Well, not quite yet. But this week I am taking some special leave from work to get married, and when I return I will no longer be Rachel Allen, but Rachel McHendry.
A few months ago, my colleague Eileen Harkess-Murphy and I wrote an article (you can read this here) about using pseudonyms, or different names, in research. As I knew my own name would be changing when I got married, reflecting on the importance of names was especially interesting. Unlike in research, where researchers often change participant’s names for them to protect anonymity, changing my own name has been my own conscious and thoughtful decision. I’m not particularly comfortable with the traditional expectation that a wife takes their husband’s name, but I am also grateful to live in a time when I am free to pick and choose which traditions I like and which I don’t!
There’s a few reasons why I want to change my name. As a Christian, getting married has deep spiritual significance for me. Our lives will be joined together and sharing the same name reflects this. This new name will also reflect my new beginning with my husband. My identity as a single woman is ending. Getting married will change my life as we start a new chapter together, so it feels right to me that my name changes too. It also helps that I really like my fiancé’s name! I now live in Scotland, I work in Scotland, I’m marrying a very Scottish man, so I happily embrace my new Scottish name.
I have always found it a bit odd that a woman’s title changes when she marries but a man’s doesn’t. ‘Miss’ often felt uncomfortable because it indicates a personal status I didn’t necessarily want others to know. I’ve had about a year now to get used to being a Dr rather than a Miss, and it does have deep implications for your identity to use a title that you’ve earned rather than had to use. And getting married won’t change having earned my PhD, a huge life thing, but I also want my name to reflect being married, another huge life thing! I am informed that I can be officially known as Dr Mrs McHendry. I am sure the theory of this will be tested when I need to fill out forms and official things- systems won’t necessarily agree I can be both a Dr and a Mrs…
But I am proud of being Dr Allen, and I’ll be proud to be Mrs McHendry, just as I am also proud to have been Miss Allen. None of us are just one thing. Our identities are complex, shifting and evolving entities and whatever else goes on, I am Rachel. So, if in the coming weeks you see the name Dr McHendry, I haven’t left the network, I’m still Rachel and our Impact Officer!