What's In A Name?
Looking back, my first mistake was giving them my full name. I’d only been living in Germany for a few days when I went with my wife to set up a new bank account. Naturally this required reams of paperwork, which at the time I blamed on the admin obsessed Germans, but in retrospect is probably the normal process for most banks across the globe. Once I finished scribbling, I handed the documents over to my wife and waited like a school child for the corrections. There was only one. “You haven’t put your name in the box” she said wearily as she handed them back. Feeling rather embarrassed that I’d missed the most obvious part of the form, I looked over it again. Right at the top I could see my name in my distinctive scrawl. I snorted incredulously “What you talking about!? It’s right there!” underlining my point by jabbing a finger at the two boxes with “Nic” and “Houghton”. “No, you need to put your full name” my wife replied. I picked up the pen and added “icholas” to the box marked Vornamen and handed it back for final approval. “NO!” she said sternly “you must include your middle name too”. And so began one of the many delightful intercultural arguments couples from different countries often have. Despite my objections that she was being overly picky, she argued that this is what the bank would demand. It was my legal name, this was a legal document, and I was obligated to include my full name. Even when I showed her my British bank card emblazoned with “Nic Houghton” as some kind of evidence, she persisted. After a few hours of this back and forth I caved, and that ladies and gentlemen is why every communication from the bank begins “Sehr geehrter Herr Nicholas Edward Houghton”.
It’s not that I dislike my name, but ever since I was child I’ve been “Nic”. I chose it after a family holiday to the Isle of Wight, where my brother and I spent hours trying to get the high-score on various arcade machines. I’m sure things have changed, but back in the early 90s, arcade cabinets would only allow players to put in three letter names on the scoreboard. I liked that my name could be easily shortened to fit this arbitrary demand while my brother could only fit in his initials. It made me feel special in a way the youngest child always strives for. Ever since I’ve gone by this simplified version. Not anymore though. Despite the assumption that my wife was being pedantic, I’ve actually been told off for not using my full name by government officials and in one quite distressing moment, almost prevented from getting on a Lufthansa flight because I used “Nic” which didn’t match my passport.
It seems trite to point out that Germans can be overly particular about details, but at least in the case of names, it’s a stereotype that rings true. There’s even a bizarre law concerning last names that means that when a married couple gets married, they either change their last names to match each other or one partner keeps their last name, while the other can add a hyphenated combination of their original last name and their partners last name. By law, they can’t both have hyphenated names, that would obviously be madness! Moreover, should the happy couple have a child, their offspring can only take on one of the names and not the hyphenated version. Why? I have no idea, but Germanys gotta German I suppose.
However, things are changing. The German government has passed a law that will see some of the more egregious elements of the Namensrechts removed to allow families to have the same name. However, that law won’t actually come into effect until November 2025, so we still have some time to enjoy one of Germany’s more unnecessary laws. The new legislation will allow married couples to create a family name, which their children will also be able to take, and allow the children of unmarried couples to have a combination of both parental names. In addition, it will enable certain ethnic groups to follow their traditional naming conventions, meaning Sorbians and Frisians can have the names that they prefer.
This may be good news for some, but it doesn’t really help my current situation. I don’t plan on changing my name. I quite like my name, but I also like that I can choose how people refer to me at any given time. It also doesn’t change the fact that in many situations, especially with official documents, there isn’t an input field that allows me to choose how people should refer to me. I think that would be quite useful, especially for those people who choose to identify themselves differently from the name they were born with, yet also wish to keep their full name. For example, I recently changed jobs and part of that process required, you guessed it, loads of paperwork. Since I’m now a good German, I dutifully filled in the forms with my full name and thought nothing of it until I went into the office for the first time and was greeted by a sign on my office door declaring in bold type “NICHOLAS EDWARD HOUGHTON”. I shrugged this off until I was introduced to my colleagues as “Nicholas Edward”, which I think we can all agree makes me sound like a tremendously pretentious bellend.
In fairness, I’ve spent my entire life correcting people’s random pronunciations of my last name (it’s How-ton by the way), so this isn’t the worst thing in the world. In fact in some instances it can actually be quite useful. In all my introductory lectures this semester I asked students to use my first name, specifically “Nic” and corrected students when they called me “Mr Houghton” or “Nicholas”. Now, whenever I receive an email from a student that begins “Dear Nicholas” or “Dear Mr. Houghton” they inadvertently out themselves as having never actually attended any of my lectures. I suppose next semester I could set about changing my name, then again, I don’t think I can face any more paperwork.
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