My 'incorrect' surname is a tether to my grandpa's traditional values but I still hold onto it

This First Person column is written by Christina Bagatavicius who is a third-generation Lithuanian Canadian. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

I was brought into this world as Christina-Lynn Bagatavicius. 

"Christina" because it was near Christmas time, although I think the choice was the last vestige of my parent's Catholic upbringing. "Lynn" ties back to my mother whose name is Linda. The dash between my first and middle name is baffling but fun to pronounce, like the lyrics in a country song. As for "Bagatavicius," while a bit of a mouthful, it is the last connection I have with my Lithuanian heritage.

Most people stumble over my name. 

I use the old schoolyard taunts from my childhood — "bag of cabbages only with a 't'" to make introductions. On the rare occasion when my last name is spoken correctly by someone familiar with Baltic languages, it's usually a letdown for them because I know so little about my Lithuanian roots.

My grandfather arrived in Montreal towards the end of the Second World War. A heavy silence sat between his memories of home and the new life he built in Canada. We all knew that he had lived through trauma, but he never spoke about it. 

While some immigrants anglicized their names when they arrived here, Zigmas Bagatavicius was no people-pleaser. 

Zigmas was a larger-than-life grumpy presence in our lives. He was literally so over the top with his discontent that it was a main source of comedy in our home. My relatives and I would do imitations and espouse Zigmas-isms to each other. Over the years, his advice to me included: 

• Do not play rugby (you are a girl).

• Do not study philosophy (how will you get a job?).

• Do not move to England (you will never come back). 

I did all the things he told me not to do. 

Despite our complicated relationship, I wear my full name — my grandfather's name — like a badge of honour. There is something I like about not being what people expect when I walk into a room. I think they assume I must be from somewhere other than Canada with such a name or to know something "real" about where "we are from." 

But I don't quite fit in. Every time I say my name, I am reminded that my cultural identity is lost. What does it mean to be Lithuanian? Can my grandfather's proclivity to pickle sauerkraut tell me anything about our ancestry? What is it about this lineage that flows through us both?

When I got engaged to my husband, we had "the conversation" around last names. A double-barrelled first and last name was out of the question. I could not handle an extra name with two dashes, 31 letters and 11 syllables. 

This could have been the moment to shake off the Bagatavicius baggage altogether and become a Watson. However I could not get my head around the change. I didn't know what I would be erasing, but it felt personal. 

As a staunch feminist, I rationalized keeping my maiden name because of professional accomplishments. But I see the irony in it all as I stayed tethered to my grandfather's traditional values and patrilineal line.

Things with my name took an unexpected turn a few years ago when I learned Lithuanian pronouns are embedded in the spelling of last names. Apparently, my whole life I had been unknowingly walking around with masculine pronouns and incorrectly spelling my last name. It should be written Bagataviciute, which means "daughter of Bagativic" but here I was being professed to all as a son. 

My grandfather died at the age of 92, mere months from meeting his first great-grandson.

We always knew Zigmas had been sent to a Russian work camp as a teenager. What we did not know was that on Dec. 1, 1944, a newspaper announced Zigmas's sentencing and execution date for killing a Nazi. 

Details are sparse, but my brother recently discovered that an old friend of my grandfather's had tried to recruit him into the paramilitary organization Schutzstaffel. Zigmas refused, an argument unfolded, he pulled out a knife and soon after my grandfather was arrested and sentenced to death.

We have no clue how he ever escaped or made it onto that boat to Canada, but I now better understand why he felt like he could never go back. Maybe it was unfair of me to judge his silence and reluctance to talk about home. I am grateful that he is not alive today to witness Russian forces invade a sovereign nation. For the first time in my life, I want to do what he never could do — to return to his hometown of Kaunas in Lithuania and find out more about the name that binds us. 

Maybe then we can move beyond this hidden past and rediscover some of the beauty in our shared ancestry.

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