Today I went to the Social Security office, to remove my mother's name from my social security card and account. You see, on the island we legally have two last names. First paternal, then maternal. All our documents reflect this format and when I moved to the United States, the wires got crossed. In some institutions I was SS and in some SSG. To stop the confusion, I decided to fix the one place where my maternal name lingered. I would be remiss to not admit that I feel a little emotional about it. Mom's name means a lot. I remember when she divorced. How she, a passive woman who just a few years before was cheated on and abandoned in a strange country by her husband, reclaimed her identity. I was young, but I still was very proud of her.
I refused to take my husband's name when we got married. I saw the folly in following a patriarchal tradition than in my eyes would strip me of the last bit of my identity and brand me as someone else's. A name whose history completely differed from mine. Geographically, spiritually, economically. Even if the name I bear is my father's, it is the name I have been forged with. It might be my downfall, but though I can give my very essence for love, I fear I cannot part with my name.
Names are power, you know? For better or worse they bundle up information and grant an identity and history to its bearer. I remember reading A Wizard of Earthsea and The Salt Grows Heavy recently and some passages in those books regarding naming truly resonated with me:
Ged sighed sometimes, but he did not complain. He saw that in this dusty and fathomless matter of learning the true name of every place, thing, and being, the power he wanted lay like a jewel at the bottom of a dry well. For magic consists in this, the true naming of a thing.
– Ursula K. Le Guin (A Wizards of Earthsea)
Names are like selkie-skins, often carelessly attended, left in view of those who would misuse them. Utilized correctly, though, they can kill a man, can turn a girl to a thing of teeth and dead eyes, an appetite to devour worlds; can make infernos of maidens, phoenixes of bones who have been asleep for so long they've forgotten the shape of rage. Names have so much power.
Enough even to hide a soul in the curl of a stranger's tongue.
– Cassandra Khaw (The Salt Grows Heavy)
In the end, names carry weight far beyond simple identification. They are the stories we carry, the remnants of our past, and the markers of who we choose to be. Whether inherited from those who came before or chosen as acts of defiance or love, they are a declaration of identity. To name something is to give it power, to shape its place in the world. And while I may have parted with a piece of my mother's name today, I carry her spirit, her resilience, and her story with me. My name remains my own—a testament to my choices, my heritage, and the power that lies in claiming oneself.