In 2022, I wrote an essay for Soundboard: The Journal of the Guitar Foundation of America, but my name was misprinted in the print edition as Vish S. Watson. No great tragedy, these things happen.

In 1907, Israel Baline, a singing waiter in the Bowery, penned “Marie, From Sunny Italy,” but when the handbills accidentally attributed it to I. Berlin, Baline liked the name, thought it had a classy ring, and promptly adopted it, upgrading the “I” to Irving.

I myself have no aspirations for fame or fortune and no thoughts of upgrading my name.

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Traditionally, each American of English heritage receives an identifying personal first name and a patronymic and patrilineal last name which is the surname. Many have middle names chosen by parents, sometimes honoring a relative.

I was born in 1950 in Alleppey, now Alappuzha, a village of canals and lush vegetation, a tropical Venice on the shores of the Arabian Sea in India. It is not uncommon for families in India to follow a naming convention similar to the English. My family, conforming to our Hindu sect’s customs, flipped the first and last names. In our system, John Miller’s first son would be Miller John. Subsequent boys would have other last names, but their first names would be Miller. (You can work it out — this system may not foster the passage of alternating surnames in perpetuity for all families.)  As the only son, my name was the same as my grandfather’s, Suryanarayanan Viswanathan.

George Eliot went by six different names and two nicknames. Christened Mary Anne Evans, she grew up in rural Warwickshire as a religious and highly intelligent student. After her mother’s death, she dropped the “e” from her middle name and signed herself “Mary Ann Evans” in the register at her sister’s wedding, possibly questioning her religious beliefs in her late teens and rebelling against her church-sanctioned name, or defining her role as the new head of the household. Her father had erroneously noted her birth in his diary as “Mary Ann Evans,” exemplifying the loose use of spelling names in the nineteenth century, but as she used Mary Ann Evans consistently after her sister’s wedding, her change was willful. Increasingly progressive in her early twenties, she changed her name after her father’s death to Marian Evans, moved to London, and supplemented her meager inheritance by writing essays for the Westminster Review.

Like Eliot, I went through a number of names. As a teenager, I changed my name to Vishwanath to bring it closer to the pronunciation in Sanskrit, which seemed important to me for reasons I can no longer recall.

My mother never liked my name and always called me Mahesh, and all my family followed suit. About twelve, my family started calling me Mac — again for reasons lost to time. We had moved to Madras, the biggest city in South India when I was eight, and I had made many friends there. Mac may have arisen from my yelling “Lay on MacDuff” while dueling with toy swords. Or a relative may have overheard me yelling “Hey Mac” to one of my friends (a common nickname in the old mysteries and comic books we used to read). A waggish uncle once speculated post-facto that Mac may have come from “crack,” a 1960’s Madras slang for crackpot. No matter the origin, I became Mac to most of my family, and to this day, to my relatives, I am Mac or Uncle Mac.

Shortening my formal name, schoolmates called me Vishu, and my friends in medical school called me Vichoo. After moving to the U.S. in 1976, my new American friends and acquaintances called me “Vish,” which stuck.

George Eliot’s progressive friends called her “Polly” or “Pollian.” Frederick R. Karl writes in his biography, “Pollian was either a female version of Apollyon, the destroyer in Revelation, or else Apollo, god of light and music.”

Many of my American acquaintances and colleagues had difficulty pronouncing my name and understanding why my last name was not my surname.

My wife Nancy kept her surname when we married. To enable an easier life in the U.S., we gave our children her surname Watkins, so they would be Elizabeth and Mary Watkins instead of Vishwanath Elizabeth and Vishwanath Mary.

In The University of Chicago Law Review (2007), Elizabeth Emens points out that surnames traditionally arose from key information about their bearers — either their occupation or place of origin.

Until the 1970s, in some states in the U.S., there were legal constraints to a married woman keeping her birth surname, which could not be used to register to vote or on driver’s licenses.

Of course, people change their names for reasons other than marriage. In the U.S, there are no legal penalties for changing names other than for criminal intent such as escaping debt or prosecution. People in the entertainment business often assume pseudonyms because of bias based on ethnicity or having names that may have comical connotations. Well known examples are Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman) and Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Mortenson). Regulations sometime force them to change names. Diane Hall is among many other actors who changed names, becoming Diane Keaton to differentiate herself from the Diane Hall who was already registered with the Actor’s Equity Association, the union for theater actors and stage managers. A similar requirement exists for thousands of actors registering with The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio artists (SAG-AFTRA).

