In Edith’s day, a man was given a name. A woman was given a temporary tag to be traded in for the prize of a romantic commitment. Any vestige of her old self was bumped to the middle slot, and any middle name that once filled the slot vanished, as was expected of women’s middle names. Maiden names are only slightly less obsolete—they’re for password verifications and deep genealogy dives. Maiden names are designed like disappearing ink,
