anya learns how to write

I was always jealous of my friends with simple last names. Their clean and easy names made me wish I wasn’t attached to the fourteen-letter-plus-hyphen monstrosity agreed upon by my parents before I had a say in the matter. The Kaplan from my mom’s side seemed so different from my dad’s Hartnett that I felt like a walking contradiction – how could I be one person from such vastly different families? First of all, the two names have contrasting histories. My mom’s great-grandfather, Rabbi Josef Kapschitz, was a Russian Jewish immigrant who brought his family to Pittsburgh in 1908. The family decided to change their name to Kaplan, like so many other Jewish immigrants who wanted more American-sounding names. My mom’s side of the family is very proud of their history as Jewish Americans living in the Western diaspora, and Kaplan represents their pride in carrying on the family heritage. Meanwhile, the name Hartnett represents the simple American identity of my dad’s family. I think ...