A rose

My middle name is the one that friends and family use, but my first name appears on all legal and formal documents. It gets confusing, fast. And, since I've been married, there's also the confusion as to which last name I'm going to use. Officially, it's my maiden name. But I use my husband's name when making reservations for the two of us, or, occasionally, in social situations, to simplify the identification of who-goes-with-who that people do at parties. (I also use my husband's name with my in-laws, who have never gotten used to the idea that a woman could keep her own name after marriage.) Mail from old-fashioned friends or from my husband's friends continues to get addressed in his last name, whereas from my friends or coworkers it comes in my maiden name. It's gotten so that even I am confused as to what my "real" name is.

In law school one of my recently-married friends said that she changed her name so that she and her husband would feel more like a family. This comment has stayed with me all of these years. Lately, I've been thinking more and more about changing my name. My husband is indifferent - when we were first married, he wanted me to, but he's become very sympathetic to the notion that all of my accomplishments were done under my maiden name. In addition, he is white and I am not, and we both think that it might be strange for people to meet a "Jane Smith" who looks like me. I'd like to keep my maiden name as a middle name, but then I would have to drop my unused first name, or else have four separate parts to my name, both of which are unacceptable options. Even though I don't use my first name, and have never used it, it's such a part of me that I can't let it go.

So - if I have no name, do I still exist?