As sweet

My name is Michelle Butler Hallett. (Or, in sillier moments, I go up to Cabot Tower when there's lightning to yell "My name is Frankenstein!")

I was Shelly Butler growing up. I switched to Michelle, my legal name, when I went to work at VOCM one summer, and there was already a Shelley in the department. I kept Michelle throughout university – again, because it’s my actual name. My immediate family still calls me Shelly, as do some of the people I went to school with.

I got married just before my first published story appeared in 1994. I’d submitted it as “M.L. Butler,” but a friend of mine asked me what I was hiding. I wondered, too, and asked to have the byline changed to Michelle Butler Hallett.

I gave long thought to my surname. I dislike the name Butler. It sounds harsh, especially the way I say it, with a squat short U and a breathy ER, little phonetic struggles that usually come after stuttering on the B. I considered legally changing it long before I got married. Then came the wedding. If I just used Hallett and then dropped my H, the phonetic mess “Michellallett” comes out. Then the feminist in me said “What about your identity?” Oh yes, my precious identity. I may not like the surname I was born to, but it is part of who and what I am.

So, as is a married woman’s privilege in most provinces of Canada, I’m Michelle Butler Hallett simply because I say I am. Tomorrow I could become Michelle Butler. Or Michelle Hallett. It’s just a nuisance of paperwork for me.

Butler Hallett, no hyphen. Now, this lack of a hyphen – another deliberate choice – causes some problems. Most software programs won’t accept a two-word surname without a hyphen, so the hyphen gets stuck in there. No hyphen means bookstores and libraries file me by the final name to appear on the cover and cataloguing data, which is Hallett. (The designer who did the cover for Double-blind has “Butler Hallett” on the spine, which, as far as I’m concerned is correct: it’s my name. My publisher files me under B as well.)

When my children needed passports, my husband wanted their surname to be Butler Hallett. He feels even more strongly about this than I do. He, too, wished to be identified as Butler Hallett. It turns out I can add or drop Hallett as I please, but my husband and children must hyphenate to add Butler. And pay a lot of money.

They’re all Hallett on their passports.

The girls are Hallett in school, too, with Butler considered a second middle name. Which is fine … though I did have a pang labelling their school supplies last week: Madeleine Hallett. Alexandra Hallett.

Hallett is a fine name, a very old name, and one I’m proud to share. My daughters are very like the Halletts I know: bright, musical, emotional. And they know who they are. Yesterday my sister gently teased my daughters for not liking a food that my sister and I adore. —You’re no Butlers.

My older daughter smiled sweetly. —No. We’re Halletts.”

Until you tick them off. Then they’re Butlers, Mommy’s girls: stubborn, passionate and fierce. God help ya.