Showing posts with label down to the wire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label down to the wire. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Down to the Wire: Choosing My Name

In case you don't know, my fiance has an absolutely fantastic name: Adam Cyril Methodius Solove. Cyril and Methodius are his confirmation saints, the men who brought Christianity to Eastern Europe a millennium ago. Tall, blond, broad-set, hooded eyes, a chiseled nose--Adam is the picture of the Eastern European background that gives him his surname. A. C. M. Solove fits him like a glove.

I'm fairly happy with my born name, too. Alison Michelle Fincher has just the right combination of sweeping feminine and harsher masculine sounds. I am the picture of Anglo-Irishness, so the surname Fincher fits.

I want to make the sybmolic gesture of joining Adam's family by taking his surname. The reality that tiny, Anglo-Irish me must take on a distinctively Eastern European surname cannot be escaped. But what of my middle names?:

Michelle--the middle name given to me by my parents. I have a certain fondness for it.

Lucy--my confirmation saint. Another lovely, feminine name.

Fincher--my maiden name. There are no male Finchers in my generation, so I feel something of an obligation to salvage it in my name.

Alison Michelle Lucy Fincher Solove? I don't think so. But what combination? What do you think?