi, I’m Maddison Brooks”), and see if they hear it properly and can spell it properly. Try it over the phone, particularly.
Turning 18 is a nice natural transition point if you were certain about the name you wanted, but on the other hand it comes with a flavor of parental disapproval, as if you had to wait for legal adulthood to have the right to go against your parents’ wishes (even if that is not at all what is going on).
Speaking of family, a name change has the potential to make the complicated grandparent relationship more complicated. You and your family would know best on this, and I’d suggest consulting your dad on that when you’re having a chat about how he feels about the surname. Check with your mom, too.
If you are pretty certain you’d want to take your spouse’s surname, then marriage is a nice time to make the change—and easier too, because it can be done as part of the marriage and you don’t have to go separately through the name-changing process. Plus, it’s an easy change to explain. But perhaps you would not want to take your spouse’s name, either for philosophical reasons or because the new spouse’s surname didn’t appeal or was just as problematic as your own. Or perhaps you’re not sure at this point, or you don’t want to have to wait that long. I don’t think you should feel you OUGHT to wait for marriage to make the change, when there are so many unpredictable variables involved.
If you become sure you want to change it, it would be ideal to change it before getting any professional degree certificates. On the other hand, it happens all the time that a person gets a degree and then changes their surname at a later time, so again I’d prioritize “being sure of what you want about the surname” over convenience/timing issues.
On the topic of the family name possibly dying out, are you considering keeping the name and also giving it to your children? Or are you thinking you wouldn’t use it for your children, but that it would be better to let it die one generation later, with you instead of with your dad? If you don’t think you’d want to give it to your children, then I don’t think it matters if it ends with your dad or with you. If you would want to give it to your children, then there are a lot of future unknown variables and I am not sure what to advise; I think I’d advise the same holding pattern but with a longer-term feel to it. Or I might want to know if there are other family names in your family tree that are on the verge of extinction and could be saved instead. I definitely don’t think you should feel obligated to personally continue the surname.
