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Taking a husband's name, for better or worse
By Teresa Strasser
Originally printed in the Los Angeles Times - 19 June 2008
Good news and bad news about having the surname Strasser.
Maj. Strasser is a character in "Casablanca," arguably the best movie of
all time. On the downside, Maj. Strasser is a major Nazi, which causes
major confusion in Hebrew school and thereafter for a Jewish girl like
me.
As if my super Catholic first name wasn't confusing enough.
So, though I never had any wedding fantasies involving elaborate
bouquets, veils, first dances or big rocks, I secretly dreamed of
marrying into a new last name. In my fantasies, I tried on lots of new
monikers. They were often Irish and always easy to spell; I would be
Flynn or Riley. I also fancied names that conjured news anchors, soap
opera characters or sorority girls. After a little paperwork, I would
spend my days ordering things on the phone and simply spelling out Fox,
Blake, Stone or Woods.
I often thought it would be nice to acquire a last name starting with
the letter "T," which would be alliterative, a quality everyone knows
means you were once the prom queen or at least part of the homecoming
court, or just plain promising. Most likely to succeed: Teresa Taylor,
Tyler, Thomas, Thompson or Tate.
Without the baggage of changing my grandfather's name out of sheer
vanity, I could have a brand new handle; it would be simpler, sexier and
less... Nazi.
In the absence of a superior surname, I figured I would just retain my
original name and thus uphold the feminist values instilled in me by my
mother, who would turn off the television during a Clorox commercial to
deliver a dissertation on the paternalistic values reflected in every
stroke of the housewife's sparkly mop.
Well, love changes you. And in my case, it's changing my name.
I'm getting married at the end of the month, and while I found a dream
man, he did not come with a dream name.
It's a Polish Catholic name, and what it lacks in mellifluousness, it
makes up for with a surfeit of consonants. Think Det. Wojciehowicz from
the TV show "Barney Miller." It's a lot like that. He may be a fox, but
unfortunately he's not a Fox.
As for my mother, she kept her married name even after my parents
divorced. When I asked her why, she pointedly annunciated her very
unpleasant maiden name with an implicit "duh," and that was that. So
maybe I am my mother's daughter.
For the record, he never asked me to take his name. One day I just
pictured us together, cats, kids, all with one last name. One
less-than-perfect last name, but a uniform one all the same.
So, while I'm keeping my name professionally, in my private life, Mrs.
Wojciehowicz can look forward to spending her days spelling and
re-spelling, with a weary rendition of the old "W as in whiskey, O as in
Oscar, J as in Jew that always dreamed of a cool name but sold out to
the old-fashioned name change when she fell in love."
This is so vapid I can almost hear Sarah Jessica Parker's voice-over and
visualize her pontificating look out the window. Carrie B. can't feel my
pain (for one thing, because she isn't real). In the "Sex and the City"
movie, Big's last name was revealed to be Preston. That is just the kind
of bland, breezy name I always coveted. The point is, love was harder to
find than my new name is to pronounce. So, it's goodbye Strasser.
Still, I'll always have fond memories of my old last name and the
classic film it conjures every time I hear, "Spell it again, Ma'am."
Teresa Strasser can be heard on the "Adam Carolla Show" mornings on 97.1
FM KLSX. Her wedding book, "Sentimental or Cheap?" comes out this fall.
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