By any other name would smell as sweet"
~William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet, Act II Scene II
We had a talk about names the other day- a seemingly fluffy exercise in my weekend workshop class on counseling skills.
What is your full name? What's its story? Significance? What's your attachment to it?
In groups of four we answered these questions, one person at a time. And for the first time it hit me - hard - what's not in my name.
My name is Cortney Copeland. Nice and simple. Nothing hidden there.
I was almost Cortney June Copeland, according to an unofficial birth certificate I found during one of my childhood forays into old cabinets. June was my maternal grandmother, though I never knew her.
My parents couldn't agree on using that name, and never picked a different one. On all my legal forms I just put a dash through the section for middle name.
I might have ended up Cortney June Maska-Copeland, had my mother chosen to keep her name and do one of those hyphenated deals that seem to be popular among couples lately.
I could even have been Cortney June Merczejewski-Copeland, had my maternal great-grandparents not been required to Americanize their name when they immigrated to the USA from Poland.
Is Cortney June Merczejewski-Copeland really the same person as Cortney Copeland? Because as my name stands, it obfuscates so many realities. The reality of my immigrant roots, of my connection to the pariah side of my family - marginalized by the strong strain of schizophrenia running in their blood, by poverty and "disfunction" among my mentally ill aunts and other relatives.
My name hides these things. It erases them from what identifies me.
Juliet asks Romeo to "Deny thy father, and refuse thy name." She asks him to turn away from the blood feud tied to being a Montague, as I've been turned away from all things on my mother's side of the family. Granted, I've fared much better in life than Romeo, and I can also understand why he'd want to no longer be a Montague. At least family doesn't practice blood feuds. And we do have Thanksgiving dinner together, schizophrenia and all.
I mean this in no way as a statement of absolute opinion on naming decisions. People have their reasons for giving, taking, or leaving a name. But now at least I understand that little twinge of discomfort I feel when somebody I know changes their name for whatever reason - I am still grappling with the changes in mine.
What's in a name?
The visible bindings that would compel me to call my mother's side of the family my family.
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