A New Name

What is it about my name that is hard for people? I personally think my name is a great name. I would name a daughter Caroline if that wasn't weird--unfortunately, I have a feeling that it would be a little strange to have two Carolines running around one household, which means one of us would have to give it up and be called something else. But who would want to be called something else when their name is Caroline?

Despite the virtues of my name, it doesn't seem to work for anyone else. In school people always thought it was Carolyn. Even when I clarify that it is CaroLINE, people still spell it wrong. Please-- Carolyn is so 1970s. And when I think Carolyn, I think blonde. Which I am not. Now, my good friends don't have any trouble knowing the correct pronunciation of my name, though there seem to be issues with the execution, as no one in my life has called me "Caroline" for more than approximately the first two times we met. Caroline has turned into Care, C-line, Lina, Carolina, Caro [Kay-Roh], Caro [Kah-ro (Spanish)], Carol, and multitude of other nicknames with only loose connections to my actual name. In college, the nickname that stuck skipped my first name altogether and derived itself from my last name: "Coop", short for Cooper. I believe it may have had some connection with a character on the tv show "The O.C." Because my life has so much in common with Marissa Cooper, played by Mischa Barton... I won't lie, I really liked the nickname Coop. I even miss it. All I'm asking is, why never Caroline? Is it just too long? Do people not like the three syllables?

There is this crazy phenomenon that occurs in the life of a woman. At some point, most women grow up and get married. And when they get married, most women take their husband's last name as their last name. I've heard plenty of people say that it is an outdated and anti-feminist tradition and that women should have the freedom to be named whatever they want. I understand that sentiment because I was kind of sad to change my name. I really liked being Caroline Farlow Cooper. I liked being called Coop. I liked being a part of the Coopers. But the reason we change our names goes beyond tradition or women's rights--we change our names because it is a part of the way marriage is a picture of God's love for His people. Part of becoming one flesh is the husband taking cues from Christ and the wife taking cues from the Church. As a bride, I change my name to show that I am adopted into a new family. I suppose here on earth you could spend your whole life arguing which family is better, but in the meta-story from which this human tradition takes its inheritance the new family is indisputably the better place to be. We leave the old family of sin and despair, and cleave to the new family of redemption and reconciliation whose Head is Christ, and with that transformation, we leave behind our old family name.

People still don't know what to do with my name. People who hang around Brian long enough start to call me Carol, because that's what he calls me. However, the people that I spend time with who don't get to see much of Brian and never knew me as Caroline Cooper have taken to calling me "Smiley". Hearing that nickname is so strange for me--the whole time Brian and I have been together, I've heard people call him Smiley, and so to hear that nickname that is ingrained in my head as being his applied to me is strange.A voice in my head whispers--Wait, that's not me. That's Brian!

And to think, this earthly tradition is just a shadow of the reality of the Kingdom of God... Could I really be called good and righteous because I am a part of His good and righteous family? Could I really now be an heir with Christ? If He calls me blessed because of Christ, then will others call me blessed as well? Not because of anything I've done, but because I've been adopted into the people of God.

It doesn't make me quite so frustrated to be called Smiley anymore..