I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. What happens after I get married in November?

If you look through my archives, you’ll see that I’ve been blogging on and off since February 2004. Most of my entries then had the typical “Tagalog-English” lingo (if you don’t speak Filipino by nature, I would really suggest you to not attempt to read them hehe). I’m quite embarrassed to admit that most of those entries had no substance, just random daily ramblings. Oh, well. Everyone needs to start somewhere right? I wouldn’t say my entries are fantastic now, but at least they now make some sense 😀

It’s nice to look at the “evolution” of one’s writing style sometimes. It’s self-serving, yes, but quite entertaining. And me, I know my blogging style has changed quite a lot. Heck, Kutitots started as a Flash personal site, an online playground, and now has evolved to mainly a blog. Frankly, I’ve gotten tired of having to update stuff manually in Flash. There’s a way to automate that, but I didn’t want to burden myself with it.

Anyway, looking back like this made me realize that it really takes time to establish a “self-brand” on the Net. It took me almost three years to have “Gail Dela Cruz” equate to “Kutitots,” at least in the local community. In the WordPress world, people know me as the author behind the Filipino-titled themes I’ve released so far (Dapit Hapon, Kurtina, and Isla). It took me a while to actually get the top spot on the Google search for “Gail Dela Cruz.”

Which brings me back to the surname issue.

It’s a culture thing. Women take the surname of their husbands when they get married and abandon their father’s name. I guess our ancestors never anticipated that women will get careers too in the future. 😛

By the end of November this year, I’ll no longer be “Gail Dela Cruz,” but “Gail Villanueva.”

Marc and I have actually discussed this already. We both know that I can’t just change my surname, since it’s basically my “brand name” on the Net. That’s why I’ll be using “Gail Dela Cruz-Villanueva” instead. It’s kinda long, but it’s best compromise to keep the “brand name” and at the same time acknowledge my change in marital status. I’ll also still keep my domain name… As for my credit line on my WordPress themes… That, I still don’t know. What do you guys think? Marc and I haven’t really talked about that yet. And I myself don’t know if it’s better to just keep it “Gail Dela Cruz” on my themes’ credit line. Ideas? I’m open for suggestions.

I know some people may think I’m making such a big deal about this, but the “Kutitots-Gail Dela Cruz” thing is how I have gotten most of my clients. It’s a big deal for me. If my work wasn’t tied to it, I probably wouldn’t have cared. But it is. Changing my name is like having a rebrand for a business.

Ah well. I’ll just cross the bridge when I get there 😛