No one ever called me Katherine, my full and legal name, unless I was in trouble. And in that case, it was always followed by my middle name as if KatherineAnn were one word. Even as an impossibly cute and adorably chunky baby, everyone called me Kate. I was named after the singer Kate Smith and that’s just how it was.
There is, of course, an exception. My grandma called me Katie Girl.
If you’re a fan of the now-concluded NBC family drama “This Is Us,” you’ll recognize this nickname as an affectionate term of endearment for another Kate. When I first heard it used on the show, I froze. I hadn’t heard anyone say “Katie Girl” since 2009, the year my grandma died.
2009 was a big year of change. Gamma died in May, and I got married five weeks later. Then, my husband and I bought our first house and I had to remember to sign the paperwork as a Browne instead of a Smith.
Knowing me now, people are surprised that I took my husband’s last name when we got married. And I seem like a cruel, heartless monster when I tell you that I did it for the branding. See, if you Google “Kate Smith,” you’re likely to find a lot of information about my namesake. I knew that I’d never reach page-one status competing with that kind of legacy. I don’t know why I had this sense at the time, but I knew that I needed to stake my own claim.
Changing my last name in 2009 was easy. I had a marriage license in hand and, socially, most of the people I knew were expecting the change. (I hadn’t started fraternizing with feminists or French Canadians yet.)
After we divorced last year, I felt that same needling urge to stake my own claim. I’d been through so much. I wanted to honor the transformation and leave space to grow into my own legacy.
I read Cheryl Strayed’s Wild in 2012, the year I started my PhD studies and the year I found out I was pregnant. Another big, transformative year. I’ve always loved how Strayed is a chosen name, and I thought about this as I set out on the project of choosing my last name. I didn’t stress about it—I assumed that I’d be walking down the street or read a word in a book and I’d know it was the one for me.
“Herald” came to me in a dream.
The pragmatic among you may scoff, but it’s true.
I didn’t want it to be true. I fought it. I tried on a lot of other names, looked in a lot of books and at a lot of street signs to get that eureka feeling, but alas, no dice.
I even looked at my family names to find out if one fit. Smith. Hunter. Mayer. “Oh,” I thought. My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother all married into families with working names. I knew then that my dream was right. My legacy is my vocation. I am a herald, a messenger, a voice.
Ethereal as it all may be to me, I’m under no illusion that the change has little significance beyond what I make of it. A name change is a big deal but only to the person making the change. To everyone else, it’s just an updated entry in your contacts. That’s okay. Better, maybe.
As a memoirist, I’m a professional excavator of my own experience. I know that there are some things that are true and there are some things that are up for negotiation. The things that shift and change matter because they mark time, memories, and moments of transformation. They never leave us. The things that are true keep coming back, shining through the ah-ha moments to remind us of who we’ve always been. And when I think back to my little girl self, singing in front of the TV, writing stories about my brother and sister, or sending letters to the editor of the Chicago Tribune (some of which they actually published!), I see what’s true. Kate, the herald.