wedding road trip

Day 1: What’s in a Name?

Driving for eight hours straight is no problem, especially when you get to play on “The Google” all day like I did. Chris, however, was seriously wiped as we rolled into Elmira, Oregon, home of my Uncle Julian and Aunt Linda. Julian is the middle child (solidarity!) of three boys, one of which is my father. He wasn’t actually born with the name Julian, deciding to change it when he realized that Ronald wasn’t his thing. He’s totally a Julian in every way… whatever that means.

Which brings me to a subject that has been up for serious discussion between Chris and me: our future last name. As we see it, we have six options:

1. Keep our own individual last names.
2. I take his last name.
3. He takes my last name.
4. We come up with our own last name.
5. We hyphenate our last names.
6. We drop last names altogether and become Chris and Jaime, much like the Artist Formerly Known as Prince and Also as a Really Screwed Up Symbol.

1. The most likely. Yes, if we have kids it will be confusing. But my kids will also have six grandparents- that’s pretty confusing too. As Phil Collins would say “It’s a Land of Confusion.” They’ll get over it. (Did I really just quote Phil Collins?)

2. Pretty much off the table. I like my last name… Jaime Case sounds like a super spy with a secret underground mission. I’m also a writer, and people know me by Jaime Case. Given that I’ve written several riveting pet insurance blogs recently, I really want people to be able to find my work by my given name.

3. Off the table… for now- but I’m working on it. I think Chris Case sounds great, but then he reminded me that “Chris Case makes you jump jump.” If you’re too young to understand that reference, I hate you.

4. This one intrigues me. A friend of mine actually has a made up last name and it rocks. We’ve discussed taking the last names of our grandparents and even of our friend Deirdre, who gave up the coolest maiden name in history (Chris Coulter…. can you dig it? I can.)

5. Not gonna happen. I like my first name, but not that much. Chris likes this option because he thinks it makes him sound like a Brazilian soccer star.

6. Also not gonna happen. Jaime Case-Hodges sounds like I have a disease. For example, “Poor Jaime, she has a case of the Hodges.”

So for us, changing our names (or at least changing mine) is not as easy as Ronald to Julian. We’ve both lived with our last names for more than thirty years and neither of us is eager to give them up.

I foresee a mud wrestling match.