Last Name Limbo

WATANABE: A name riddled with so many vowels, telephone solicitors often ask if I am Native American.

Now I know why women had no problem changing their names in the 1950's. Beaver Cleaver's mother didn't work out side of the home. She probably never applied for a social security card. There was no reason to. I, on the other hand am realizing what a pain it is to be traditional, and take my new husband's name. This is just 1/4th of the ID's that I will have to change-

My mother’s maiden name, Watanabe, is the 5th most common surname in Japan. I grew up in St. Louis in a time when there were very few Japanese families and yet there were four other Watanabes in the 2-inch thick Southwestern Bell White Pages; a dentist, a violinist, a conductor and one other that I never met. Watanabe is considered the “Smith” of Japan, and so common that my mother’s oldest sister married an unrelated man also named Watanabe. Everyone knows at least one Watanabe and thorough out my life, I have been asked if I have a brother, father, uncle, aunt, etc who is an actor (Ken- Last Samuri or Gedde- Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles) a fashion designer (Junya), a musician (Sadao- soprano saxophone), a Yakuza “Godfather” (Yoshinori), a Peruvian Poet (Jose), an artist (Mikio- who does mezzotints or Hiroshi- photographer of kabuki), a feminist activist (Mina- works with Amnesty International) or an architect (Jin, Hiroshi, or Makoto).

In most eastern cultures, the surname always proceeds the given name, placing more importance on the clan than on the individual, so when I moved to the US my identity as an individual became more pronounced the further I moved away from my roots, culture and the Watanabe family.


Migiwa, my given name, is a phrase lifted from Psalm 23, literally meaning “beside the sill waters”. In Japanese, it is written in hiragana, because the uncommon name was too complex for the government officials and clerks who worked at the town office in the small island farm community where I was born, and they could not figure out how to write it in the usual kanji, or Chinese characters. Apparently they first refused to register it as an official name. My mother’s explanations of the Song of David from the Bible fell on deaf ears in the room full of Buddhist and Shinto clerks. So they compromised and spelled it with the easier, and more poetic Japanese writing system.

The origin of my family name is related to a profession as are most, and means ‘one who crosses the ocean to carry people and products by boat.’ My mother’s mother’s maiden name- Murakami comes from a pirate that collected tax from ships which crossed the Seto Inland Sea. I will be visiting that same Seto Sea this year with a different surname.

I am anticipating this change, and run home every day to open up an empty mailbox, and every day I am dissapointed when the official envelope containing the documents which will enable me to be the next Mrs. Spiller doesn't appear.

When I send out e-mails from my new Mrs. Spiller address, I automatically go into my friends spam box. I tell my students I am currently between last names.

Fifteen years ago (or so) I changed my identity from this:


to this:


and now i'm waiting for the next incarnation...