So, after seeing the name in print on my first column, even I thought, “Who the heck is Ms. Scarlet O’Hara?” “Is this for real?” “Vivien Leigh is dead!” O’Hara is my surname...and it comes with a fun story.

I was working at Hibbing Technical College back in the early 1990s, bumping along through the process of an amiable, kitchen table, do-it-yourself divorce, with the BIG question looming, “What am I going to call myself after this one?” I’d been through my first divorce years prior and was wearing the name Lynn Wihanto-Hanson at the time. Choosing a new last name was a big decision, yet the endless possibilities delighted me even while pushing against the wavering line of my comfort zone.

One January day, over a sandwich in the faculty/staff lunchroom with some of my female co-workers, I was asked what I was going to do about a last name after the divorce. I said I had been digging for the answer to that. Someone said, “Well, why don’t you take back your maiden name?” I made a yuck-face, replying, “Well, it’s been a long time since I was a maiden...and besides I never really liked the name Lynn Johnson.”

Then THAT word, hyphenate, shot right past my sandwich to my ears. I had just been a hyphenated-woman and it was nothing short of a drag. Nothing but hassles...all that spelling, too much writing and if you aren’t consistent with using the entire name you get lost in filing and computer systems. In fact, my worst memory of being a hyphenated-woman involves an encounter at the Hoyt Lakes Ben Franklin fabric-cutting table.

That’s right. “The Franklin” had a deal where if you purchased 100 yards of fabric you received 10 yards free of charge. I had been working up to this goal for years, having grown up in Hoyt Lakes. On this day, the “cutter” couldn’t seem to find me in the recipe box where they kept all the names. She stood and flipped through about one hundred cards as I glanced around at the notions and colorful bolts of prints, waiting patiently to be found.

Finally after about ten minutes, the cutter’s face brightened and she spoke that damn hyphenated name. I nodded, reaffirming it was me. Yes, I had taken on a few last names over the course of time and had almost become a fabric club casualty.

Back to the name choice. When my Finnish great-grandfather arrived in the United States his last name was changed from Kuorikoski to Johnson. Thus, Johnson had no interesting historical significance, so why go back to that? But if I went with Kuorikoski, I’d be spelling and correcting all the way to the grave.

I considered other surnames from my father’s side. “What about Steinbach?” I asked. One of my co-workers muttered through a forkful of salad, “Too rigid sounding for you.” Okay, so how about names from my mother’s side? There was Houska, my mother's maiden name, and a Scottish name, Beaton, that sparked some interest within. I had always felt close to the Celtic family roots.

If memory serves, it was the financial aid secretary who got it into the ballpark when she said, “You need something to match your red hair, personality and Scottish background, so how about Houlihan?” “Good god, I said, it sounds like the MASH show.”

The name-flinging process finally brought me to O’Hara. This was something colorful, spirited and I liked it. The lunchroom was in agreement. No longer a hyphenated-woman, I would legally become Lynn Elizabeth O’Hara. That weekend I went to Hoyt Lakes and told my reserved schoolteacher mother the news. She replied, “It sounds like someone has had a little too much of Gone With The Wind!”

Considering a name change? Choosing a new last name is legal. It costs nothing extra at the time of a divorce. Otherwise, it costs $400 or more. In this country, up until women had the right to vote, they generally kept their father’s surname or took their husband’s. In some other countries this has never been the case, as women keep their birth surnames.

No longer a hyphenated-woman, I can say I have no regrets, and for more than twenty years it’s been a blast being Ms. Scarlet.