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Living, loving, laughing, and learning in the new New Orleans
Jan 6, 2012
05:00 AM
Joie d'Eve

The Name Game

By Eve Kidd Crawford
Jan 6, 2012 - 05:00 AM
The Name Game

I need advice. I’m getting married today, and I’m not stressed at all about the food or the flowers or the cake or anything like that. We have a whopping guest list of 10 people, almost all of whom are very closely related to us (four parents, two kids), so I figure they’ll forgive any little imperfections or mishaps. Besides, I’m not walking down the aisle or throwing a bouquet, and since I’m pregnant, I won’t be drinking, so with those three factors combined, the potential for me to make an ass out of myself is vastly diminished. What I’m stressing out about right now, though, is my name.

This is the exact opposite of my wedding experience in 2003. When I got married for the first time, I was an absolute wreck about the details. Would the personalized matchbooks come in time? Did I have the meal selections of every one of the 300 guests properly recorded in my Excel spreadsheet? Should I have gone with fondant instead of buttercream for the cake even though no one really likes the taste of fondant? The only thing I wasn’t stressing about was my name: I was adamant that I was going to keep my maiden name.

And I did. I got married in July 2003, and I was Eve Kidd until April 2006 – when I got pregnant with my daughter and decided to change my name to match hers.

So now that I’m about to get married for a second time, I don’t really feel the urge to change my name to my future husband’s; I feel much more of a pull to keep it the same as my daughter’s. It’s not quite that simple, though, because in choosing to keep the same last name as Ruby, I will also be choosing to not have the same last name as my future daughter.

I have considered hyphenating, but I’ve ruled it out. First of all, I think hyphenating offers all of the inconvenience of having to legally change your name without balancing it with the convenience of one family having the same last name. If I had changed my name initially to Kidd-Crawford, for instance, I would have had to go to the DMV and the Social Security office and change my credit records but I would still have a different last name from the rest of the family who was just Crawford. Also, and perhaps for me, even more important, is the simple fact that the hyphen is my most-hated punctuation mark, and I don’t want it cluttering up any part of my name. (I mean no disrespect to anyone who has hyphenated – this is purely about my personal feelings toward the punctuation mark itself. Now dashes are another story – I love dashes almost as much as I love semicolons – obviously! – but that’s not really relevant to the issue of my legal name.) A final issue is that Crawford is really my ex-husband’s last name, and hyphenating it with my new husband’s last name sort of yokes them together in a way that I’m not sure either of them would be entirely comfortable with.

See why I’m stressed?

Then, of course, there are professional considerations. I wrote under the byline Eve Kidd during college and just after, but for the bulk of my professional career, I have used all three names. I haven’t amassed a vast amount of name recognition or anything, but I hardly want to throw away what little I do have.

Finally, I really, really, really don’t want to go to the DMV. The last time I was at the DMV, I waited for about four hours while they called numbers in a maddeningly inexplicable fashion (3507 … 4216 … 2309 ...) and, in the meantime, got screamed at by a stranger with a fake arm about why DUI laws were bullshit. I don’t mind bureaucracy in general, but bureaucracy in New Orleans is a whole different story.

I guess the upshot of all of this is that I’ve made my decision, more or less, to keep my name the same as Ruby’s. It seems easier to just not share a name with the new baby from the start than it does to have to explain to Ruby why I have changed my last name to be different than hers and why she is now the only Crawford in a house full of Peytons.

But if anyone has any insight into some fabulous option that I’m overlooking, please let me know.

And at least we won’t have a DJ announcing after the ceremony that we are appearing for the first time as “Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So.” As far as I’m concerned, that’s just one fewer thing to have to worry about.

Wish me luck, y’all.

Reader Comments:
Old to new | New to old
Jan 6, 2012 07:42 am
 Posted by  ejjester

Congratulations, Ms KCP! You'll always be Eve to me.

Jan 6, 2012 09:10 am
 Posted by  no name

I suggest you change your name back to Eve Kidd. It's readily recognizable as the same person/writer as Eve Kidd Crawford---and over time, it will be easier to remember for your growing reader base. Your daughters can learn by your example: a girl takes her Daddy's name. So you will have your last name, and your daughters will each have their last name. Three different last names, but it reflects who each of you is; and it's logical!

Jan 6, 2012 01:03 pm
 Posted by  WHTREVOR

I agree. Change your name back to Eve Kidd. Ruby can pick her own name (or future husband's name if it still works that way then).

Jan 12, 2012 03:20 pm
 Posted by  eburns

I agree with the other posts change your name back to you maiden name. I did the same think you did first marriage I changed my name so I would have the same name as my children. Well end up to be one child. I got divorced and I changed my name back to my maiden name. I wished I had never changed it to begin with. I work in a field were name recognition, but my maiden name is easier for people to spell and say so it helped in that case. I think it will help you too. As far as different names in a family this is a fast changing modern world losts of families have multiple last names. It is not the name that makes the family but the love that binds it. Best of luck in the future.

May 17, 2012 02:04 am
 Posted by  Julie Wyatt, Los Angeles, CA

I'm late to this ball game as you're already married (and possibly, by NOW, already giving birth!), but I think Eve Crawford Peyton in your personal life (on paper records for school contacts and whatnot) and Eve Kidd Crawford remaining your nom de plume is the best deal. I mean, argh for Mr. C and Mr. P and all, but hey, you carried their babies, so they can suck it up (I think they'll get over it). AND that way, you'll be connected to EVERYONE you're legally/medically/domestically responsible for! YAY!

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About This Blog

Eve is further proof, if any is needed, that New Orleans girls can never escape the city. After living here since the age of 3 and graduating from Ben Franklin High School, Eve moved to Columbia, Mo., where she received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Missouri School of Journalism and became truly, unhealthily obsessed with grammar.

She had originally intended to strike out to New York City and work in the cutthroat magazine industry there, but after Katrina, Eve felt a strong pull to return home, to her roots, her family, her waterlogged and struggling city – and a much more forgiving work atmosphere that would allow her to skip a routine of everyday makeup and size 0 designer label business suits and enjoy the occasional cocktail or three with an absurdly fattening lunch. She moved back home in January 2008 and lives in Mid-City with her daughter, Ruby, 5; her 10-year-old stepson; and her husband, Robert Peyton. She and Robert are expecting their first child together, a daughter, in May 2012. 

In addition to serving as the editor of New Orleans Homes & Lifestyles and the managing editor of Louisiana Life and Acadiana Profile, Eve blogs about the joys and struggles of living in post-Katrina New Orleans, the unique problems and delights of raising a child in such a diverse and challenging city – including her experiences with the public education system – and her always entertaining and extremely colorful family.

Eve has won numerous writing awards, including the Pirates Alley Faulkner Society Gold Medal, the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence award for column-writing and Press Club of New Orleans awards for her Editor’s Note in New Orleans Homes & Lifestyles and for this blog.

She welcomes comments, advice, empty flattery, recipes, drink invitations and – most especially – grammatical or linguistic debates.

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