During the persecution of Jews in early nineteenth-century Germany, Felix Mendelssohn, one of the finest composers of the Romantic era, and his sister Fanny had their names changed by their parents, who had them converted to Christianity and baptized as Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Fanny Cacilia Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

 Trans people usually change their names, often one that resembles their “dead name”: Matt may become Matilda. When transgender youth were able to use their chosen names in the context of acceptance and support at home, in school, or in the workplace, they were less likely to be depressed and exhibit suicidal ideation.

I have encountered no political or societal hostility or persecution in the U.S. on the basis of my name. In a pediatrician’s office, however, I was once asked whether I was my daughter’s stepfather. Similar episodes recurred, and these questions became tiresome, so I took my wife’s surname, shortened my own name, and transformed into Vish Sury Watkins. We are now a matronymic, if not matrilineal family.

In London, as Marian Evans, George Eliot lived with the author George Lewes, who was separated amicably from his wife Agnes, who was living with his friend Thornton Leigh Hunt. As Lewes had allowed Agnes to use his surname to name her children with Hunt to assure their legitimacy, he could not obtain a divorce under existing English law for being complicit in adultery. Marian considered herself married, signed herself as Mrs. Marian Lewes, and insisted that her friends call her Marian Lewes. She was consequently ostracized by Victorian society.

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Until the mid-1800s, few women’s names appeared as composers on published sheet music. As children, both Fanny and Felix studied music and composition. Their parents encouraged Felix but not Fanny to pursue music as a profession.

She became Fanny Hensel after marrying Wilhelm Hensel, an artist, and continued to compose and play the piano. Fanny and Felix were extremely fond of each other. In 1835, Felix praised her ability to compose. In his biography of Fanny Hensel, R. Larry Todd quotes Felix, “…she has composed several things, especially German lieder, which belongs to the very best that we possess of lieder.”

Despite his fondness for Fanny, Felix believed that her works should be published only under a man’s name for reasons of societal propriety. Felix published some of Fanny’s work, with her knowledge, but as his own; of the lied Italien, Todd writes, “This was the celebrated song Queen Victoria sang at Buckingham Palace in 1842, on which occasion, Felix sheepishly disclosed his sister’s authorship.”

In 1846, Robert von Keudell, ambassador to Rome, talented pianist, and friend, urged Fanny to publish her compositions. Her late works appeared in print in her name. She died in 1847. Her music was ignored until the late twentieth century, but she is now recognized as a composer in her own right.

Until the mid-1800s, women writers were also discouraged from publishing under their names. During her lifetime, Jane Austen published four books — Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma. The titles did not bear her name while she lived. Sense and Sensibility was “By a Lady.” Pride and Prejudice was “By the Author of Sense and Sensibility.” Mansfield Park was “By the Author of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice.” News of her authorship leaked, however, and knowing she was in London, the Prince Regent, an admirer of hers who was to become King George IV, sent his librarian to invite her to his library. There, the librarian conveyed to her the Prince Regent’s request to dedicate her next novel to him, the request tantamount to a royal command. Accordingly, Emma has the dedication to “His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent,” by his “dutiful and obedient humble servant, THE AUTHOR.” Even though the book was dedicated to the highest ruler of the nation at his request, in the first publication, Emma would not bear her name as an author but only indicate that the book was written “By the Author of Pride and Prejudice.”

Sometimes, women used men’s names to publish their works. The Brontë sisters — Anne, Charlotte, and Emily — published their books as Acton Bell, Currer Bell, and Ellis Bell respectively. In her biography of the Brontës, Juliet Barker quotes Charlotte Brontë telling us why: “…we did not like to declare ourselves women, because — without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called ‘feminine’ — we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice, we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery which is not true praise.”

