When selecting the names of

When selecting the names of our girls, we took into consideration
our last name. It is beautiful. I have realized that our girls will not always
have this lovely surname. It hit me that all our hard thinking may be for naught
should one marry a man named Lipschitz. Recently lamenting this possibility to
my mother-in-law, she suggested they could always hyphenate. Maybe replace the
middle name with the maiden name? Not take the future husband's name at all? R
did not like any of these ideas. While he is rather proud of his last name, he
is also very traditional. His daughters loyalty to the name he gave them is
admirable in his eyes, but taking the name of her husband is even more so to
him. It is his sense of respect for tradition that we choose the girls names.
When I must call all of them home from the bliss of the neighbor's yard, it
sounds like I am reciting the names from a Jane Austen book. We filled the
requisite middle names with those from female relatives. When asked by their
friends if they could change their name, the girls answer resoundingly yet
casually, "No, I like my name." I go to bed very satisfied on those evenings
when I have been privy to such conversations of growing girls.