Losing maiden name like losing limb

Certain things come much easier to 22-year-old girls than 34-year-old women. Free drinks, Chinese splits and STDs are but a few. I'm referring, however, to something that strictly applies to brides. A younger bride may think of it as a simple name change. I, on the other hand, have come to recognize it as name amputation.

My wedding is three months away. Like most grooms, my fiance expects me to chop my name in half and prosthetically attach his to it. As someone who has had the same last name through seven presidents, six beloved dogs and five states of residency, I prefer otherwise. I prefer to do what newlywed men have done with their names for centuries. Not a damn thing.

A younger bride might feel differently.

I can't imagine it's very difficult for a fresh-out-of-the-dorms girl to bid farewell to the part of her name she still has trouble remembering some Saturday nights. The name those frat guys didn't stick around long enough to learn. And, it makes perfect sense. Anyone getting hitched in their early 20s probably practiced their married signature far more than they practiced their independence.

I hail from Utah, where it isn't unusual for young women to toss a bouquet shortly after tossing a high school graduation cap. My best friends all donned the big white dress years before I wore my big black college graduation gown. While they got going with the baby making and pie baking, I got going in the industry of news breaking. They watched me struggle to make rent. I watched them struggle to execute a timeout. You get the picture.

It's safe to say I had a more difficult time parting with each of their maiden names than they did. I squeezed them in on birthday cards and used them when calling their jobs. You could argue I did it because I preferred the single versions of my friends better, and you would be absolutely right in doing so. But I also didn't want them to lose the pre-vows part of themselves. The part that made them award-worthy wingwomen who didn't have to call home for permission to stay out late and enjoyed nothing more than the feeling of a bar sticking to the soles of their stilettos. Oh yes, and the part that made them beautiful individuals.

Age aside, the name amputation might as well wipe out the part of me that existed 34 years before I decided to tie the knot.

Not only is it the same name that graced my first-ever byline and the name my mortgage was issued to, but let's be honest. It's the same name that, pronunciation wise, has always been my first name's saving grace.

When I go to a restaurant and the friendly face behind the podium asks what name to call when my table's ready, my last name comes flying to the rescue. When my substitute teachers reached my name on the roll call, my last name wiped the sweat off their brows. Without my last name, my first name would feel as misplaced as I would without my fiance.

Speaking of the lucky guy, I happen to love his surname. This is by no means a Julia Gulia crisis. It's an I-love-you-but-I-love-me-too dilemma. He feels passionately about the amputation. Until "Garza" suffers severe frostbite or gets stuck between two rocks while mountain climbing and later has a movie made about it, I'll see no need to amputate.

I can appreciate his position, especially if baby making lies in our future (let's not hold our breath on the pie baking). But, why does taking his name mean the institution of marriage gets to jack mine?

Without burning any bras, I'd like to note that the year is 2011. A great start to a marriage no longer consists of the groom safely carrying the bride over the threshold. My fiance asked my father for my hand in marriage, but I don't remember anyone trading cows or signing over the deed to a farm. Likewise, no one will dare pronounce us "man and wife" on our wedding day.

That's why we've decided to avoid the whole bloody mess of the name amputation and make a compromise instead. It's called a hyphen, folks. It's the solution a couple comes to when no one's willing to stop pulling on their end of the name tug of war.

There will be no chopping my name in half because I refuse to chop myself in half. Sure, it may tack approximately 1.5 seconds onto my already illegible signature, but I don't mind. He's happy and I'm happy. In 2011, that's called a great start to a marriage.

Contact columnist Xazmin Garza at xgarza@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0477. Follow her on Twitter at @startswithanx.