Middle Name, Last Name

Hee was calling himself Heehee Huang yesterday when he's playing, and I thought that this name was so cute. He knew that Heehee is his nickname, so he never told people that he's Heehee when he's at school, but he likes this name. I told him that when he was born, we only gave him his first name, and his last name was fixed because he was born in our family; however, when he grows old enough, if he really likes some other names, he can use that as his middle name, or, he may put Heehee as his middle name if he still really likes it when he grow up. Middle name is his own choice.

Then, he's curious about my middle name "Sun".

"Do you really like to be the Sun?" he asked.
Well, Sun is my middle name because before I married to Stephen, my last name was Sun. After I changed my last name to Huang, I chose Sun as my middle name.

" Do I need to change my last name, too if I get married?" he asked another question. "No, only girls need to do so."

"Why?" Why? I never thought about that, so I began to think. "I guessed that it's because in the Bible, God said that the husband is the head of the wife. Husband needs to love his wife, and wife needs to submit to her husband, and changing the last name may represent the submission"

"So, you need to listen to Daddy?" "Yes, I do."

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Actually, when I determined to change my last name, I didn't really think about what God says in the Bible; instead, a conversation with my client helped me to make my decision. At that time, I was auditing her organization, and I told her that I was going to get married soon. She told me that she has a happy family, but she didn't want to go through the trouble of changing her last name, so her kids sometimes got the questions at school like: "Did your Daddy and Mommy divorce?" "Why did your Mommy and you have different last name?".... Therefore, she encouraged me to change my last name for the kids' sake.

It really was not an easy thing to change the last name because it involved Social security agency, DMV, passport, other license, credit cards, bank accounts....., but I think that it worths the trouble. Now, we are all in "Huang" family. If I went through all these trouble to change my last name, I'd better put in my effort to strengthen my marriage because it would be a big headache to change it again. In the way, it is a sign of submission, isn't it? It meant that I took off what I had and went with what you have, so we are in a unity. Actually, this was originated from Chinese culture. My 外祖婆婆was 任成氏，my 祖奶奶was 孫鄒氏, and we don't even know their true name.

I never thought so deep about the last name until now. It surely is an interesting discovery.