Yes, I’m changing my name to Jeremy Baker
Summary: After five years of deliberation, I have finally decided to change my name from Jeremy Baker Hubert to Jeremy Hubert Baker. Tara is so awesome that she will be taking the Baker last name as well. :)
Some history of my father and the Hubert name
As a few people know, my dad was adopted and was raised by the Hubert family in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He was given the name Stephen Fitch Hubert by his adopted family. He spent years of his life trying to track down his birth parents with no luck, however, after he was diagnosed with Lou Gherig’s Disease the US Government finally released their names. It turns out, his birth name was Stephen Mark Gray. He changed his name in an attempt to reconnect with his birth name, and when he passed away he was legally known as Stephen Mark Grey. (Yes, he misspelled it)
In the middle of all that was his life and during that time, among other things, he managed to get married and have two children. My mom, being the wonderfully independant woman she is, kept her maiden name. He stuck around for about 6 years, but after he left I was the only Hubert guy in the area.
Although I met Mrs Hubert a few times and she was very kind to my mother, she passed away when I was young. Mr Hubert had died of polio before I was even born so I never had much connection with him. The only real connection to the Hubert family now lies in my uncle, Larry Hubert, who is a wonderful man and lives in Maryland. I see him every now and then, but really not often enough.
Some history about the Baker family
All of my life, I have been Nancy Baker’s son. She did a fantastic job of raising my sister and I and has shown a tremendous amount of strength and integrity. Further down the line, Bert Baker is my grandfather and Jackie Baker was my grandmother. I have a direct connection to the Baker family and I am proud of their heritage and history. My grandfather has worked hard all of his life, and has done an amazing job of providing for his family. His father was a Sea Captain and another hard worker. The Baker lineage is strong and I am proud of their past and present… but what about their future?
There is only one male descendent of Bert and Jackie Baker with their last name. The rest of them are either women, or have the last name from the man my aunt married.
Why am I changing my name…
I want to carry on the name of my mother and my grandparents. I want my children to have their name and be able to look back on their last name with pride. I admit, having a name that’s easier to pronounce is appealing as well and, as Tara points out, our kids will be at the front of the line. :)
My mother seemed to feel the same way when she named me. Instead of giving me some typical middle name like Matthew, she stuck her last name in there as my middle name. It has always been rather strange for me, going through life with a last name sandwiched between two first names. (ie: Hubert Humphrey)
Thus, it makes the decision just a bit easier. Instead of drastic name change, I’m just going to flip my last and middle names to become Jeremy Hubert Baker.
Let the complications begin!
In the old days (pre internet), changing your name was relatively easy. You could literally just start going by a new name and that was the end of it. Perhaps you would have to file some paperwork at the Bank so that they would recognize cheques made out to you.
That definitely isn’t the case anymore.
The process to change your name is now a legal one that takes more than three months and costs a few hundred dollars. As if to demonstrate how dated and surreal the whole thing is, you even have to put an ad in the local paper letting everyone know that you will be changing your name; as if ANYONE that knows me reads the local San Francisco newspaper.
And there there is the internet!
These days usernames, email addresses, domain names, and other identifiers really complicate things. In my case, I have been on the internet since about 1995 getting emails, building websites, joining networks and developing a brand. I take up 9 of the 10 Google results for the name Jeremy Hubert. I am jhubert at gmail and jhubert on pretty much every social network out there. I have the jeremyhubert Yahoo! IM address and own JeremyHubert.com and jhubert.com. I was early to this whole internet thing and got a headstart. Now I want to change.
15 years into the world wide web, I’m now a late bloomer. jbaker everything is taken. jeremybaker everything is taken. There are a *few* jeremyhbakers left. I suppose I have to hope for an overhaul of the internet in order to get that all sorted out. :p
What about my lovely wife?
Well before the wedding, I had told her my dilemma and she was happy to take whatever name I chose. However, as the wedding got closer and I still hadn’t made up my mind, we had to put something on the invitations. Because of the timeframe required to change your name, I made the call and settled on Hubert. On September 4th, Tara Lynn Purtle became Tara Lynn Hubert. At least on the wedding certificate.
