Am planning some small website changes soon, but first want to publicly clarify another matter that is of great personal import and may also have a slight impact on the planned website changes.

My family name is DePyper, a compound, two-part surname of Belgian origin. Am not sure of the etymology; it may originally have meant something like 'the piper', as in the village flute player, or, more likely, 'of (the town of) Pyper'. Either way, 'Pyper' was the important part, and 'De' (or 'de') merely the prefix.

I grew up learning to write my family name as DePyper, but also to recognize and accept De Pyper and de Pyper (w/ space) as correct spellings. I suppose a similar etymology and usage existed for such names as McCargar, O'Brien, and Van Dorn, and that these folks have faced similar name distortions as follows:

The misspellings seemed to have begun 20 years ago or more, first with phone book listings, then junk mail, then bank accounts, utility bills, government records, etc. 'DePyper' was corrupted to 'DEPYPER', thus destroying the name's compound essence. Am guessing that it had to do with the conversion of all records to digital databases. Dull-witted database engineers thought to use the last name as a key field, and, to make their own job easier, in typical non-unix mentality changed peoples' names to all upper case, true family identities be damned. In some cases, the same dull wits then attempted to ameliorate their thoughtlessness by capitalizing the first letter, thus further morphing my name to 'Depyper'

Nor was it always a matter of engineering incompetence. Take, for example, Molly Mulcahy Crawford of Minnesota's Office of Vital Records. She not only claims bureaucratic authority (for 'standardization') to clobber peoples' family names, but also to change the words 'mother' and 'father' to gender-neutral 'parent', all this on birth certificates created decades earlier. In addition to the degradation of de-sexing my mother and father, this leads to practical problems for me in Nicaragua. In Spanish, 'parent' must be translated as 'padre', resulting in a translated birth certificate claiming I have two fathers! This goes far beyond innocent incompetence, and amounts to a deliberate socialist agenda to arrogantly usurp peoples' personal identities and alter the natural facts of their lives, falsifying millions of legal documents in the process. I would dearly love to join or launch a lawsuit against Molly Mulcahy Crawford and/or the State of Minnesota, if I could find a competent law firm willing to tackle this criminal outrage.

In the meantime, I post this blog article as a public assertion that I, Gerald Joseph DePyper, reserve the God-given right to reject any or all attempts to address me by a name that I do not recognize as my own. Any human authority that purports to alter my name or my personal history thereby abdicates any authority over me they may otherwise have claimed. This includes especially Molly Mulcahy Crawford and the State of Minnesota.

As for my family name, the criteria are simple: To be acceptable, my last name must be written as a compound, two-part name. This can be done by using mixed case (lower case first 'e' followed by upper case 'P'), or, less preferably, as all upper case or all lower case with a space between the two parts. The use of both mixed case and a space is quite acceptable. Here summmarizes the rules:

• Acceptable variations of my Christian (given) name:
  • Gerald Joseph
  • Gerald
  • Jerry
• Variations of my family name (surname):
  • Acceptable variations:
    • DePyper
    • De Pyper
    • dePyper
    • de Pyper
  • Acceptable, with caveat: I reserve the right to accept or reject the following:
    • DE PYPER
    • de pyper
  • Unacceptable variations. The following do not pertain to me:
    • DEPYPER
    • Depyper
    • depyper

The above applies to my name in this earthly life. Rev.2:17 holds out the promise of a new, wholly unique name given to me by The Lord Himself, if I prove faithful. Honoring the name given me by my earthly father may be part of that faithful duty.

1 comment:

i also deeply respect my given name in marriage.

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