Even today, Charlotte Brontë’s impression about “authoresses” being “liable to be looked upon with prejudice” is not anachronistic. Dr. Corinne A. Moss-Racusin and her colleagues, as they reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2012), tested one hundred and twenty-seven academic scientists for bias against women in hiring a laboratory manager. On a scale of 1 to 7, based on the application and references, they asked each scientist to rate one applicant’s competence and “hireability,” to rate his or her willingness to mentor the applicant, and to select a salary from $15,000 to $50,000. In fact, the applications and faculty references were fictional, and identical with one exception — the first name of the applicant — John for 63 and Jennifer for 64. The scientists assessed John as more competent than Jennifer, scoring roughly 4 against Jennifer’s 3.3, and more “hireable” (3.75 against 2.8). They were more willing to mentor John (4.75 against 4). They gave John a salary of $30,000 and Jennifer $26,000. Male and female scientists were equally biased against Jennifer. The bias was based on one item — the gender of the applicant indicated by the name in the application.

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George Lewes submitted Marian’s first novel to John Blackwood, their publisher, as a work by his “clerical friend” George Eliot, hiding the reality that the book had been written by, as Karl writes, “a woman who was the scandal of London, or else Blackwood, as a conservative and high-minded Scotsman, might have balked at what he was getting into.” She published all her novels under the name George Eliot. After Lewes died, George Eliot married a friend, John Cross, became Mrs. Mary Ann Cross, and gained societal acceptance for the brief life she led afterwards.

Some people still have difficulty with my name, most of whom greet me with a hearty “Dr. Watson, I presume!” and a guffaw. When I once recounted these instances to my wife and younger daughter, they told me that they had also experienced “Dr. Watson, I presume!” In this situation, I point out only that I am Watkins, not Watson. I avoid explaining elementary differences between Baker Street and Ujiji.

A Pew Research Center study from September 2023 comprised 2437 married adult participants. In opposite sex marriages, 79% of women married to men acquired their husband’s name, 14% kept their own surname, and 5% hyphenated the surnames (the authors indicate that the numbers rounded and therefore do not add up to 100%). Younger women, women with a postgraduate degree, and liberal Democratic women were more likely to keep their birth names than older women, women without a postgraduate degree, and conservative Republican women. More Hispanic women kept their last name compared to White women and Black women. The numbers of participants in same sex marriages were too small for analysis.

There are likely many reasons why women still change their names at marriage. Megan Keels and Rebecca Powers, as reported in Advances in Applied Sociology (2013), found that complying with expectations from family members and maintaining social and religious traditions were prominent reasons. Some women believed that adopting the man’s name would ensure family unity. Some women were rueful about losing their sense of identity.

There is little research on men who acquire women’s surnames, most likely because it occurs rarely. In my own experience, like some of these women, I occasionally felt uneasy and rueful about losing my sense of identity. I felt odd introducing myself as a Watkins after more than four decades of being a Vishwanath. Jim Croce’s song “I Got a Name,” in which he sings about carrying his name like his daddy did, triggered doubts of whether I had betrayed my ancestry. Had I simply caved in to conform to a patriarchal society that expected my surname to be transmitted to my children? Should I have kept Suryanarayanan Vishwanath and simply told the perplexed interrogators that my children’s surnames were my wife’s because that was our choice? Over the years, the unease about losing my sense of identity has largely disappeared, but I wondered about what my ancestry means to me.

I dug into recent research studies — genetic testing, linguistics, and archeology. Our modern human species evolved in Africa. About 60,000 years ago, many migrated across the Arabian desert, spread across continents, and established themselves in different locales, becoming distinct nations and peoples. These original migrants spread to India and beyond. Subsequent serial migrations, first from the mountains of what is now western Iran to form the Indus Valley Civilization in 2900 BCE, and then from the Steppes of Central Asia between 1000 and 2000 BCE, resulted in admixtures with the existing Indian populations to create the current population of India where I was born.

Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist and physician, originated scientific binomial nomenclature, giving each organism a species name and a generic name, usually in Latin.

Optimistically or arrogantly, Linnaeus named us Homo sapiens, Latin for “Wise Man.” As we commit violence upon each other in the name of religion, race, nationalism, language, or geography, as we often lack empathy toward each other, are we really sapient?  There are alternatives. We could be Homo dominandi — we dominate the earth and we are the only species that can willfully destroy it. Or Homo curiosus —  we have always had a thirst for knowledge. Perhaps Homo literatus — we are the only species that reads and writes. Perhaps the term could be based on location and we could be Homo terraplaneta. We could then strive for sapienhood, achieving the knowledge and wisdom sufficient to justify Linnaeus’s choice. If we truly do become H. sapiens, where would we evolve from there? That, I don’t have the sapience to answer.