illustration ©Kelly Maron Horvath
So here it goes. I never particularly liked my last name just because people never pronounced it correctly. MARON. Pronounced “M-Air-Un”. Not May-Ron, Mah-Rone, Mor-ann, and certainly not More-on. Yes, hearing over the loudspeaker in high school, “Will Kelly Moron please come to the office”, is not the best way to feel more comfortable during early awkward teen years.
Jokes aside, I grew to like my name simply because it was all I had. It comes from St. Maron of France who traveled into Lebanon where my relatives originally spelled it Maroun. And now the name Maron (usually spelled Marin or Maren) has been popping up all over the place as a perfectly acceptable female first name. Marin in French means Sailor, in English means Sea, in German means Seaman. I think that sounds like a fine name.
As a teen, I always wanted to change it. But by the time I got married when I was 31, I had established myself in my profession with that name. Plus I didn’t really think I liked my husband’s name any better. (HORVATH… pronounced Hore-Vath) It had its own set of issues. ;) I don’t know this new name. What does it mean? It is Slovakian and that is all I know. I wasn’t even sure where Slovakia was on a map. Plus, I was teaching high school at the time and for some reason teen boys can’t handle any name that has anything that sounds like “whore” in it. It is just too much for them to handle. That settled it. I couldn’t be a Horvath. We had even talked about combining our names but our the best option we could come up with was HORVATRON. It sounds like a slutty robot.
photo by Edyta Szyszlo Photography
So when we wed, I decided to keep my name and didn’t think twice. Then 3 years later we had a son. We gave him 4 names (JACKSON CALDER MARON HORVATH) which included my last name as sort of a second middle name. But as the years went on and he started going to daycare, then preschool (where they taught them all about family names) it was really weird to have a different name than my son. Not weird in any sentimental way but just logistically weird. Quite frankly it became a hassle. So for our 6th anniversary I surprised my husband by going through all the steps to legally tack his name onto the end of mine. So according to the Social Security Office and the DMV, I am now officially KELLY BLAIR MARON HORVATH. Whew! (Did you know that having two last names, hyphenated or not, is referred to as a “double-barrelled name”?)