Names are a big deal. In Genesis, as God creates things, He names them. Indeed, naming them is critical: it is the final step in bringing them to life. I don’t like my name. More accurately, I avidly dislike it. Toby Stein a clunky, chunky name. It just sits there. Plain, homely, useless.
Except that if it were truly useless, I’d be happier. For both “Toby” and “Stein” are both vessels from which one can drink beer. And I was stuck with both. ?
The fact is, my parents named me Tybele (three syllables), which is the Yiddish diminutive of “dove”–a name with wings. However, an English name was required for the birth certificate, and so, at only a few days old, I became Toby.
Over the years, I tried to edge away from Toby by spelling my first name in numerous ways: Tiby when I was past toddler age, because that would signify I wasn’t a baby any more. When I was first published (in my college’s literary magazine), I elected to spell it Tybie, which was fancified Tiby, I guess. Years later, because close friends tended to shorten Toby to Tob, with a long “o,” I took to spelling it Tobe because that didn’t require an explanation.
If Toby wasn’t–or shouldn’t have been–my first name, Stein shouldn’t have been my surname. My father’s name was originally Ochs. It wasn’t changed by some guy on Ellis Island. My father never passed through Ellis Island. He sneaked across the Canadian border to find an older brother in Detroit. When he joined that brother’s jewelry business, it would have raised too many questions for the brothers to have different names, and my uncle Sam had (for some reason not only unknown but unimaginable to me) already changed his name from interesting Ochs to heavy-handed Stein.
When I got married, I grabbed my husband’s name in a tight embrace. Not only was Kilfoyle a lovely, a musical name (accent on the last syllable, please), but Toby Stein Kilfoyle was more than a name. It was a conversational gambit and I got a kick out of that.
And yet, and yet, one day in 1977, in an American courtroom, I asked to have Stein back as my legal name.
It was the day of my divorce proceedings. My first novel was in production, and when I excitedly told my editor that my divorce was actually about to take place, she informed me that my book jacket was about to go to press and I had thirty-six hours to decide what name I wanted on it–and on any other book I might write from then on. I did the sensible thing. I called my two closest friends to ask their advice: keep the lilting Kilfoyle or go back to Toby Stein? I don’t remember their advice; it turned out not to matter. Not once I heard my question: “I have to decide whether or not to take my name back.” My name.
That was the day I stopped hating it. Toby Stein: my exodus name.
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An interesting name and certainly more lyrical than my given names. I also changed the spelling of my name as a child, and I always wanted to change it legally. Now I am glad I didn't do that, as it fits well enough with my married name. The grass is always greener, until it isn't.
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