what's in a (last) name?

Had a brief but lovely visit from my friend Katalin. She had never heard the story of how I came by the name Wilde. I'll recount it here for the record.

D. and I had wanted to have the same last name when we got married. I didn't want his, and didn't want him to take mine, necessarily. My first idea was to make a new last name out of our last names: Ward and Fuller. The best I came up with was Fulward (too stuffy!) and Wafful (too too silly). We rented a movie about Oscar Wilde, and when I woke up in the morning, I turned to him and said "Wilde!" he replied "Wilde... hmmm" and that was that.

She told me she knew a couple that changed their last names to Pajama. I just about fell out laughing, it was so cute. Then she asked if I would changing my name after the divorce, and I said no. Two reasons:

1. My son's last name is Wilde
2. When I changed my name to Wilde, there was none of this "oh yeah, my last name isn't Fuller anymore" it fit me so well, it seemed natural. It still suits me, so I'm keeping it. Besides, it was MY idea anyway ;)

I said that if I (somehow!) got married again, I would probably hyphenate my last name, but would have to use XXX-Wilde instead of Wilde-XXX, because Wilde-anything would sound funny. She said "yeah, like Pajama". And I said "well, hell, I would make an exception for Wilde-Pajama"

ha! :)