Being the loving wife she is, she has agreed to go along with my craziness and to change her name at the same time as me so that we will both be Bakers. Personally, I think Tara Baker is a pretty cute name for her, so I’m excited about that.
We have also joked about her just becoming “Tara” and dropping the last name all together, a la Madonna or Cher.
In conclusion…
I will be taking notes as I try to transition over from Jeremy Hubert to Jeremy Baker. It is going to take a LONG time, I’m sure. I may keep Jeremy Hubert as my online presence and just use Jeremy Baker in everything formal and every day life.
Whichever one, don’t worry. I’m not going to get mad if you call me Jeremy Hubert. I’m not going to correct you or ignore you until you say the “right” name. And for those of you who have known me since elementary school, you can still call me Pubert.
After all, a rose by any other name?
Dating: Getting out of your own way
Written in 2007
I’m just watching Hitch (for the 5th time) and there was something that I didn’t like about the ending.
Hitch goes through the whole movie teaching guys how to act on a date. What to do, what not to do, how to dress and what situations to put themselves in. He even goes so far as to make Albert get his back waxed. He builds a fairly tidy and successful business out of this, so obviously it’s effective.
Then we get to the end of the movie, where he is talking to Alegra Cole and she starts listing off the things that she found endearing about Albert. The items that she mentions are all things that Hitch would never teach and would definitely consider a no-no. They are the things that made Alegra connect with Albert and that’s what builds a relationship. I believe the quote that bothers me is “Wait, that stuff worked for you?” Hitch then decides that there are no “Basic Principles” of courting and the whole theory seems to be written off. Herein lies the problem.
What Hitch actually did for his clients was the following:
The first thing is that he provided them with an opening and created an opportunity for them to have a chance with their love interest. In today’s busy world, it’s often really hard to separate yourself from the masses and get yourself noticed by someone you’re interested in… especially in a big city.
Secondly, and most important, he provided his clients with the feeling that they had an edge. They had a “professional” working to get them the girl. They had an ace in their sleeve and were a step up. This “edge up” allowed them to woo their interest and build a nice relationship.
There was, however, no edge. All they really got was a reason to have the confidence they should have had in the first place. The confidence to stand next to the person they like and actually feel as though they are allowed to be there. The confidence to engage that person in a conversation and give them the opportunity to get to know each other. The confidence that yes, they actually COULD do this.
Having that confidence in yourself allows the other person to get to know who you are, without your own personal insecurities getting in the way. No matter what you do, the real you is still going to shine through. If not right away, it will at some point in the near future. No matter what anyone says, it’s not the gloss that people fall in love with.. it’s the little things that make you who you are. We all have our bad habits and weird idiosyncrasies but along with those come the unique and wonderful things that someone is going to end up loving.
So, with that in mind, here’s to the Hitches in every city. The friends, moments and wing-men/women that help you get out of your own way and get to know the person you’re interested in.
Where should you put the kitchen sink?
I was up visiting my parents recently, and my mother said something that stuck with me. “Doing the dishes wouldn’t be so bad if the sink wasn’t up against a wall.” I looked at the Kitchen of her place and realized that she was right. The sink in this house was in the corner of the kitchen. If she was to stand at the sink to do the dishes, it would be akin to sending a kid into the corner with a dunce hat. Somewhere along the line, some architect was trying to fit all the necessary items into the kitchen and, although he succeeded, he forgot to think about the people. This is a mistake I’m sure a lot of us web developers, programmers, and techies do on a regular basis. Just think of how limiting it is to have a double sink in the corner of the room. If my parents have guests over, my mom can’t interact with them at the same time as she does the dishes. If my parents want to talk, they can’t do so over the dishes. In fact, a person could do nothing more while doing the dishes than focus on how crappy it is to do the dishes. Simple ways to improve this? How can these simple ideas be translated to the web? Are there things that are usable, but that don’t help take the pain away? Have you ever had to use a signup form and just loathed all the filling out you had to do? When you’re building your next app, or even your next house, just think about what it would be like to do a 15 person dinner’s worth of dishes while staring at the corner of a room.
