Our New Names

We’ve both decided to take Cheshire's mom’s family name, Isaacs, as our surname and make Kraemer one of our two middle names. We thought it was particularly appropriate, as our dear friend Valerie pointed out that since “Isaac” means laughter and “Cheshire” is best known as the smiling cat from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the two make a good combination.

Anyway, once we return from our honeymoon, we will change our names to the following:

Sarah Ellen Kraemer Isaacs
Cheshire David Kraemer Isaacs

“Cheshire”? Huh?

For the benefit of family friends who’ve known me as David Beckerman since I was born:

I changed my name in 1994 (though not legally as yet) after deciding that “Cheshire” fit me better. It was one of the nicknames I’d had since high school, though only a couple of people knew it, but it was the one I felt described me best. (Among the other nicknames from youth, “Sprocket” was probably the one that described me worst, and “Black & Decker Pecker Becker,” though perhaps the best possible use of rhyme in conjunction with my name, wasn’t so flattering, either.)

In 1994 I started introducing myself as Cheshire and have been known professionally since then as Cheshire Dave, which I think has a nice rhythm to it. I still let family and friends who knew me before 1994 call me Dave or David if they can’t get used to the new name (actually, at ten years you can’t really call it new anymore), but everyone else calls me Cheshire, or Chesh, or whatever other name they’ve devised for me.