"My father, by the way, told me that my life would be a lot easier if I changed the spelling of my name from 'Scheie' to 'Shay,' but I prefer the misery I have always known."

Yeah, I'm sure your father was just trying to protect you, but better the devil you know.

Not by much, though. My surname has accent--not full-on pronunciation--problems. But it still sucks when you're barred from disembarking from an international flight because the ticket agent didn't double the final consonant bequeathed you by your blameless ancestors, and your passport and boarding pass read differently.

The feminism-socialism thing is a red herring. The Berlin wall fell 15 years ago--find a new canard!

The Berlin Wall fell? Does that mean socialism is bad?

Eric:

Nah...socialism was bad long before the Wall fell.

That's what I thought too, Richard. We'll get this history thing straightened out eventually (if I can ever find a new canard....)

I'm against socialism. For 20 years, from the late 1970s to the late 1990s, I called myself a feminist because I valued the independence and individuality of women. I still value the independence and individuality of woman every bit as much, but I've stopped calling myself a feminist for all the reasons you named, i.e., I'm disgusted with at least 90% of what is called feminism today.

I love what Dean wrote about his wife Rosemary. She uses his last name Esmay, but anybody who thinks she's a submissive doormat doesn't know the Queen of All Evil. Nobody could conceivably conceive of Ayn Rand O'Connor as a submissive doormat. In fact, anybody who thinks _any_ woman in the Western world is a submissive doormat doesn't know women, doesn't know his or her own mother!

This whole subject of names is EXTREMELY interesting to me. I think a lot about names I like the spelling of your name "Scheie". I hope you'll keep it that way. I was pronouncing it "Sky" until you informed me it is "Shay". It looks Germanic.

I've seen my name spelled and pronounced a number of different ways, "Stephen", "Stewart", "Starn", "Storm", "Malcom", "Malcomb", "Milkman", "Andersen", "Henderson", "Stevenson". It's a lot of fun. I've often thought about changing my name to something perhaps more euphonious such as "Spiro Agnew", "Trevor Armbrister", "Revilo P. Oliver", etc., but I'll stick with the name my father gave me. Logically, my name should be "Samuelson" since my father's name was Samuel rather than Andrew, but he is descended from the Scotch clan of the Andersons, and I have a tie with the plaid of that ancient family.

A commenter in that thread of Dean's noted that, if a woman keeps her maiden name instead of taking her husband's name, she is still using a man's name, her father's, which is just as patriarchal if not more so. If she uses her mother's father's name, that's still patriarchal. Wince and Nod (a Christian libertarian) suggested Evesdaughter as a feminist surname for women.

The Vikings used "daughter" as well as "son", e.g., Leif Eriksen, Freydis Eriksdotter. The ancient Egyptians traced descent through the mother's line, but I don't think they used our European-style "Firstname-Lastname" convention. Egyptian women's names often ended with "t", e.g., Queen Hatshepsut, Bast or Bastet, Sekhmet (Bastet in a bad mood), Auset (Isis).

The Femocrats used a feminine name for a last name, e.g., Bara Dorothy, Cinda Elizabeth. I love the _style_ of that. Since women have feminine middle names, I myself often use those for my female characters, e.g., Margaret Anne, Dorothy Ellen, Elizabeth Leslie, Dawn Catherine, Norma Jean, Wanda Maria. Transcendental Femocracy?

Mrs. Bricker took on her husband's, Mr. John Bricker's, last name. I named him after the Senator from Ohio who, in the 1950s, proposed an Amendment to protect the Constitution. I named her Rosemary after the Queen of All Evil.

When Norma married Dawn, she added Dawn's last name ro her own, Norma Jean Kendall-Norman, both to signify their holy bond and because of the euphonious sound of it. At the insistence of both, Dawn kept her own name as is because of the euphonious sound of it, Dawn Catherine Norman. "I am holy Norma's captive Goddess forever."

