Monday, June 2, 2008

What's in a name?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about my name and what I want to do after Curtis and I get married. Socially, I will go by Christine Hart for sure. But I do like the idea of having my family name and my married name be a legal part of my identity.

I know that professionally, I'll apply to summer associate jobs as Christine Harding or Christine Harding Hart. This is because I will be asking people from my Orrick job to be references, and I don't want them to be confused when someone calls to ask about Christine Hart.

And I also know that I want to have Curtis' name because I want us to have one last name, especially for our children. I think it's easier and I'll admit that I like the tradition of the woman taking the husband's name. Plus, I really like his last name and it won't be much different from what I have now!

What some women do is change their middle name to their maiden name so that they retain it. But my middle name, Elizabeth, is actually a family name on my mother's side with a rich heritage and I hope to have daughter named Elizabeth (Elizabeth Hart sounds sooo good!). So as of now, I think I want to make Harding a second middle name and have my full name be Christine Elizabeth Harding Hart (a hyphen is out of the question) but I'm not sure that's actually feasible. The good thing is, there's no real hurry to change your legal name after you get married so I have some time.

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