COMMITMENTS : One Woman’s Search for the Identity That’s Right

Deanne Lebowitz was at her parents’ house rummaging through a closet when she dug up a relic from kindergarten, a story she had written titled “My Fish Is Dead.”

“I started to laugh,” says Lebowitz, 26, “and then I got tears in my eyes.”

The tears weren’t for the demise of her goldfish, tragic though it was. (Her dad had forgotten to remove the fishbowl before flea-bombing the house.) Rather, Lebowitz was saddened by the words at the top of the page: By Deanne Jacobs. Jacobs was her last name before she got married.

Actually, it still is--sort of.

“Sixty percent of the time I write Jacobs, and the other 40% I write Lebowitz,” says Deanne, who lives in Los Feliz. Although her husband of six months, Marc, wants her to officially become a Lebowitz, Deanne hasn’t yet changed her driver’s license.

She’s reluctant to give up the name her grandparents were given at Ellis Island when they came over from Russia.

“I’m really struggling with this,” she says. “Your name is who you are. There’s such a big part of me that doesn’t want to change it. It seems so unfair to me that men don’t have to.”

Marc says he understands--his family name means a lot to him too.

“But,” he says, “this is our life now. Having the same name unites the two people--it solidifies everything. It’s part of the whole excitement of getting married. When we raise our family, I want it to be with the name Lebowitz.

“I just feel very strongly.”