JustASC

And I thought my last name was cumbersome:

The Times enlisted a genealogist, Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, who traced the burial by date…

The Times story is about a “mystery” 1910 headstone found last year on a Lower East Side street, which turned out to belong to a woman some describe as the author of the first Yiddish cookbook in America.

Ms. Smolenyak Smolenyak’s web site insists “yes, that’s her real name,” without further explanation. Was her maiden name Smolenyak, and she married a Smolenyak? (If so, which Smolenyak comes first, hers or her husband’s?) Was she named after the first two partners in a law firm? When spelling her name on the phone, does she do the whole thing twice, or just spell it once and say, “and then repeat”?

I do like the way she handled it on the cover of her book, “Who Do You Think You Are?: The Essential Guide to Tracing Your Family History.” Her name appears as “Megan Smolenyak^2″.