My parents gave me a really strange, made up name because they didn’t want me to have a “boring” name. Let’s say, for the sake of this post, it was Lizmor (to invent a random, equally weird name). 99% of the time, among my family I was just Liz.
When I was 24, I legally changed my name to “Rose Elizabeth”. Rose is my favorite name in the world, so I wanted it as my first name. I still wanted the Liz part in my name, but I couldn’t stand to see “Lizmor” on my official identification, so I picked the closest normal name with Liz in it for my middle name.
I told my parents and my brother, who actually do call me Rose. But I figured that the rest of my family wasn’t going to call me Rose anyway, so I didn’t bother telling them. I asked my parents not to tell them either. Most of them are very judgmental, and I didn’t feel like dealing with the backlash.
It’s been 4 years later, and so far there’s never been an issue. The problem is that I’ve been seriously dating someone for a while and I think it’s time for me to tell him (& the rest of my family) that I changed my name, and for him to meet the rest of my family. I’ve always avoided it because I can’t handle the awkwardness of explaining the name situation. I know it’ll have to happen eventually.
We’ve also discussed marriage a few times, and much as I would love to plan a nice wedding with all of our families, I’ve thought about just getting eloped. I don’t know to deal with what name to put on the invitations, or that my family will be calling me Liz and his family will know me as Rose and everyone will be confused, and I’ll be feeling awkward when I’m supposed to be celebrating.
So, what would be the best way to tell everyone? I’m honestly very embarrassed of my old name and don’t like talking about it at all. And how can I deal with the awkwardness of everything? Thanks for your help.