Hello, Amore!

Bells will ring and you'll sing, Vita Bella.

When my ex-husband was filing our divorce paperwork (or somewhere in that timeline) he asked me if I was going to keep his last name, Tintari.

I didn’t think about it much, but I knew I didn’t want to go back to my maiden name, Shanahan, for multiple reasons I’ll spare you the details of.

So when he mentioned that I’d already “made a name for myself” WITH his last name and it would “benefit me to keep it,” I absentmindedly nodded in agreement.

He had a way of influencing me in the nicest way possible to agree with his way of seeing and doing things.

The woman I am now understands manipulation and coercion much better, but it took me another, much more emotionally abusive and blatant manipulative relationship to reach that enlightenment.

When I finished writing and editing my book earlier this year, I decided I didn’t want to publish it under his last name. . . and in fact, I didn’t want to be published under ANY last name that was handed to me from a man. I wanted my own name. I want my own name—a name that is all mine, one that I never have to change again—whether I remarry, or not.

Back in 2016 as I was starting my divorce process and stepping into a new life of insanity and chaos as a co-owner of a bar/restaurant, I took to Snapchat one drunken night and filmed a sort-of video poll, asking what I should change my last name to. My memory had me believing it was Instagram, but I don’t think stories existed then, so it had to have been Snapchat. Unfortunately, I can’t pull up the receipts because I was forced to delete my Snapchat by the controlling and emotionally abusive ex I referred to above. . . but I digress.

Anyway, I playfully asked my nine thousand followers at the time what my new last name should be and was surprised and delighted by the response!

The overarching theme was that my last name was assumed to be “Love” since it was the name of my blog and the name I went by on every social platform—by brand, rather than first/last. And that made me smile. . . for multiple reasons. However, as I’m sure it’s apparent by now, “love, Maegan” was just a sign-off, as in, the end of a letter, from me. Though it wasn’t by any means, original—at the time, I was the ONLY one using that type of moniker (because it’s how I’d originally signed anything I made). I signed the backs of paintings that way and even had …love Maegan labels made (grey background, pink lettering) that I stitched into items I’d sewn and sold, years and years before blogs ever even existed. So when I started my blog, that’s what I went with.

Although I LOVE, Love, 💗 I don’t like the way it sounds following my first name. The cadence feels off. . . or maybe I’m just used to the sound of a three-syllable last name, but I liked the idea of it as a last name. I’m not sure now who came up with it—if it was me, or a suggestion from someone else—but Love went international and turned into Amor (Spanish), Amour (French) and Amore (Italian). And it’s stuck in my mind ever since.

In the years that followed, I accepted a proposal and got engaged against my better judgment, and thought I might have to change my name to his last name, considering I still held my previous husband’s name. Thankfully, I came to my senses and broke off the engagement, but I’m still attached to the name of someone I’m no longer with, connected to the remnants of a life I no longer lead, and merged with traces of a woman I no longer am.

I don’t mind the name itself, but carrying my ex-husband’s last name all these years later feels like dragging a small piece of my past into every new chapter of my life. We never had children together, so there was no real reason to keep it, but because I didn’t care for my maiden name, I thought it was an easier choice. It wasn’t until it came time to think about publishing my book that I started reviewing it more seriously.

Whether my book gets published or not, I decided I wanted my own name, not one inherited from my father, nor replaced by another man through marriage. I wanted to stand on my own, beholden to no man—to no one, but myself.

At the beginning of March 2026, the same day I sent off my first handful of agent queries for my novel, I also downloaded the mountain of legal paperwork and began the process of changing my name. The very next day, I walked into the post office and dropped the envelope into the mail, hopeful for a future that finally felt like my own.

And then I waited. . .

In the middle of April (exactly one year after I published my first chapter of my novel), I finally got a response by mail—not from a literary agent, but from the county, regarding my name change. I was so excited when I saw my own handwriting and my pretty stamps on the large white envelope I’d included with my paperwork. I rushed to open it, only to discover I’d missed a form and needed to resubmit everything.

I carefully timed the entire process around my birthday, June 1st, aiming to renew my driver’s license under my new name after updating everything with Social Security first. I was romanticizing the entire process, hoping to enter a new year of my life under a name that finally felt like my own—celebrating a rebirth at fifty—the beginning of the second half of my life, one that belonged entirely to me and the woman I’d spent my whole life becoming.

So when I received the information back, I printed the missed form, filled it out, and sent it in the same day. By the end of April, I had approval and a hearing date set for May 20th, when my name would become official. But there was one more step—I had to publish a legal notice in a newspaper once a week for four weeks, finishing just days before the hearing. The week of May 12th was the final publication, and everything fell into place. . . aside from one small glitch.

Because I had to resubmit the form, I lost a month, and the earliest I can update my Social Security card is June 15th. If I hadn’t missed that form, it would’ve lined up perfectly—but c’est la vie. Or, more fittingly—così è la vita.

In all honesty, I’ve never really liked the idea of a last name, even when I was very young. I wanted to just be Maegan—like Madonna or Cher—but since that’s not exactly an option, at least I now have a new name (for a new life) that’s completely and unapologetically mine.

Not to mention: totally on brand. 😉

And that’s, Amore.

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