The Name Game

Soon it will be almost a year since I began the tedious and frustrating, yet totally worth it, process of legally changing my entire name. It's funny to me how, just a few months later, it seems like my name has always been as it is, and an issue that bothered me greatly for at least 30 years is barely even a memory.

A few people have asked me along the way, "Why?" So, here it is.

While my mother was still doped up on anesthesia after giving birth to me, my "alleged father" named me Abigail, a name that was never discussed or agreed upon, From the time I was old enough to express an opinion, I have always detested being called by that name, especially when others presumed to shorten it to Abby. By the time I was 15, I had shortened it to Gail, and only a few forgetful (and perhaps inconsiderate) relatives continued to insist on using it. I have no employment history, no credit history, no IRS history, etc. under my former full first name.

Now flash forward to 2001-2002 when, thanks to Osama Bin A-Hole, the Patriot Act happens and suddenly all your identification documents are scrutinized more closely, and I start getting flack about the name I use not matching the name on my documents - even though it is a shortened version of that name, but I managed to circumvent the flack and continued using Gail until last October, when John and I started buying a house together. The mortgage company INSISTED not only on typing my full first name into the document over 30 times, but that I SIGN my full first name over 30 times, rather than signing my usual signature which is Gail. I took great exception to that and vowed a personal vendetta against the document preparation agent that I would get my legal name change and force her, personally, to retype the mortgage documents, using the name I choose. So for my birthday present, John pledged the money to cover the costs of filing my name change petition -- although not enough to do it through an attorney so I would also get a learning experience, and I got started.

As I was navigating the legal system, I noticed it was going to cost me the same filing fee to change 3 letters off of my first name as it would to change my entire name. And well, since Christy got married 3 years ago and her last name changed, I haven't really been too keen on continuing to share a last name with my ex, so I decided to change the last name. Of course, I don't like my "alleged father" well enough to want to share his last name again (not that I was ever happy having it in the first place); I'm not sharing John's unless we get married and I'm not really interested in doing that, so I took my Nannie's (paternal grandmother) maiden name, McCall.

Finally, while I was on a roll of changing names, may as well get the biggest bang for my buck, so I gave myself a bigger, better middle name by adding Nannie's middle name to my own (Laurie + Lynn) and discarding a couple of letters.


And there you have it...how Abigail Lynn Rudloff became Gail Laurilyn McCall and lived happily ever after.