Married name

 

"And what will you name your children?"

Rick and I were in the marriage license application office. We had answered all the other questions the pretty clerk in her mid-thirties had asked including what would we be using as a family name. Our choices were.

• Nelson-Adams
• Adams-Nelson
• Me: Nelson
• Rick: Adams
• Me: Adams
• Rick: Nelson

We'd decided to keep our names. Professionally we were established and the work of change was more than we wanted to deal with.

"What?" we asked in French at the same time.

The clerk repeated the question, explaining the box had to be filled in. We were in well-organized Switzerland after all.

With one of us in our sixties and one in the seventies, we had not anticipated any children. 

We looked at each other. For a second I imagined us walking the floor at night with a colicky baby.

Adams-Nelson was the decision.

Fast forward four years and we are at the SPA(animal rescue) in Perpignan. A three-month old, multi-breed, wiggly puppy is kissing me as I hold him. There is no way we were leaving without him.

Meet Sherlock Adams-Nelson.

Only two people call me Madame Adams: our vet and my mother-in-law. It doesn't matter.

What's in a name after all?