What’s in a name – or no longer in a name

Once upon a time, over a decade ago before John and I were married, I had a nuisance of a name. I should have kept my first married name, with the last name of “Wood”, which was simple, easy to spell, and matched my kids’ last name. But I had various boyfriends and women-empowerment girlfriends who all thought that was a bad idea; I shouldn’t be clinging to the past.

So, unable to give my daughter my last name, I took her middle name for my last name. Problem was, it wasn’t a name anyone expected to be a last name, so I got called “Elaine” a lot. Things were alphabetized under my first name or middle name rather than my last name. It was a total pain. I was, therefore, quite happy to take on John’s last name. Nice, simple, recognizable. I naively figured I’d keep “Elaine” as my second middle name.

When you change your name due to marriage, you’re supposed to change your social security card first, and your driver’s license later, after you have possession of your new social security card. Which I did.

In due time, my new social security card arrived, with both middle names, and John’s last name at the end. Perfect. Then I went to the motor vehicles office and they weren’t buying it. They didn’t care what the Social Security Administration let me do. They were not going to let me keep my previous last name as a second middle name and simply append a new last name. A variety of convoluted and confusing events followed, which culminated in the abandonment of my first middle name. My initials, which had briefly been KMES, became KES.

It’s a good thing we didn’t attempt to go on our overseas honeymoon until several months after the wedding, because it took that long to get it sorted out, and a new passport issued.

I assume I also replaced my 4-name social security card with a new 3-name card, but I haven’t been able to find it for a few years, so who knows. At any rate, my license and passport confirm – one middle name only.

Meanwhile, during that very brief moment just about exactly 10 years ago, when I thought I had a first name, two middle names, and John’s last name, I signed up for a gmail account. The first 3 letters of the email are k-m-e and then my last name. Simple enough.

Turns out everyone reads that as k-me, and then they laugh because they think I inserted the word “me” for myself, in between my first initial and my last name, which sort of sounds like something a self-absorbed 4-year-old would do. There’s no point in trying to explain that in reality the “M” is the last remaining vestigial from a middle name I once owned. I just dig myself deeper.

Which is my very long way of telling you all, to celebrate my 10th anniversary, and my 50-mumble-mumble birthday, I have a new email. Which I’m not actually going to post on this blog for fear of bots, but I can tell you it’s my firstname.middlename.lastname at gmail.com. (Assuming you actually followed that whole story and are clear what my name even is.) Or you can continue to use the kme email, because I don’t suppose it’s going away anytime soon.

By the way, here’s a piece of trivia for you. If you have a gmail with one or more periods prior to the @ symbol, the periods are optional. Meaning, you can email me at:

firstname.middlename.lastname@gmail.com or firstnamemiddlename.lastname@gmail.com or firstnamemiddlenamelastname@gmail.com.

They all work. I suppose you could even use firstname.middlenamelastname@gmail.com, but that would just look weird.