Oh, what do do about a surname? Without a baby, it's simple: Callie keeps hers, Nathan keeps his, and nobody belongs to anybody else. But then comes along the little cabbage! Which family name does s/he get?? We're uncomfortable with the prevailing cultural norm of patrilineal dominance.
But, since we feel the desire to be a family unit, we should share a surname. Let’s be honest though: Brüning or Huel or Brauel-Huening is just no fun. And even if we hyphenated, what happens if the little one meets and marries somebody else with a hyphenated name? What then?? Would that be four surnames? Gets out of hand, fast.
So we decided to make up a new surname: new family, new name. We’ve talked with friends who’ve changed their names, we've researched the origins of our names, and spitballed some crazy ideas but nothing has quite stuck. Here are some of the ideas we’ve thought of:
Both of our surnames hail from different regions of Germany and can be found named as villages a few hours' journey apart. We toyed with the idea of finding that area exactly in between and picking the name of the town there but unfortunately it’s crazy syllables long! And even harder to pronounce than our names already are. Perhaps there are some other German words that would do the trick?
The use of family / surnames was actually not common before the 1600s in Europe. Surnames may have originated from personal characteristics, locations, events, or from family associations, and mainly existed to tell one Leonardo from another ("Which Leonardo? You know, the one from Vinci").
In fact, over half of all English surnames used today are derived from the names of places where people lived. This type is known as a locative surname. For example, a man called John who lived near the marsh might be known as John Marsh. We are drawn to this last category of surnames and have toyed with the idea of names like “Meadows” or “Creekside.”
Of course, the "son of" construction, of course, is quite common and extensive: Robertson, Johnson, Peterson, Davidson (in fact, in some Nordic countries, that's still the default, and one's surname changes dynamically). In Nathan's case, Huening most probably means “son of Hüno.” Alternatively, one's surname could reflect an occupation, such as “Smith”, "Cooper", "Shearer", "Miller", "Weaver", "Cartwright", "Kellogg", "Butler", "Franklin", etc.
Our values have guided most of our family decisions to date… building a tiny home, building a tiny community, stewardship and preservation of the 30 acres we live on. Maybe our last name could be a reminder to our family of what we stand for or what we aspire to stand for? Makepeace, One Love, Tinymaker, Enlightenment?
We could use more smiles in this world. What if every time you said our last name it made you smile? That wouldn’t be the worst outcome...
