My interracial marriage: Why my husband and I have different last names

I figured I would explain-because it is super confusing. And people don’t know what to call us.

Exhibit A: 

We went to meet with the Bishop of our congregation the other day. Adam and I were patiently waiting. I know he has a list with our names on it to help him remember who we are- we are new so we didn’t expect him to know us yet.

I bet he looked out our records and thought: I don’t know what to call them…

So he said: Hey you guys! How are you?

And I giggled silently to myself while I smiled.

Let me try to break it down for you. In Ethiopia, there are no last names. NOW before this totally throws you for a loop let me finish. 

Wait until I explain how Ethiopia has 13 months and is  7 years behind. 

And their new year is in September.

Yeah you read that correctly.

now THAT should confuse you.

This is how you are named:

	Your Given Name	Your Fathers given Name	Your Paternal Grandfather’s name
The MR.	Adamseged	Gashaw	Emeru
The MRS.	Celina	Daniel	Merrial
Try your name:

Did you figure out your Ethiopian name? GOBIS!

That’s like “Good job” or "Bravo" or "brave" in Amharic

So when Adam asked me to be his bride, my parent immediately asked: WHAT will your name be? I said, well we are living in Ethiopia so it won’t change. Culturally it would not have made sense to live in Addis Ababa Ethiopia and chance my last name. it would however confuse all the local people and set a panic to all my US friends and family who couldn’t understand why I didn’t get a new married name.

So once we decided that we wanted to make a go for it here in the States, we had some deciding to do. Adam had to pick a family name for us, for our little crew or well me & the potential future children or animals we bring into our home.

EXHIBIT B:

We should have been more specific on our wedding announcements. It think it SUPER confused people that Adam had a different last name than his mother or father for that matter. On the generous wedding gifts we received there were a smattering of names & Wells Fargo about had a fit over trying to cash/deposit them.  But how do you nicely say: Make checks payable to{_______________________________}

You can’t.

So we spent some time discussing it. Thinking about what made sense culturally here and in Ethiopia. Adam really wanted to honor his father who died when he was a young boy and have Gasahw be our family name. Culturally in the US we would just slap Emeru on everything.

Adam didn’t want to lose his grandfathers name so we decided, we would have different last names.

  

I know crazy right? {WHO} does that?

Well we did and here is why. Adam didn’t want to lose his name and his genealogy by dropping his grandfathers name.

We wanted to honor his father the heroic Gashaw who fought in Somalia in the Ethiopian air force and who Adam loves and admires very much. The father who he lost tragically as a young boy and wants to pa y tribute to.

I want my children to be named  as proper Ethiopians. & they will.

So I am Celina Gashaw.

He is Adam Gashaw Emeru

And our future potential children will be named traditionally.

	Your Given Name	Your Fathers given Name	Your Paternal Grandfather’s  name
Baby Girl*	Addis	Adamseged	Gasahw
Baby Girl 2	Yolanda	Adamseged	Gashaw
Baby Boy	Vincent	Adamseged	Gashaw

I will match the childrens- I especially cared about this as I think about traveling back and forth from Ethiopia to the US with little mixed babies who’s names might not have matched mine. That just felt potentially problematic.

Adam will match himself

We will keep the Ethiopian naming tradition alive for our children.

We will preserve a little bit of their heritage

&  spend the rest of our lives trying to explain to people why we have different names.

When really does it even matter?

 

♥ the MRS.

*yeah in our heads our future potential children are already named…..

See the Follow up HERE

---