Mrs Greenfield?“

I sat there in the doctors office nonchalantly flicking through a three year old version of OK! Magazine. There was silence in the waiting room as I internally judged the person who had missed their appointment. The NHS is already stretched without selfish people not showing up.

“Mrs Greenfield?“

I think I like how my new name sounds. I’ve loved him for eight years, he’s my family. There’s something soft and lovely about the idea of sharing a surname, of seeing it one day on a birth certificate next to our baby’s name. It felt like choosing our family name, not just borrowing his. A shared identity.

“MRS GREENFIELD!“

Oh wait, that’s me! I leapt to my feet like I’d been caught napping at work and followed a bemused nurse through to my GP’s office. The very first time I’d claimed the name as my own.

Everyone should be free to choose to take their partner’s name or not; double barrel them; smash them together; invent a new name whole cloth. There’s no wrong decision. My father was less daddy-dearest and more Darth Vader. There is no love lost there. Why should I show loyalty to the man or the name? Mum ditched the name as soon as she remarried so “Jones” had come to feel like a grotesque family heirloom I never wanted but still had to hang in the hall. Why keep the name of a man who has lost the right to call me his daughter when I could have the name of a wonderful, open-hearted man who’d call me his partner? Greenfield had the promise of newformed family. Pastoral, wholesome, a name that sounds like it comes with a charming suburban house and sensible Corsa. Which it does.

In the run up to our wedding I felt enormous societal and internal pressure to make a decision, to decide whether I would keep the only name I’ve ever known, or be consumed by the, in my mind, suffocatingly traditional route of taking the name of a(nother) man. But then something changed my mind, my soon to be husband, Mat. I know that sounds like he convinced me to take his surname but it was the exact opposite. Over a bi-annual Buffy the Vampire Slayer re-watch and my bi-nightly debate with myself about last names, Mat uttered the magic words “when you’re ready, just let me know what our name is”. In that moment, I realised how much it mattered that it wasn’t simply assumed I would be the one to change, that he was willing to question his own identity so I didn’t feel alone in this decision.

Whatever you choose, it takes some getting used to. Like swapping comfy trainers, however battered, for stiff new ones. The first hint that the journey of changing my name wouldn’t be some romantic Richard Curtis-style movie moment was the paperwork. I wouldn’t emerge from a bridal chrysalis and simply unfurl my marital wings to find “Greenfield” embroidered in gossamer letters. Rather, I’d become a Greenfield by degrees: slow, tedious and fraught with obstacles. Three obstinate banks, a driving licence that took so long I thought it might arrive by carrier pigeon, and a work email address that left half the office convinced I was new—and yet, after all that, I didn’t feel any more like a Greenfield. Just considerably more frustrated.

The practical issues continued. I was known by everyone at work as CJ. When I first started at Catch22 as a Designer there was already a Courtney on that team, cue me having to use a nickname I had not heard since high school. My mum suggested my childhood nickname but ‘Coco Jones’ sounds more like someone who arrives to a meeting with a sparkly jacket giving jazz hands, not the probably still too young for the job Senior Designer. It didn’t quite have the gravitas to cover up the inferiority complex, so, CJ it was. Would that make me CG now? CJ is light on the tongue, it rolls; CG is a craggy rock. Would I spend the rest of my time there listening out for that jarring pair of letters every day? In the end, there were a few jokes but CJ emerged triumphant. Turns out people can adjust to name changes far easier than massive organisations like banks or the DVLA.

Could all this stress mean that I missed Jones? Not the questionable side of the family, God no, but the identity. Jones had survived twenty-one years of education, Cramlington village club nights, horrendous haircuts, and the indignity of dial-up internet. Jones was broken in, it carried the memory of embarrassing disasters and wonderful triumphs. Greenfield hadn’t earned any of that. It was like swapping your battered Vans for shiny brogues: objectively better made, but not yet ready to tear up the dancefloor in.

After going through a process as difficult as threading a needle in a hurricane wearing a blindfold, there is some advice I can share which will hopefully make the journey a little smoother, or at least not as peppered with potholes.

📝 Make the decision for yourself and no one else. If Mat had been in anyway pushy about me changing my name, my stobborness would have reigned supreme and I wouldn’t have done it at all.

📝 Order a minimum of two (preferably three) original marriage certificates. A surprising number of places require you to send them the originals. I spent most of July and August waiting for them to be returned before I could continue the process.

📝 Start with the easy stuff first – if you can change your Instagram name without crying then you’re on the way to dealing with the government.

📝 Always remember beurocracy moves as slowly as a turtle swimming with a parachute on. Don’t panic if you haven’t hear back within a week. Or a month.

📝 Brace yourselves for this one, millennials. At least one place will insist you talk to them on the phone. It goes against our anxious hearts but the boomer in charge will insist on hearing your croaky little unpractised voice.

📝 Get married as close to your passport expiring as possible. £90 to change your name on it is a grift. But, if you’re going on some amazing honeymoon, wait until after you get back, no one needs to be chasing up the Royal Mail while answering endless questions about your wedding.

📝 On that note, make sure you book your honeymoon under whatever name is on your passport. The temptation to pre-emptively book the first holiday of your married life as “Mr and Mrs X” might seem strong but you’ll not feel that way if you’re left on the runway at Heathrow.

📝 Make sure your work nickname isn’t contingent on your last name.  

Despite the obstacles (both bureaucratic and emotional) I couldn’t be happier to be a Greenfield. With time, I’m sure Greenfield will pick up the nicks and scratches of real life—the burnt dinners, the dances in the kitchen, the Park and Rec marathons—that make a name feel lived in. After all, new trainers become old the more you walk in them.

About the Author

Courtney Greenfield is Head of Creative at London-based social business Catch22. This is the official way of saying she’s paid to make things look cool and passionately argue about fonts. By day, she’s drawing, animating or (according to her family) “colouring things in”. By night, she’s stargazing: mentally preparing for her future role on the next Artemis mission (NASA are yet to return her calls). That, or watching Buffy.