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What is up with your name?
January 20th, 2003
Jenn Manley Lee. No hyphen between “Manley” and “Lee”—my last name is Lee, middle name Manley.
Why? Well, this recent post of Barry’s explains half the problem. Now marry that with
the last name of Lee. Oy. In Portland alone there are at least seven other Jennifer
Lees. At least. And two others are in desktop publishing/graphic design and
yet another works in an art store (I met her personally). Two of the seven have
defaulted on student loans (found this out while buying our house) and I think
most of us have requested that Powell’s pull a book for us (always an adventure when I call in).
If all that wasn’t bad enough, I had to the charming experience several years ago of learning that the New Jersey DMV derived driver licence numbers from a combination of codes for name, sex, eye and hair color, date of birth, and height. How did I find this out? It seems there was another Jennifer Lee born on the same day as I, with brown hair, eyes, etc. who participated in a disputed traffic accident, which suddenly started to show on my driving record and insurance premium. I started a frustrating round-robin with the DMV, my insurance company and the police. Finally, a DMV opperative in Trenton figured out what happened, altered my number and cleaned my record. Guess the other Jennifer wasn’t born in New Mexico.
So why didn’t I simply take Kip’s name when we married? Well, one, Kip wouldn’t have it. Freaked him out, actually. Kinda a pity—I rather fancied becoming a ”Manley Woman.” But then people people would ask if I’m related to Joey Manley—as opposed to Jim or Stan Lee. (Fun fact: it seems that Joey and Kip might have common relations from Cullman, Alabama.)
The second reason is that I have some credits as Jenn/Jennifer Lee that I want
traceable. Okay, probably the most precious one to me is the acknowledgement in Understanding Comics. (Still not exactly sure why Scott included me.)
I apologize to all those who have had to say Jenn Manley Lee out loud as it doesn‘t roll trippingly off the tongue. And I hope you will be understanding when I ask for the removal of the hyphen.
Filed under Home & Hearth |5 Responses to “What is up with your name?”
I like to pronounce it “man-lili”much to your chagrin, perhaps.
Only when you then go on to form a couplet with such rhymes as “wee-wee” or “tee-tee”
Lee-Manley works better, if you ask me. It’s got that insouciant “I’m gonna’ star opposite Jackie Chan in his next film and do all my own stunts, too” kind of way.
So there.
Personally, I always thought Kip should use Lee Manley, although Kip Lee Manley might be a bit too euphonious.
It was David King and Amy Martelock who first introduced me to the idea of taking your partners last name as a middle name. Amy King Martelock always struck me as a very cool name. Although Sarah and I didn’t swap last names for middle names (neither Seaton Kahn or Kahn Seaton really has an ring to it), we did model our many year secret sexual relationship after Amy and David, who likewise denied that they were having sex for years, even though they shared a bed.
I think your name is very lyrical-sounding, Jenn. Much better than my choice of name during my first marriage. Nobody could pronounce or spell an atrocity like “Elayne Wechsler-Chaput.”
But, like you, I wanted to acknowledge my first husband whilst keeping the name by which more people knew my writing. With my current marriage, where my husband’s name is (or should be) better known in comics circles than mine, the decision was easier. “One syllable? Five letters? That’s shorter than my first name! Gimme!” 
- Elayne