My great-grandfather, whose surname was Olynyk, came to the US via Ukraine sometime in his ’20s. He was a man who could tell a story with fantastical exaggeration, so much so that he claimed that he changed our family surname from “Olynyk” to “Lane” due to his run from the law in Ukraine.
We never did find out what the crime was. The truth is probably closer to his desire to blend into American culture. He might have read it on a street sign and decided it was simple and easy to pronounce, but the former is better lore.
Not only is my last name entirely made up, plucked from the imagination of a man fleeing from a former life, but it feels disconnected from any ancestry. My father never had a relationship with his dad, my grandfather, and we come from a small estranged family in general.
So here I am, stuck with “Lane,” a name that holds no real meaning to me or my family. With my wedding soon approaching, I must decide if I will give that last name up entirely.
My wedding is a chance for change
In six months, I’ll be married. I always imagined this could be my excuse to discard my last name. I daydreamed of something romantic, something that could fit into my journalism career and make me stand out. Something where I could slough off “Lane” and adopt a new name and beginning.
Unfortunately, Miles, my lovely fiancé’s surname, has a similar broken lineage. With descendants from Syria and Turkey, how did he end up with a surname like “MacClure?”
Through a string of events, his dad was given the last name by a stepfather, who passed this name on to Miles. In a similar vein to mine, it’s sort of made up. It has no family heritage and no resemblance to where his family comes from.
Neither of us is interested in taking each other’s names. He hates his last name, and I find mine painfully boring, so what now?
By getting married, we have some options
We floated the idea of taking his mom’s surname — Alwan — from her Turkish father. My mom is from Austria, but her maiden name — Windisch — is a mouthful and easily mispronounced.
We could make up our own name. In fact, if you Google “endangered last names,” there’s an entire list of last names with fewer than 20 bearers.
Of course, we could dig further into family history and find something exciting, making it our own.
We could also just stick with what we have. We both have careers, bank accounts, memberships, paperwork, etc., tied to our names. Is all of this worth the hassle? Miles says, “No,” but I can’t help but think this is finally my chance.
It feels strange for me to bring a future child into the world and attach a hyphenated surname of not just one but two names that don’t hold any symbolism. Why should “MacClure” and “Lane” be the ball and chain our nonexistent children have to carry around for the rest of their lives?
With busy lives, who knows what the outcome will be
Friends have told me that keeping our names could be a way to reclaim them. We are starting our own future together, and it could be special to breathe new life into them. Others have said I’m thinking about it too much. It’s just a name.
But names are who we are. In his book “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” Dale Carnegie wrote, “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
They should bring us pride — and remind us of our bloodline and the future that follows.
For now, our surname hangs in limbo. With the panic of planning a wedding alone, I’ll probably let this slip by. Suddenly, it’ll be six months from now, and I’ll shrug and surrender to keeping “Lane.” A name that’s like a thorn in my side, a millstone around my neck, a cold I can’t shake, but hey, at least it’s mine.
