I got married in Korea and it is not customary for women to change their name. I told my partner that if I were to do a western tradition and take his family name, then screw it I’m gonna change my entire name to “Danger Kim.” It would be the Korean spelling for the English word, which also sounds like “Denzel” but it can also sound like if you put a “D” in front of “Angel”. My partner joked that he would change his name to “Megatron.”
Why let Danger be my middle name when it can be my first?
But if I were to really change it, I would either take David after my uncle who passed in Vietnam, or Almendro, the name of the man who gave my grandfather his visa so he could travel to Hawaii to work the pineapple plantations and later to Guam where he met my grandmother.
But I already have my grandfather’s family name in my middle name, so perhaps I would take my grandmother’s name, Josepha, and go by Joseph.
To clarify, I am AFAB (just letting everyone know that same-sex marriage is unfortunately not yet allowed in Korea, since I used my partner’s pronouns and am choosing masculine names). I just always felt I should have had a stronger sounding name. This is why I use my family name, which is also a masculine name, and always liked it when one of my Sergeants called me “Mitch.” My given name is incredibly feminine and I go by the masculine nickname for it, because I feel like it suits me better.
I feel my name is a verbal handshake and mine needs to match my personality. I’m waiting right now on my partner after a bad night’s sleep because he was feeling poorly and I had to be a strong presence for him to hang onto while he walked around trying to deal with some sudden vertigo. I walked him to his office to make sure he didn’t collapse, because I can carry him if he did.
Someone like that is definitely an Al or Mitch or Dave regardless of gender or presentation, I think!
