- Growing up, I never thought I would change my last name when I got married.
- But when I came out as a lesbian and met my now wife, I changed my mind.
- Instead of picking one of our existing adjectives or hyphenating, we created something new.
In front of me came out as a lesbianI was sure I wouldn’t adopt my future husband’s last name. I knew I wanted to be a writer and felt I wanted to have a name I could build a brand around, and like many closeted lesbians, I was sure I wouldn’t get married until my career and 40s. . Thankfully, I made a lot of realizations six years ago when I met my now wife. It also meant that I had to reconsider my previous stance on the name change. Ever since I found my permanent partner, I actually wanted us to be related in name and in life.
But choosing whose name to choose became more challenging as we undressed traditional gender roles. I could have pushed for us to use my name if I really wanted to keep the name attached to my lines, but again, since we weren’t relying on heteronormative practices telling us what to do, giving the last name Taryn didn’t feel right. very symbolic. It was a transformative choice to decide on a new married name for ourselves and our future children.
We looked at other surnames, but nothing felt right
One thing remained true: I am a writer and my other half is an artist. We both needed a name that could represent us in our aspiring careers. It felt silly to go to a last name generator website, but it seemed like a good start to find a few different options and see if anything sparked inspiration. It gave us a list – Cooper, Gardner, Baker, Stewart – but none of these Adjectives felt good with one or both of our names.
I started to feel like I was going through a bit of an identity crisis. This name would define me for the rest of my life. At least with my maiden nameI had been with him for 25 years. I may not have chosen it myself, but it was the only thing I had ever known.
The author never thought she would change her last name. Courtesy of Kylie Sapphino
We decided to create a new name for ourselves
But then there was this moment where Taryn and I thought creating a new name that connected us to our past and our future. We tried different ways to combine our names phonetically. My last name was Ruffino, and hers was Smith. What we got was Suffino. It was the lightest combination that felt good on the ear. I looked up the name and it had no origin at all. It also didn’t sound right to us, like a sweet ship name.
That’s when I really started working on looking up different prefixes and suffixes. I knew the “ino” in my last name meant a little. When I looked at other ways to get the same “suff” or “saff” sound, I remembered the word sapphire, which also happened to be the stones we chose for our engagement rings.
Not to be completely understood, but the root origin of the word sapphire comes from the Greek word sappheiros, meaning “blue gemstone.” If we were to write our name Sapphino, we would get the meaning “little blue”.
Another hidden meaning in the name is the sapphic origin. Yes, the word associated with lesbians. Sappho was the name of a famous Greek poet who wrote about her love for women. In short, our name can also be interpreted as “little lesbian” (my personal favorite).
And so, the Sappinos were born. It didn’t take long to get used to it at all. It felt right and the perfect way to share our identity with each other and the world. I’m just as excited to see where the name Kylie Sapphino takes me as I am to pass it on to my family, knowing it has such special meaning to us and our history.
