What's in a Name?

I always liked my last name growing up. It was simple and in my mind sounded important and it wasn't all that common. We were told that all Thayne's in the United States were related--having all descended from two Scottish brothers John Johnson Thayne and Ebeneezer Thayne Jr. who joined the Mormon church. I liked that I came from a man with the same name as Ebeneezer Scrooge. I liked that there was a little town we drove through every year on our way to our family cabin in Silver Gate, Montana. I liked that the town was named after my ancestor. Growing up we loved to drive through Thayne and have our picture taken by the sign.

When I got married in 1979, I really didn't want to give my name up. In those days though few women kept their name and hyphenating hadn't come into vogue. So my name changed to Warburton--sounds fairly feudal as well. I kind of thought Carole Warburton sounded pretty uncommon, but when Covenant agreed to publish my first book it turned out they already had an author named Carol--noted the lack of "e"--Warburton. So they asked that I use a different last name. So I got to be Carole Thayne again. I started going by Carole Thayne Warburton whenever possible and that's the name I use on my books now.