What's in a last name? Sometimes, a hyphen

Just 13 letters have created some of the longest moments of my life.

When it comes to my last name - Edinger-Turoff - I have to spell it out to make doctor appointments, or when I introduce myself. During standardized tests in school, it was commonplace to alert a teacher because it didn't fit in the prescribed number of boxes. Upon signing up for utilities at my apartment, the company couldn't verify my identity because my Social Security number didn't match the last name in the system. Airlines get confused and flustered - I'm practically a security threat with mismatched tickets and driver's license.

Then there are all of those databases in which I've been filed under the first letter of my second last name, filed without a hyphen, or filed under just one of my two names.

And the age-old question remains: What will I do should I get married someday? Double hyphenate? Drop my name for another? Or hold on dearly?

While hyphenated last names were a trademark of the feminist movement of the 1970s and early '80s, today's hyphenated population covers the gamut - children, gay couples, unconventional grooms. And although our numbers aren't documented by the U.S. Census Bureau or Social Security Administration, I suspect we're still a decent lot.

When I was born in 1994, my name was hyphenated to pair my dad's surname (Edinger), and Turoff, a generations-old maiden name from my mother's side that she had recently hyphenated with her own maiden name, Herr. (Got that?) It was her way of representing my ancestors in a truly gender-equitable way, and - aggravation not withstanding - it has nicely instilled feminist ideals in me. But I wanted to know: What compels other people to do this? And are there better ways?

Relationship expert April Masini - who advises people about name changing, among other things, on AskApril.com - says hyphenaters are less enamored with the punctuation than they are with how well it serves specific roles. Maybe they think it shows they have an equitable marriage, or where they come from. Also, she says, "as a historical matter, the last names tell part of a story about who you are" - regardless of hyphenation.

For some, it seems, hyphenating is still the best way to tell that story.

When Beth Michener-Wall, 47, and her wife, Amy, had their daughter, they wanted to show that they were one family. Minus a marriage certificate - this was before gays were able to legally marry in Pennsylvania - and not wanting to favor one name over the other, the Montgomery County couple decided they should all hyphenate. If their daughter, now 8, finds a better way one day, they won't mind if she changes her name again.

For Leah Adams-Curtis, 53, who hyphenated her name when she married in 1982, the punctuation was a product of the feminist movement. While that's not something she believes most women can relate to today, Adams-Curtis still is happy with her choice, though her taxes, bank accounts, voting, and "little things" have been inconvenienced.

"I really grew up and watched those societal shifts with regard to women's roles. [For] a woman growing up today . . . women are professionals," said Adams-Curtis, who helped conduct a 2002 study on how college students perceived people with hyphenated names (positively, it turns out). "Her personal identity is not tied up in what society once upon a time expected of middle-class women."  Certainly, a shift in naming standards is clear: With the spread of same-sex marriage and nontraditional families, more couples are negotiating solutions that differ from heteronormative conventions.

West Philadelphia resident Stephanie Haynes, the community coordinator at Philly Family Pride, said she and her wife, Vicky Kresge, both in their mid-40s, gave their 8-year-old twin boys Haynes as a middle name and Kresge as their surname. Their reasoning: Kresge's family lives closer, and Haynes said she "didn't find one person who didn't have misgivings about having a hyphenated name."

Which brings me to the latest in name trends: "splicing."

GrowMiller was the solution for Lou, 35, and his husband, Michael, 37, who wanted to show a familial connection with their young daughter while each kept his own name. (Lou, especially, wanted to maintain his last name, Grow, because he is the first in his family with a master's and bachelor's degree, and the only male Grow left besides his father.) Splicing made sense because both names were simple and easily combined. Had the Abington couple had more complicated names, they would have gotten more creative by combining syllables. (They left the "M" capitalized to show the equal weight of both names.)

Lou thinks splicing is beginning to catch on within the gay community, but a name change of any kind, he added, should be "whatever's easy for their family."

While many families choose names that match one another, more are fine not sharing names at all, said Linda Rosenkrantz, cofounder of the website Nameberry and coauthor of The Baby Name Bible. She notices that more women are keeping their own names when they marry, because they have an established professional life, although for "convenience sake," children are getting their father's last name.

In fact, she said, she sees more attention being paid to children's first names - giving at least two middle names, for instance. The more focus on the first and middle names, it seems, the less on the surname.

As for the hyphenated name's significance, "it's lost its potency," Rosenkrantz says, "I think because a lot of people found it clumsy and hard to deal with."

No truer words were ever spoken. But since my name holds a hefty dose of "potency," I think I'll continue to fight those PennDot fights - at least for now.