Why I let Google choose my name
I always just assumed I’d change my name when I got married. At least, I remember doodling the surname of whoever I was crushing on that week on my binder as a pre-teen. It’s not that I didn’t like the last name Fisher, but as a young girl surviving on a steady diet of 80s romcoms, changing my name had a romantic allure to it. It offered the chance to be someone else. A wife! A mother! Mrs. SoandSo! And even though I was a tomboy and loved being called Fish by my friends, Mrs. SoandSo did have a nice ring to it.
But then I got married. My identity had long developed beyond that of Baby in Dirty Dancing (unfortunately). I realized changing my name actually meant being a different person.
By 30, I had a career, a nickname I loved, published work, and aspirations of being an author. I had a brand. Changing my name quickly went from the doodles of a silly teenage girl, to a complicated branding exercise of a seasoned marketing professional.
A Fish by any other name would smell as sweet
Here was my conundrum: First, I outgrew the allure of taking a man’s name. Why do I have to change my name? I already have to bare the burden of owning a uterus and now I have to go to the DMV, Social Security Office, US Consulate, the bank AND the post office, too?! Also, statistically speaking, we have about a 50% chance of divorcing, which means there is a distinct possibility I’d have to do it all over again one day. It’s not that I don’t love my huz, but I’m a realist. And I hate the DMV.
Second, building on point number one, if we did get divorced, would I really want my book out there with my new nemesis’ last name on it? No.
On the other hand — setting aside my heartless planning for the most probable outcome — my husband has a great last name. Drumond, with one m , both ambiguously French and spelled slightly wrong. All the makings for a memorable brand.
And finally, there was this: I told him I would. I didn’t think about it as much then as I do now. The minute we got married, I scooped up the new gmail and Twitter handle and changed all of my social media. I got caught up in the excitement. I wanted to make a grand gesture, for him.
But after the bouquets died and the priest sobered up, I got cold feed. I don’t know if other women feel this way, but to me, all the change that came with marriage was overwhelming. All the sudden I had two families, two sets of birthdays and holidays, two moms (eek!) and on top of that, a new identity. I went from saying “I” to “We.” To wearing a ring that’s basically an invisibility cloak to all single men. It was a lot. Men don’t have to change their identity. They just have to endure a second mother.
Fishing for answers
I wavered for a year. I argued both sides with equal fervor. I pulled out some deep feminist positions I never knew existed. I apologized for leading on that it was no big deal. I even considered using a third name entirely.
So, as any good marketer would do, I took my problem to Google. It turns out, Claire Fisher was a very popular character from the show Six Feet Under. She, aka Lauren Ambrose, is prancing around the entire first page of Google with her Molly Ringwald red hair. She’s not even real. That also means Lauren Ambrose owns TWO full first pages on Google, hers and Claire Fisher’s. How is that even legal?
But Claire Drumond on the other hand, was owned solely by me…
This is a beautiful search engine results page (SERP). A writer’s dream. One you could only hope to build with time and backlinks. I owned the entire SERP for Claire Drumond.
The Google Gods had spoken, and they said, “Lean into Drumond, it has better SEO.”
And so I did.
One Fish, two Fish, dead Fish, new Fish
About a year after we got married, I started a new job at Atlassian. I thought, perfect, I’ll have a fresh start and I’ll go by Drumond from the beginning, so it’ll be easy to change to my name for good.
So I emailed the recruiter and had her update the system. It was happening. I was becoming Claire Drumond.
On my first day, there was an envelop addressed to “Claire” on my new desk. I thought, oh how nice! My desk neighbor quickly intervened, “Oh no, that’s for the other Claire,” she said.
Other… Claire…?
How is that even possible? I’ve been the only Claire since the Breakfast Club. There’s no way there was another one, on my team, sitting right next to me. This had to be some kind of sick and twisted joke. And not only was there another Claire, but she was a rock star; talented, smart, athletic, and beautiful to boot.
Fuck. Me.
The team started to tease about this conundrum. How are we going to tell you both apart? They asked. I thought, please don’t say Young Claire and Old Claire.
We’ll have to go by nicknames, they proclaimed.
Yes, nicknames! “My nickname is Fish,” I said proudly.
The row fell silent. “But… why?”
“My last name is Fisher,” I said. “But I guess I got married, and, well, it’s Drumond now. Well, kind of, I never actually changed it, so it’s still Fisher. But I guess that’s really confusing…”
“Why don’t we call you Drumond then?” they said.
“Because… what? I won’t respond to that, it’s so foreign to me. My nickname is Fish. Or Fishy, or even Fisher.” They blinked.
I panicked. I’ve lost my first name, my last name, and now I’m going to lose my nickname, too? It sent a pang through my heart. It felt like my best friend just told me she was moving cross country.
I imagined myself in high school, running up and down the basketball court with my friends yelling “Go Fish!” without the least bit of irony. My friends calling me “Fishy” in a high pitch, making gills on their faces. The t-shirt they made with a drawing of a fish mixed with a dog that said “Fishdawg” on it. All the brilliant, weird, and amazing variations to the last name Fisher flashed before my eyes. Fish was my sister’s nickname, my dad’s, his four brothers’, and their kids, too. Was Fish really dead?
But it was too late. The Drumond brand took off. I’ve had the best three years of my professional life at Atlassian. I’ve spoken at conferences, written tons of articles, gained 200 whole followers on Twitter AND Medium. Not to mention the growth of my internal brand — my team even calls me Drumond now.
So I decided to take a page from Lauren Ambrose’s book of greedy SERP hoarding, and keep both. I still haven’t legally changed my name and I never will. My OG friends still call me Fish, and I’ll always have that Fishdawg t-shirt. And even though every other day I think about building another persona, Claire Fisher the writer, decoupled completely from the last three years, I always come back to Drumond. It really is a great name, and even better, I get to share it with my soulmate. So that’s who I am now.
Special thanks to Aubrey Blanche for giving me the idea and the courage to write this; and to Claire Maynard for letting me share her name. Claire²4Life.
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