After an article bearing my sons’ surnames was published in the September Bulletwin, I was approached to write about why Alex and Simon don’t share the same last name.  Let me begin by getting right to the point: My father died when I was a baby, my only uncle committed suicide when I was eight, my mother died when I was twenty, and I have no brothers and sisters.  Sadly, sharing this blunt personal information tends to be the only way I am able to justify myself amongst strangers and friends alike for my choice to bestow different surnames on my children.  To carry on my nearly extinct family name, in a nutshell, is the reason why we did it.

When my husband and I first discovered we were pregnant, it was a given that our child would carry my surname, given the tragic circumstances outlined above.  Trevor had two brothers, one of whom already had a child with his last name, and I, well, I was the only Teschow in all of Canada.  So with good reason, we elected to name our child—should we ever have one—after my family.  We also agreed in theory that if we ever had a second child, we would not be bound by social conventions, and would happily name him or her after my husband’s family.  We were not fond of hyphenated names (I once had a “Ruffle-McDonald” in my grade two class, and often lay awake at night wondering what horrors would result when he married a “Smith-Jones” twenty years hence and fathered a child by her…), and it didn’t bother us that our children would bear different last names.  When we discovered we were having twins, this agreement developed some interesting ramifications. 

After a short discussion on the pros and cons of parenting twins with different surnames (I say short, because as non-parents, we were totally clue-less about anything to do with parenting twins or anything else, regardless of their names!), we decided to carry on with our original plan:  Hence, Twin A (Alex) would be a Teschow, and Twin B (Simon) would be an Ormerod (my husband’s last name).

Other than a peculiarly and perhaps somewhat disgruntled look when we mentioned this arrangement to my in-laws, we really weren’t subject to any judgement pre-natally.  Of course, this was likely due to the fact that no one actually knew of our brilliant plan; really, it isn’t the type of thing that tends to come up in casual conversation!  No, for 37 weeks, we were blissfully ignorant of the “issues” that would arise around our naming arrangement.  Then came the big event:  Birthday.

As those of you who are already parents know, much of your time in hospital is spent filling out forms.  The more babies, the more forms.  Sleep deprived and adrenaline-driven, my husband sat in the chair in my hospital room and filled out birth registration and various other application forms while I fed our two little darlings.  Alexander Isaac Teschow, Simon Peter Ormerod, he must have written those two names 50 times in three days!  Anyway, the forms were finally filled in, mailed off, out of sight and out of mind.

A few weeks later we got a call from the birth registry office.  “Yes, hello?” Inquired the young man’s voice on the phone, “I see you have twins here.  My forms show one’s surname is Teschow, the other Ormerod.”  Slight pause. 

“Yes, that’s correct.”  I say firmly.

“Okee-dokey, just checking”.  I must give the young man credit; he was a cool as can be, despite whatever he was thinking at his little desk in some burocrat’s office somewhere in paper-pushing heaven!

Since then, we have actually gotten surprisingly few comments from the population at large.  I can’t figure out if this is because they see—as we do—that there is no big deal here.  Or perhaps when this information comes up in conversation, our manner is so matter-of-fact, that people don’t dare to say what they really think.  Behind our backs, perhaps, it’s a different story.

 I remember the day I got a call from a church friend, who had been working with a rather conservative member of the congregation on the updated church directory.  Embarrassed that she was unable to tell from the photo who was Alex and who was Simon, she had called my friend for help with the names.  When my friend gleefully spelled the complete name of each child for her, including the different surnames (she likes to stir the pot a bit, this particular friend of mine), the church lady lost it!  She just couldn’t handle this kind of post-modernism.  Married couples who kept their individual surnames she could tolerate, but a child without his father’s name was too much for her.  Coupled with the fact that one twin had and one twin hadn’t, the information was more than her traditional mind could process.  My friend was delighted to immediately phone and share with me our sister’s completely unchristian reaction, which I will not reprint here!

The other occasion I recall marvelling at the idiosyncrasies of the average citizen’s mind was when a colleague, who knew that Alex and Simon where identical, wondered aloud over lunch one day, “What about when they go to school?”  I had to ask for clarification.  “Well,” she continued, “How will the teachers and other kids know they are brothers?”  I guess she didn’t think the fact that they look exactly the same would be a dead give-away!!!

Strangely, as soon as I explain our reasoning behind naming our first-born Teschow, that is, to carry on a dying family name, I seem to be excused in the eyes of many people.  And in a sense, this is a relief.  More troubling, however, is the fact that we should need to explain ourselves at all when it comes to our children’s names.  May we not name our little ones as we choose?  Already as parents, our discipline, dress and other parenting habits are questioned at every turn by the experts that surround us.  Is the naming of our children—even the surname—not the one thing that remains sacred? 

Regardless of your opinion, dear reader, I hope you will celebrate with me my joy at having two children to carry on my family, regardless of name!

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