Wanda will always be Dr. Wanda Maria Khlausthyne, because she will never marry but will always have orgies and adulteries instead, and she is the most brilliant physicist on the planet.

Around and around it goes, where it stops nobody knows.... The _styles_ of it all.... Most fascinating....

Norma Jean Kendall-Norman. Her father's name Kendall, General Oliver Willmoore Kendall.

Willmoore Kendall was a friend of William F. Buckley, and he often liked to tell this story:

At some point in the 1950s, he was at an academic conference discussing Communism, civil liberties, etc. The Negro janitor who was cleaning his room asked him: "Professor, is it true -- is it true dat -- dat dere's people in New York who want to -- to destroy de guvamint of de United States?"

Professor Willmoore Kendall replied solemnly: "Yes, Oliver, that is true."

And Oliver asked: "Den -- den why don't we just lock 'em up?"

And Willmoore Kendall observed that there was more wisdom in that Negro janitor than in all the other political science professors and civil libertarians he was arguing with.

The _style_ of that! I think Willmoore Kendall had an Authoritarian Personality. And, therefore, from that story I was inspired: the great anti-Communist Negro Air Force General Oliver Willmoore Kendall.

Michelle Malkin. I sure keep running into a lot of M.M.'s these days!

My brother's Persian girlfriend Mozhdeh Malakhan.

On the Left: Michael Moore.
On the Right: the despicable Marilyn Musgrave (who sponsored and helped write that Federal Anti-Marriage Amendment, and has an odious voting record) vs. the noble Mary Matalin (who once said that to be pro-homosexual is conservative -- no truer words were ever spoken).

Margie Milligan, who was a track star at Bellevue Community College, a Negress, one of the most beautiful women I have ever beheld, one of the inspirations for holy Dawn's holy Negro wife Norma.

Most fascinating....

Steven, you supply such boundless cheer and enlightenment that it has helped brighten many a gloomy day.

You must be a gift from the gods!

Dear Eric:

Thank you! That's just warms my heart, and I feel exactly that way about you.

I'm late to this little party, but let me put in my feminine 2 cents worth ...

I think naming is pretty much tradition and like most traditions, we just don't think too deeply on this as long as they sit well. Most women who don't have some sort of axe to grind just goes with what works. Taking their husbands name and having that be THE family name for the kids simplifies things. For Ms. Malkin, she wanted to honor her husband (not an unusual emotion on the part of many wives) by taking his name, but it is such a hassle sometimes to be changing one's LEGAL name (especially if you have degrees or professional creditials in one's maiden name) keeping the legal stuff status quo is fine.

I took back my maiden name upon my divorce and when I remarried I kept it the same (it was the paperwork hassle that annoyed me..plus it was interesting to find out that after 16 plus years of being married and thinking I HAD changed all my paperwork that Social Security had never changed my maiden name at any time... argh).

Click is a rather unusual name, anyway ... Family rumor has it as an Americanized version of a Norwegian name... My family having come to the New World through England into New York in 1697 as indentured servants, sold to work on a plantation in Virginia. Took about 60 years to work off the bond, family went to Kentucky and pretty well stayed there to this day. At least the spelling of "Click" isn't too easy to misspell. One other close branch of the Kentucky family is the Samons (or Salmons) who, through several US censuses either gain or lose the "l".

I won't get into what Ellis Island did to my maternal grandfather's German family name when they came through in 1855.

Men and women should really be free to self-identification...if that means following old family traditions, regaining old names, or wholely reinventing themselves.

Rose is a rose, correct?

:-)

Thanks Darleen. Interesting family history; your family spans nearly the entire American experience.

The problem with these things is that it really ought to be the business of the women themselves (in conjuction with their husbands), but self-styled "leaders" manifest themselves out of nowhere and people feel obligated to do as they're told. So many people imagine that they're being independent and thinking for themselves, yet if you talk to them, you'll soon discover they can't justify what they claim they "think" -- because they're following thought trends the way others follow fashion.

Which is why so many of us blog.

;)