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Names have always fascinated me. I can't really express how, I'm just really curious about what people call each other, what people call themselves, and why. For example, I call myself Andrew; not just when I introduce myself, but in my inner monologue and whenever I think about myself -- I'm Andrew. Some people, particularly family, call me Andy; it's what I was called as a kid, and part of my thinks that my shift to Andrew was a means for me to move away from "childish things." Not that I dislike the name Andy; sometimes it irritates me when certain people call me by it, but only because I think of it as a rather familiar name, reserved for family and particularly intimate friends. I loath the name Drew. I don't really know why. I'm decidedly not Drew, and I've actually taken offense at being called by Drew, like a knee-jerk reaction.

Because of all the above, I'm always interested in what people call themselves. ( Here I digress about given names. )

Anyways, I've gone off on a tangent. I meant to talk about Surnames, which now have less and once had more meaning than given names. "Portner" allegedly comes from a German word for a gate guard, or something. It was a profession, like weaver, smith, potter. ( And here I go off about surnames. )

But here I get to my point. See, I'm a traditional sort of guy, and traditionally when a guy and girl gets married, she would take his surname. Now, this all comes from a long line of patriarchal societies, where the wife would literally join her husband's family, and there were dowry and lines of succession and heirs to determine and all that. If it's your thing, you're free to rage about the injustice of it all. For me, I've always been kind of jealous of girls for having the opportunity to change their names and, in a real way, redefine themselves. As a man in our society, traditionally speaking of course, that's not an option for me. I will ever and always be Andrew Portner, for better or for worse. Not that I'm particularly looking to ditch my name -- I love the family it connects me to and, if nothing else, I have the utmost admiration for my father. I'm just saying, girls can change their names and boys can't. Traditionally.

Now, not everyone it traditional. I'd say 'particularly these days,' but I imagine there were non-traditional people in times gone by; I don't think society can survive without them, really. But these days, not only could I go through the paperwork and get my name legally changed, but a good handful of couples (I don't think they're a majority yet, or necessarily a significant portion, but I don't know numbers, either) are toying with their surnames when they get married. I've never been a fan of hyphenating surnames -- it's just not aesthetically pleasing to me -- but apparently some people have taken to mashing their surnames together Smith and Johnson become 'Smithson' or whatever), or forming their name wholecloth (presumably to signify something particularly important to the both of them). And it only stands to reason that their are men out there taking their wives' surnames.

So, I'm curious what you all think of this. At least in theory -- like I said, I don't think any of this is a particularly common practice yet. So, are people who mash their names together just being silly? Are couples who make up a new surname (or take someone else's entirely) being presumptuous? Is a man who takes his wife's name particularly weak, or she particularly hard-lined feminist? Should we all just stick to the traditional way of taking the man's name, because it makes sense? How much do you really hate hyphenated surnames?

I was going to put up a poll to make it easy on you all, but I couldn't find a tractable way to phrase the question(s). So, please tell me what you're thinking in a comment. Especially if you've made it through all my rambling, as I don't expect many will.

A few days ago I was looking around on MySpace and wandered over to my brother's page. He has me listed under Heros, with the parenthetical, "who's a lot more awesome than he probably thinks."

It made me smile.

Tonight was really very cool. It was Thanksgiving with my dad's side of the family, which is novel for me in a lot of ways. My dad's side of the family, for the most part, is West Coast; they've diffused elsewhere in recent years, but for the most part, West Coast. My mom's side of the family is East Coast. Almost my entire life has been spent on the East Coast, with my mom's side of the family, and so I'm very familiar with them. My mom's side is a slightly younger family than my dad's side, too; where me and my sister are the oldest grandkids on my mom's side by several years, we're middling on my dad's side. Lots of my California Cousins are my age, if not a few years older than me.

I love my mom's side of the family. I really like my dad's side of the family, but I've never spent a lot of time with them; I don't really know them much at all. But I've always wanted to. Thinking about it, it's an odd sort of thing, this affection for people I hardly know. -laughs- But that's another story.

Tonight was great. Everyone was invited to come over at 1:00-ish, but Katie, my aunt, and her little girl Samy (age 11 these days!) came over early to help set up. Samy is one of the California cousins I know better than others, at least in part because (1) she plays with my little siblings when we visit, (2) I'm generally good with kids, and (3) kids don't intimidate me the way that peers do (true story). It was good to see her, and she's really mellowed and matured since she was younger (always a cute kid, she used to be such a brat sometimes). Later on my other cousins came; aunts and uncles in attendance included Mike, Paul, Chris, Jeannie, John. I got to sit and talk with Freddy (who's nearly exactly my age) for a long while about computers (my Major) and English (his major), which was really cool. I also talked with my cousin Kim (she just turned 24) about her nursing school stuff, which was nice. I talked a little bit with Dianna, and then some with Julie, and it was just really good. Like, I kinda know these people, but I don't, but I really care for them either way. I really wish I could spend more time with them; maybe I will in my next couple of years out here. And maybe we'll be able to keep in better touch; Freddy and I exchanged email addresses already.

My uncle John enjoyed the vast array of wines we had and proceeded, more and more as the night went on, to make a spectacle of himself. At first, me and a few other uncles/cousins had a chat with him about government and taxes and politics when he was still mostly-sober. Then he started doing card tricks after he'd been drinking for a while. A bit later, too drunk to walk very well without help (and he'd recently hurt his knee in a surfing accident), he took me for a tour of my grandparents back yard, telling me stories about when they planted the different trees back there, and put in the brick walkway one weekend when his parents were gone, and re-seeded the backyard for my grandpa; he was thoroughly toasted, but it was still really cool. Then he went off the deep end and proceeded to tell us about memoirs he his in the wall and a man who tried to rob him once and went through secret passageway and hid under a car; I was in stitches the whole time, it was great.

I love my family. I really, really do.

Rachel, my cousin who just turned 21 today, just called to say 'thank you' for the Large Basket O'Chocolate(tm) that I sent her.
-smiles- I love Rachel.

So, yeah, things have happened in the past while. Things which I've wanted to make a note of, but I haven't yet. And now I'm just really exhausted, but I feel I'm running out of time in all things, and if I don't at least note these things, I'll never get them down at all.

( I'm sure these are in some order, but I couldn't say what. )