names

In august I'm going to undergo a transplant of sorts; I'm going to get my last name removed and "Lev" attached. In anticipation of this event, I started a gmail account with my new last name. Just now when I was signing in I wrote it out and forgot everything else. Like the rest of my name. Like the password I use for everything. What's in a name, anyway?

Garnett is not a family name. My parents chose it. They didn't like their last names and they picked a new family name. On the other hand, family name=name for the family, which means that you should be able to use whatever name you want as long as your family wants to use it, which makes the first sentence in this paragraph null and void. It still isn't a very mainstream thing to do and I didn't know that this was in any way odd until seventh grade, when I was working on a "family tree" assignment. Lo and behold, I was the only one whose last name started with my parents.

As free and easy and my parents were about names, I'm not. I am excited and proud to take Lev's name, and I wouldn't want any other.

And now a gratuitous photo of my two most favorite people in the entire world. At a mini-car rally. Yes, we did this.