Some thoughts on intelligence and focus
I think I’m getting dumber. Let me explain. When I was younger I was pretty bloody smart. When I was 2, I was taking apart appliances with tools from the garage. When I was 11 I was challenging the math teacher to brainteasers. When I was 16 I was teaching computer science 12. (Well, ok, I wasn’t *teaching* it… but the teacher would literally send anyone with a hard question my way… and he would usually ask me about his own work as well) When I was 18, I was winning debates with psychology majors. The point of all this gloating is this; I think that the fact that I was smarter when I was younger had a lot to do with my mental focus. When I was a kid, I didn’t really have any friends. Because of that, I didn’t spend a lot of time going to sleepovers, dating girls, playing sports and the rest of the things that the “cool” kids were doing. Instead, I would read and think a lot. The majority of my mental focus was directed at gaining intelligence, and I had very few other things to distract my mind from that focus. However, these days I haven’t felt the same amount of intelligent thought going through my head. I think that perhaps now that I’m dating a lot, worrying about my car, getting in shape, going to clubs and all these other things that are non intellectual I have lost the mental focus that was previously present on a day to day basis. Now, I don’t mean that I’m loosing the ability to think. I feel that there are so many little things to think about that I’m not putting any effort into being smart, at least not “smart” as in large-scale thinking. Wait a minute. That means I’m not getting dumber, I’m just not thinking smart due to so many small issues for my mind to focus on. Well, that’s a relief. :P I wonder if that is the same for everyone. Your “typical blond” is always deemed as dumb, right? Well, what’s to say that she’s not extremely smart, and is just spreading her mental focus too thin with all her “issues” like what hair spray to use and what she’s going to wear. Another example is a friend of mine. We’ll call him Bob. Bob is extremely smart. He has done very well for himself and has helped others do the same. He has an incredible business sense and is a born leader. I lent bob my old car one day because his was being used at the moment, and I told him that in order to use it he needed to change the tire. He had no idea how to change a tire. He didn’t even know how to get a tire filled with air. I had to walk him through the process. Now, to me, that’s pretty stupid. It seems like something that most people know, and if they don’t, it seems relatively simple to figure out. But to bob, it just wasn’t something that he’d ever needed to think about. Does this mean that it’s not a matter of intelligence, but of priorities? If it does, then that means that almost everyone is capable of intelligent thought if they are just able to control their mental priorities. A blond could have an intelligent debate if she just stopped thinking about that Gucci dress that she’s dying to buy, and Bob could fix a tire if he just took a break from thinking about his latest venture. To put this into perspective, have you ever been at work or at school and had a ton of tasks thrown your way? Twenty different people ask you to do twenty different things. Unless you have your priorities properly organized, you become scattered and you don’t get much done. You keep getting distracted by all the other tasks assigned to you. However, if you have properly prioritized them, then you are able to manage them one by one with very little distraction. Thought processes seem to work the same way. :) If what I have come up with is correct, then the issue must not be forming intelligent thoughts, but instead, training your mind to prioritize itself properly. Sounds pretty simple, eh? It’s not. North Americans in general have not been brought up with the knowledge that we control our own minds. I mean, of course we know that they are ours, but not a lot of people actually realize that they are in control. We always just assume that the brain controls us and doesn’t really accept input very well, when in fact; the brain’s primary function is dealing with input. The hard part is figuring out how to properly input new thinking techniques into our own brain. But if you do manage to figure it out, then you will then be able to be in full control of your own body and mind. Of course, priorities change for everyone. When I was younger, I really wanted to be smarter than everyone else. I wanted to be able to think people in circles, and stump people who thought that they were smart. Now that I’m older, I’m focusing on my career and my social life. Although my priorities are no longer focused on being smart, that doesn’t mean that my priorities are out of whack. For the typical blond, maybe buying a Gucci dress just might be the most important thing she has to think about. For bob, running a company is a great thing and all the power to him. In order for you to be as productive as you can possibly be, your personal goals must be in sync with your mental focus. Once you have achieved this, you really can do anything you put your mind to. Think about it. ;) Jeremy
