Readopting the name I was born with = Jaurola

After several years of dreading the effort, I am now taking the plunge…..

There are two nice ways to pronounce my name Jaurola….. the French and the Finnish way. First is something like ‘Jorola’ [French way] or ‘Yaurola’ [Finnish], emphasis on first syllable. Gosh I started to try and do this in phonetic language – that is complicated to create….gave up for now. Need a phonetic language muse.

Why change my name? Why now? I know it is a bit strange as I’ve already heard from some people….

When I got married I believed the advice of a work colleague that it is best to have the same name as your child = change to your husband’s name, to avoid confusion at day care etc. So I changed my name from Jaurola to Purcell. It was a very practical decision at the time.

I thought about a hyphenated name but I was having enough trouble with first name – one last name on the phone. Imagine this, Dominique Jaurola-Purcell. That is a lot to spell. In fact I thought that as we were looking to make Australia home it would be easier cause I would not have to spell Purcell, everyone would get it, ha ha, not so.

When my father died my need to change my name back to Jaurola became stronger than it had been before. So now, 7 years after his departure, I’ve done it. I am officially Jaurola in Australia and France and I await the results of the Finnish ‘jury’.

Next I’ll have to get into action with several banks, post office, passports [French one done], driver’s licenses, ID cards, work, etc. It is interesting that in France you do not in fact change your name, you keep your maiden name and your passport may say ‘epouse Purcell’ = married to Purcell. In Finland the rules changed around 1986. Had I married before that date the name change would have only required my notification, but it was after that date I had to go through a full name change process, including payment.

…and BTW husband is supportive…:-)