The Name Game

It's been a difficult week. I almost called the wedding off after my faith in love was shaken by the news of Cheryl and Ashley Cole's marriage breakdown. But as Cheryl herself would say, you've got to Fight Fight Fight Fight Fight for this Love. I'll just have to hope Pete doesn't turn out to be a serially adulterous pornographic text messaging ratbag who's probably gay anyway. Fingers crossed!

I expect Cheryl Cole will be changing her name (after all it's already been unofficially changed to Brave Cheryl Cole, although I wish the papers would go a bit more old school and opt for Cuckolded Cheryl Cole). This got me thinking - what am I going to do about my surname after I am married??

Obviously my first instinct is to keep my name. It's against all my feminist principles to adopt Pete's, thereby implicitly accepting the intrinsic patriarchal oppression of the marriage construct, and also there would be loads of forms to fill out. I did suggest that Pete make a small gesture towards redressing centuries of imbalance by taking my name, but he says he just doesn't "feel" like an Ellie.

I'm not going double-barrelled because it would just feel like a lie, so I have come up with a "third way" and invented an entirely new surname for us both to adopt. It's taken a while, but I think I've settled on the perfect solution, a name which reflects both our personalities but which is also sophisticated and elegant enough for professional use: DANGERFIRE.

I haven't decided whether we should always insist on full capitalisation, but in any case Mr and Mrs Dangerfire certainly has a ring to it. Plus it goes perfectly with our chosen names for our children (Gold, Snake or Fist for a boy; Diamond, Beyonce or Lady Diana Spencer for a girl).

So at least something good has come out of Cheryl and Ashley's split. I hope that comes as some relief.