Millinafnið mitt

I'm coming up on the one year anniversary of my Icelandic citizenship. The application asked what name one wants to use in Iceland; the law used to be that one had to adopt an Icelandic name here, and since I thought that law was still in affect, I applied under the name Elísabet Iða Vilhjálmsdóttir (my father´s first name being William). Turns out the law had changed, the government now allows people to keep their birth name (part of a move to make it easier to immigrate here, though the tide is currently turning in another direction). Well, I was really relieved. My first name and my last name have undergone enough changes through my life, from Elizabeth Lange to Elisa Ward to Liz Hightower. But the thought of changing Ida to Iða was rather disturbing.  It is nice to have one constant in life.  

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