I was born David Earl McCann.
I changed it legally to David Earl Sewell McCann in 2004 so that we all had the same last name. More on that further down. First lets unpack my birth name.
David means beloved, and it is also connected to the David of David and Goliath. He became King and was an artist, poet, womanizer and - seems to me - a big drinker. See how that played out in my destiny with this story here.
Earl is my great grandfather’s first name. My grandfather’s name is Stanley Earl McCann. I did not like this name growing up. The children in third grade made fun of my name by calling me “Earl Bean.” Bob Marcinco in particular made me cry after using the nickname. Third grade was rough. More on that chapter here.
McCann connects me to my Northern Irish or Ulster roots, and in particular the Ulster Cycle stories - in particular the Fianna cycle and the Hound of Ulster stories. These are heroic stories of a troubled lot. I love them all.
These three parts of my name create a rather accurate story, and if you’ve read other articles, you know how important mythic truth is. “David” is a name of extremes: of great talent and self destructive tendencies. “Earl” carries the part of me that is dark and troubled and makes me want to hide. “McCann” is heroic and dense with story. Much of who I am is in those three words.
And then I changed it in 2004
I married Lisabeth Sewell in 1996 and we decided to combine names and become “Sewell McCann” - and no hyphen just to make things a little more complicated. I used the last name for several years before our youngest boy was about to be born when I made the name legal. This was not easy. I needed to prove all sorts of things and then meet with a judge because this was somehow suspicious. But we got it done.
After Lisabeth and I got divorced, she returned to Sewell. My oldest son prefers Sewell and my youngest son prefers McCann. They will legally change it when they are ready. Which makes me the only Sewell McCann left.
And then I got married again. (We did this a few days ago on Thanksgiving and I’ll write about that another time.) My wife is keeping her name, which was her first husband’s last name, and I have decided to keep my last name, which was the combination of my name and my first wife’s last name.
And this is because Sewell is a part of my story now. It is who I am. I considered dropping it but it felt like I was dropping a limb or an organ. I was Mr. Sewell McCann when I was teaching. All the Sparklers out there know me as David Sewell McCann. When I complete my doctorate, I will be Dr. Sewell McCann because that is my name. That is who I am.
And keeping it has not been easy, to be honest. Becoming a resident of Massachusetts has been very slow and difficult because of that name change. The “Sewell” has required lots of extra paperwork and believe me, I’ve considered making it easier and returning back to my birth certificate name.
But then I wouldn’t be me. That is someone else’s name.
What is your name? Lets chat about it. How are the component parts of your name a foundation of your story?
I was named after a great grandfather’s brother and a cousin who shares the name. My middle name is a derivative of my grandmother’s name (Marie). My parents thought they were being edgy and original, and instead I was born at the forefront of the Ashley boom.
I always hated being one of multiple Ashleys in a classroom and being known as “Ashley G” and not just Ashley. I wanted to go by my middle name, but never fully went for it. I do still kind of regret that but it is what it is and I am who I am.
When I married the first time, I legally dropped my maiden name and replaced it with my then-husband’s. At the time, it was important to me to take his name. When we divorced I reverted to my maiden name socially and professionally but not legally. Had I not remarried when I did, I would have changed it legally within maybe 3 years of the divorce.
But I did remarry, and he wanted us to have the same last name. He didn’t care what it was as long as it was the same for both of us. For simplicity’s sake I took his name on.... with a twist. I added my maiden name back as a second middle name and then took the new last name legally. It was astonishingly easy to add the second middle name. I’d come with every important document I could think of, but the only thing they asked for was to verify the spelling.
After my second husband committed some pretty heinous crimes and was sentenced to prison, I wanted to drop his name immediately but didn’t know what I wanted to change it to. I’d grown to enjoy the relative anonymity of working online under a name that “wasn’t really mine” so I didn’t want to revert again.
Eventually I decided to change all of our names (the kids and me) to another last name from the broader family tree, but needed time for my finances to recover from the terrible ordeal to make it happen. And in the waiting period, I met someone. And if we get hitched, he would want me to have his name.
So now I’m in a different kind of waiting period -- waiting to see how this relationship plays out. If it works, cool, I know what I’ll do. And if it doesn’t, I’ll give us a new family name on my own.
One thing I’ve noticed about myself is a life-long ambivalence to my name. I’ve always felt like a Jill and I’m frequently mis-remembered as Heather. My name never felt like ME and has thus never been important to me. It’s probably because of that indifference that I never made big moves outside of the window of opportunity provided by a marriage -- a name change was never worth the effort until there was a spouse in the picture who wanted us to have the same last name. And if there’s anything I’ve learned over the past 20 years, it’s that my name can change all I want but I’m still the same person.
Honestly I was like "what happened to the Earl?" so thank you! And congratulations!