At the beginning of our fifth date, I finally knew how to pronounce Tom’s last name. After walking into 1618 Midtown’s entrance on a scorching July evening, the hostess asked if we had a reservation, and he kindly replied, “Yes, it’s under Guerrieri.” Needless to say, I spent a chunk of that dinner silently pronouncing his name in my head.

For the first chapter of my life, I had a unique name that I loved — Danielle Rotella. Easy to pronounce, no middle name. Government forms have three blank spaces for your full name, and I discovered, from frustrated government employees, that I couldn’t leave the “middle name” box blank, because, as one agitated DMV employee told me when I got my first driver’s license in 1991, “It looks like it was left blank by mistake.” I quickly learned to always write “NMN” for “no middle name” in that space.

At 26, I took on a third name when I married my first husband. Scooting Rotella to the middle name spot was a relief, knowing I wouldn’t have to write the three-letter acronym anymore, although I quickly realized that some folks thought I hyphenated my name, and one of my relatives wrote Danielle Rotella-Adams for more than 15 years on my birthday cards.

When I became a mom in my 30s, I wanted my two boys to have middle names, mainly so they didn’t have to deal with the whole “NMN” hindrance. Call it a family legacy or call it lazy for not wanting to scroll through that huge baby-name book a million more times, but both of my sons have Rotella as their middle name. Sleep-deprived and exhausted, I filled out my firstborn son’s birth certificate at Women’s Hospital two days after he entered the world on a sweltering late August day in 2007. I carefully made sure the stern administrator sitting next to me could clearly read my handwriting so there would be no question that he had three names. I love that we share this name, even though, now, as teenagers, my sons may cringe at having an unusual family name. They’d probably rather have something more common there — Peter, Joseph, Andrew or, frankly, anything that isn’t Rotella. 

My 40s took me on a wild ride. With two young boys at home, I went through a divorce, became a single mom, helped care for my own mom after her dementia diagnosis, lived through a pandemic and shifted my career. Don’t get me wrong, there were bright spots, too. It’s also when I met Tom, watched my little sister get married and become a mom, celebrated one brother’s engagement and another’s path to college — a true whirlwind.

Now, at age 50, I’m writing a new chapter at the halfway point of my life — and with a new name. You guessed it, Tom and I are now newlyweds, and I get to switch around my name boxes yet again. Despite the hassle of filling out oodles of online name change requests, there’s a newfound excitement I feel each time I hit “submit.”

Yes, a lot has happened since that fifth date with Tom eight years ago, when I first imagined him being the one I could spend the rest of my days with. Just last week, we walked into GIA’s entrance and were greeted by the smiling host, who asked if we had a reservation.

“Guerrieri,” I said confidently. His eyebrows raised in confusion as he quickly peeked back at his reservation list, then back at my face, my pronunciation clearly not jiving with the name he read.

“It’s pronounced, ‘Gary-air’ and rhymes with ‘derriere,’” I added. The name is nothing like its spelling, but it has distinction and sophistication – exactly how I hope to mark my next 50 years.