I’ve gone through more names than most people ever will and I’m not even old enough to rent a car. Rachel Hutcheson, Rachel Stewart, Alana Sveta, Alana Stewart- name after name after name, my identity has teetered on weary bonds with various fatherly place-holders and shallow phonetic amalgamations I’ve made up on my own. My daddy’s name is Donor. I’m still trying to figure out what my name should be. I feel like Malcolm X, only he was cool.

The search for the right name still engulfs me. Rachel is my legal first name. Hutcheson was the surname of my mother’s first husband. But they divorced when I was a little kid and other than a very creepy facebook friend request which I ignored I haven’t seen him since. Stewart is my present legal surname and the name of my mother’s present husband- my legal father since late childhood. Stewart is the name I share legally with my mother, but I’m not very keen on it either since the man that supplied it was, at best, indifferent in his affection for me.

In college I discovered an extended profile of my biological father (a sperm donor). For two decades I knew only three details about the man that made me: He had blond hair, blue eyes, and a college degree (I’m such a stereotype!). Suddenly, at age 20, thanks to the good people at donor-sibling registry, I had one full page of fill-in-the-blank information on my father! It probably took him two minutes to complete the questionnaire, but these action-packed, one-word responses represented ten times the information I had had on him before. Unfortunately, there was no last name on the document, but in the designated blank space after the question Can you describe your ethnic heritage?, he wrote: Polish.

This was very exciting. The next day I started telling everyone I was Polish. “Oh yea!”, they’d respond. “You look Polish!” Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that I looked Polish before? I thought. Before, when people would ask me this I’d just tell ‘em “I don’t know, I’m a mutt!” But now I was Polish. Now I had to find a new super-Slavic last name to showcase my new super-Slavic identity. Stewart would not do. I looked up a list of famous Polish people on Wikipedia. None of them grabbed me- there were at least a gazillion names on there. I completely shut down from name-pickin’ paralysis. I decided I would make up my own last name- the most Slavic sounding name ever: Sveta. On top of this, I demanded people begin using my middle name, Alana (sounds so much more Slavic, doesn’t it?). I grabbed a domain: alanasveta.com; I was in business. It was official.

Immediately I became more exotic to everyone I encountered. “Is that Eastern-European?” they would ask. “Oh, yes it is,” I would say, proudly. The nosy ones of course always pry further: “Do you speak Polish?” They would ask, hoping to hear a bit of my native tongue. “No,” I’d say, ashamed and desperately wishing I did.

These days I’m a bit over Sveta. I’m a musician and I perform under it- so professional music bloggers, interviewers and fans are always asking where the name comes from. The trouble is, it’s just as exhausting to lie about it as it is to tell the truth. I don’t like telling them I’m a Donor Kid so instead I exert a ton of energy keeping my identity (or lack thereof) veiled in mystery and abstract poetic banter. Donor insemination just ain’t sexy. And as a musician, it’s my job to turn people on. The Slavic in me is extremely important, but I wasn’t raised to be Slavic. I don’t speak Polish. I only had my first pierogi a couple months ago upon moving to New York. Everything I know about the most important man I’ve never known is kitsch. But using Stewart again seems like a step backwards. Secretly, I just wish someone would marry me so I can fix this whole name problem thing altogether. Trouble is, who will marry me with all my daddy issues?

Thank God I’m young and pretty…

Categories: Childhood, General, My Daddy's Name is Donor, Reproductive Technologies

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