is my name me?

Names are powerful.

Names are declarations.

What does a change of name do to a personality? I think it effects subtle changes within a person, and less subtle, gross changes externally.

I have lived with 3 or 4 names this lifetime, and I am only 35. My uncertainty of the total number is from my unclarity of my first name. Was it from pre-birth, or was I actually named something besides ___ after my birth, before my adoption? Eva? I have no idea--adopted people are legally not allowed access to their birth certificates in New York State, as well as I think 41 other states. The birth certificate I have seen has my adoptive parents listed, as well as significant technical birth information, as if I was born to them. Interesting...my thoughts on that will be held for another time.

What was my name as an unborn baby? What was my name as a born baby?

My name as a baby adopted into a new family with a new mother and father was ____. I lived that name for 20 years. I got married to my first husband by a rabbi but didn't sign any legal documents authorized by any state. I did not feel a need to change my name, and didn't. I did not feel any desire to take on my husband's name.

Then my mother died. She left me an inheritance. I went to the local bank to find out about the procedure to get the money. My mother had made the account out to my then-husband's last name (which was not mine). Looking back, this was a perfect testament to the less than subtle rift between my mother and I; did she actually not even know my name? Anyway, my social security number (the only one I've ever had) was on the account, and the bank people REFUSED to release the money to me. They insisted the only way for me to get it was to come back with ID showing myself to be someone I was not.

So I legally changed my name to get the money. I figured out how to do it myself; I did not use an attorney, and it was a whole involved process. I lived with that name, disconnected from it, for 10 years. The name outlived my marriage.

My ambivalence to that name somehow parallels my ambivalence to the place I live right now. There's something similar about it. I was driving down the road today between towns. I was noticing my surroundings while simultaneously noting how disconnected I feel. I said to myself, "I live in this place right now, but it is not my place." The geography feels temporary; I guess that is okay on some level. But underneath there is something very unsettling about it for me.

I ditched that name for my new name when I got remarried. I decided to take on the new name. Its interesting; I don't feel necessarily connected to the name and its history, per se, but I do feel a difference in that my choice to take it was specifically to reflect our connection.

I was in a bookstore the other day. I bought a few books and handed the man my credit card. He looked at it, looked at me, and in an offhand way said, "B..., B..., hmmm...are you jewish?" I felt like a deer in the headlights inside, and must have looked stunned outwardly as well, because he paused and said, "I'm only asking because I used to know a Breitman back in college..." I don't know how I feel about the fact that I have a name that definitely implies jewishness at the same time as looking so totally not jewish. My name's reference to my marriage feels safe, but its also feels dangerous in that it is like an invitation to my identity confusion.