What’s in a name?

The idea began when I was a new bride. I was filling in information on an envelope for sending film in for processing. As I started to spell out my husband’s name, I realized I would be the one picking up the film. I wrote in my first name instead. I haven’t been Mrs. M.J. Hershberger since.
After encouraging my husband to earn his degree, I went back for mine. I was very aware of the sacrifices my husband and children made while I studied. However, as I filled out the forms for my diploma, I wanted to recognize the role my parents played in m education. So my diploma declares that Joan Hibbard Hershberger has satisfied requirements for graduation.
I didn’t hyphenate our names. I guess because I never could figure out what happens to the children’s names. If the couple’s hyphenated last name is given to the children, would that name be hyphenated to their future spouse’s?

My mother used her maiden name “Waight” as a middle name. If she had hyphenated that name with my father’s name and passed it along to me, I would have been Joan Marie Waight-Hibbard-Hershberger.
It seems reasonable to me that both sets of grandparents be recognized that way. They all effected my formative years. Grandma Hibbard sewed my clothes and Grandma Waight mended them. Every Sunday afternoon for years we played in the yard while Grandpa Hibbard sat in his lounge chair watching ball games with his dad. Every Sunday evening we watched Lassie and Disney while Grandpa Waight slept in his lounger chair.
So both sets should be acknowledge which make my initials J.M.W.H.H.
But wait, I still remember the thrill of being 12 years old and seeing a family genealogy that went back to the years of the Pilgrims and the Puritans. My mother’s mother was a direct descendant of Roger Williams; founder of the first American colony with freedom of worship.
We all knew that my grandmother Hibbard was proud to have been a Holt. She always signed her name Harriet Holt Hibbard and her father is the only great-grandparent that I knew.

So one day I decided if Grandma Hibbard always initialed herself as H.H.H. I ought to recognized her parents’ contribution to my life as well.
Which all means that before I ever married I was a hyphenated J.M.W.W.H.H.: Joan Marie Williams-Waight-Holt-Hibbard.

I believe in being fair. My husband’s family s just as proud of their ancestry. We have three books of genealogies from his family gracing our bookshelves. His maternal ancestors deserve as much recognition as mine. So I married (unbeknownst to him) Mr. Mishler-Detwiler-Yoder-Hershberger.
I figured all that out during my liberating years at college when I was expected to learn to think for myself.
So when one of my children asked, “What’s your real name, Mommy?”
I replied, “Joan Marie Williams-Waight-Holt-Hibbard-Mishler-Detwiler-Yoder-Hershberger.”

That child was impressed.
I’m not so sure that it will be acceptable a a byline for this column so I remain respectfully yours, Joan Hershberger.


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