namespace

In Japan, so I’m told, it is not uncommon for a husband to take his wife’s name; particularly if (a) the wife has no brothers and (b) the husband is not the eldest brother in his family. For me, both of these factors hold true.

My wife and I had first talked about me changing my name when we were engaged. Rather than our own self-identity, it was of our (potential) children that we were thinking. My sister-in-law changed her name, so should it not be reasonable for me to consider the same course?

It is not that I do not like my name: it is more matter of namespace.

Taking a cue from Lenny, and a little help from a pretty gooood search engine, I’ll quantify the difference.

Only with the search string “‘Mark James Adams’” do I appear on the first page of results. Taking the name “Mark Larios” reduces the number of namespace collisions by several orders of magnitude. I have also used mark.larios@ as an email address because every combination of mark.adams, mark.james.adams, mjadams, m.j.adams, &c., &c. was already reserved.

However, the problem is that, since I live overseas, changing my name legally is a bit more of a hassle. Not only do I have all of my American documents, but I have a passport, a visa, a foreigner’s registration card, and a Japanese driver’s license.

I am considering just using the name “Mark Larios” on this website, as a pen- and camera-name, so-to-speak.

[Update: results from a more specialized search.]