On Becoming Carol Ascher

Abstract

My aunt told me an old Jewish story when I changed my last Each person has three names, she said. first is given by one's parents, who dream of their child's happy future. The second is the name used when people call one an ugly or embarrassing The third is the name one chooses oneself: the important name. For most women, that third name has long been the name of the husband who, like a prince, was supposed to save them. My married name, Lopate, had held that promise once. Yet there came a time, after ten years of no longer being married (coinciding with nearly as many years of being a feminist) when my former husband's name felt like the second kind of I was ashamed of it, humiliated by its reminder of a discontinued legal tie and an emotional bond it seemed to perpetuate in sticky ways. We'd had no children to worry about. I needed a name of my own, a third In 1978, after much seemingly pointless talk with close women friends about what to do about my married name, I thought I would write about the problem. Writing can either goad me toward action or soothe my nerves after I have acted or been unable to act. My piece was entitled What's in a Name, and began: