Naming Matters

When I got married, it felt like an easy decision to start to call myself by just my married last name. I didn’t have great feelings about the name I’d grown up with.  

During the years I was Jennifer Stolpa, people mispronounced my last name a fair bit, inverting the “p” and the “l” and making it “Stop-la.” Maybe it was in part because “stop” doesn’t fit my go-go-go personality, but that never felt good to hear.  

A kid in my high school frequently called me by my last name, pronouncing it correctly, but with a tone that made it very clear he didn’t think highly of me. Although at the time I felt bullied by him, I sometimes think of him now and hope he is happy. High school wasn’t easy for either of us, I think. I suspect life wasn’t easy for either of us, but we didn’t get along so we never got to see our common ground. In the end, perhaps I remember him best because he contributed to my dislike of my own last name. 

Then there was the confusion over my last name that started in college. Over winter break one year when I was at home, a TV movie debuted—Snowbound: The Jim and Jennifer Stolpa Story. It tells the harrowing true story of a young couple trapped in their car in the mountains with their infant during a blizzard. I watched it, mesmerized by their strength and tenacity.  

When I went back to college, I had multiple people approach me and ask, “Are you the Jennifer Stolpa from that movie?”  

Their question confused me a bit because they knew I was fresh out of high school, never married, and clearly didn’t have a child with me. “No, that’s someone else with the same name,” I replied politely.  

In part because that Jennifer Stolpa also resided in Wisconsin, I have had other interesting interactions—including years later when a major news network called wanting to do a follow-up story with “that Jennifer Stolpa.” "Not the right one,” I said as I declined.  

We have such a strong sense of connection to our own names that I think most of us pause when we meet or hear of someone who shares it. I know I've spoken with people who Google their own names and see who else is out there. When I first moved to Marinette, WI, I learned that someone with the same name grew up here. She doesn’t live here anymore and I’ve never met her, but I wonder about her sometimes. I suspect I am not alone in having some curiosity about who that person with the same name is. Just because we share a name doesn’t mean we have anything else in common, but we have the experience of meeting the world with the same ‘label’ attached to us. Has that had any similar impact? 

One of our favorite wedding photos: Jason and I standing outside our Victorian home

Although my last name was an integral part of my identity, when I was getting married, I kept both last names as a part of my legal name, but went by Jennifer Flatt most of the time. In daily life, I didn’t hear the high school bully’s voice in my head anymore. I was estranged from my parents at the time, so perhaps also I appreciated not having to hear reminders every day of that former name, that prior self and the relationships she’d lost. I was also starting to grapple with the pain my dad had caused me throughout my childhood through his emotional manipulation and verbal abuse—and the last name I’d grown up with reminded me a lot of him. 

All was good until one year when the DMV accidentally added a hyphen between my last names when I renewed my driver’s license. And I changed jobs. And it turned out that my new employer insisted that my official name be listed as Jennifer Stolpa Flatt in our systems because of that little hyphen.

I was angry at first, tried to have it changed, and lost. Years later, I'm grateful. Seeing it every day at work has prodded me to think more deeply about why I wanted to walk away from the name. Eventually, it helped me come back to embrace it. 

Writing so much about my dad in my memoir, focused on my complex relationship with my dad, helped me see how the name “Stolpa” in my mind had become synonymous with him. I think I wanted to reject the name in part so I could let go of all the pain I attached to it. 

Of course, it doesn’t work that way. I had a lot of work to do, and still do, to deal with that pain. 

I’ve also come to see that it’s my name too—not just his. I was 32 when I got married, which means that I spent more than half my life (to date) as Jennifer Stolpa. I made a lot of friends, accomplished a lot of goals, and journeyed many miles with that name. It was how I presented myself to the world and how the world perceived me.  

When I decided to publish my memoir, it didn’t take me long to decide that both last names would go on the cover. The book itself dives deeply into all sorts of experiences and thoughts, including my own battles with depression and my dad’s largely untreated mental health challenges. I saw myself as Jennifer Stolpa during much of that time.  

Also, I carry lots of pieces of that person with me today. I am still all that I was before even as I become more every day, and I honor all that personal history by using both last names as I tell my story. It’s ok that I share a name with my dad. I also share a name with my mom, my aunt, my sister, and a lot of other folks. And it’s my name. I get to have a say in what I make of it and how it is remembered.  

I also share both names with many other women. I’m not alone in being somewhat surprised when I encounter others who share my name. Our western way of thinking makes us think we “own” our names a bit. To read of someone else who has my name is to wonder if they get to own a piece of my identity. To some extent, that’s true. Their stories can impact how people view me. The reverse is true as well.  

I won’t ever meet them all, but I hope for healthy and contented lives for all the Jennifer Stolpas and Jennifer Flatts—and if there are any others, the Jennifer Stolpa Flatts. I hope if they encounter my work or thoughts that they feel I've added to what our names represent for the world.  

I suspect, like me, they may have complicated feelings about their names, perhaps stories that are some parts painful, some parts beautiful. Maybe we should tell those stories more because naming matters. Maybe in revealing those stories we would help those around us better understand how we see ourselves. Maybe we could help those around us better understand how we wish to be seen.