Liam,
So, I imagine that by the time you read this, I'll have already talked to you about your last name. In fact, based on how often I've been explaining it to people lately, I am quite confident that it's something you're going to be asked about quite a lot.
In any case, I feel inspired to talk about it to you here. And who knows, maybe I'll do a better job explaining it here than I ever did in person!
As a general rule, when a man and woman are married, the woman gives up her last name and takes the last name of her husband. Then, any children who are born also take the last name of the husband. In some cases, the wife will keep her last name or will hyphenate it. For example, if your mother had decided to hyphenate, her last name would have been Mimikos-Godfrey. Yeah, that would have been a long one. When the mother hyphenates, the children usually get the hyphenated last name.
Obviously, with you, we didn't go with any of those options. When we married, your mother kept her last name. This was partially because she had built up a professional identity as Dr. Christina Mimikos. It was also partially because she really likes her name and the family that it represents. As you've met the Mimikos family by now, I am sure that you also like them.
When we got married, we didn't have any sort of discussion about what last name any children would have. That's because we didn't plan on having children. Your mother didn't have any idea at that point that this would change and that she would make me the luckiest man in the world for the second time (once when she married me, and then when you were born!)
After we decided that we wanted to bring a child into the world, we began to discuss your last name. Should we hyphenate? Should you be a Godfrey? Should you be a Mimikos?
It did not take long for me to realize that you should definitely be a Mimikos. As I mentioned before, it is an incredible family, and one that I am proud and happy to have become a part of. Also, despite the size of the family, there is only one boy with the last name Mimikos who could potentially pass on the name to another generation. It felt sad to me that such a great family would lose its name like that, and I knew that I would be proud to have my son carry on the name into the future.
To say the least, this decision was met with happiness by your mother and concern by everyone else in the world. Everyone who objected basically had the same concerns at the end of the day. It wasn't traditional. It wasn't done. It wasn't normal.
And they're right. I'm sure that we're not the ONLY family to ever do this, but it's rare enough that I haven't ever met anyone else who has done it.
I've already explained why I wanted you to be a Mimikos, But were those reasons really justification enough to buck such a long-standing tradition?
Yes. Yes, they were. But even more so when you consider the reason for the tradition.
Why do women take their husbands names? It dates back to a time when women weren't allowed to own property. They weren't allowed to vote. For all intents and purposes, they were the property of their husbands and the men of their husband's family. If the husband passed away, in most cases, the wife did not gain the property that he owned. She would simply be allowed to live out her life on the property and then all of it would pass to any male children or back to the closest male in the husband's family.
Sounds pretty ridiculous, doesn't it? It's a terrible time in the past, and one that still has repercussions in today's world. Women have harder times breaking into traditionally male careers (your Mom has stories about becoming a surgeon). Women make less money for doing the same jobs that men do. I could go on, but that's not what this post is really about.
What this post IS about is telling you that sometimes the right thing to do is to break tradition. Sometimes, without even realizing it, by continuing to follow a tradition, we are supporting something wrong. Now, I'm not saying that women who take their husband's names are giving up their rights to do so. I'm just saying that the tradition has no merit to me.
Liam, you are going to grow up in this world as a white male. Like me, you basically won the genetic lottery. Unless things have changed drastically by the time you read this (and, sadly, I know they haven't), you will walk through life with all sorts of privileges that women and people of other ethnic origins do not have. Oftentimes, like with this whole naming thing, they are hidden and invisible. These privileges don't make us bad people. They are just the realities of the world.
I hope that you'll take a little inspiration from your name and what it means. I hope that, in your life, you'll keep an open eye for things like this and do the right thing.
Your name is a little opportunity to talk about important things.
Your name represents a wonderful and loving family with deep roots.
Your name displays my love for the most loving, powerful, and gifted woman I have ever met.
Wear it with pride.
