I Don't Know What You Know Me From: Confessions of a Co-Star by Judy Greer Page B

feel comfortable using our shared name. She had it first and she was really good. I had a decision to make. I could be Judith Therese Evans, Judith T. Evans, Judy Therese Evans, Judy T. Evans, or, as my mom’s side of the family called me to avoid confusion with my aunt, Baby Judy. And even though, legally, all of those options except Baby Judy could get me on an airplane using my driver’s license, all those names felt like someone else’s.
    Having three names felt too fancy, and I am not fancy. Being called Judith just made me feel bad about myself because the only time I ever heard it was when I was in trouble and my dad went full name on me, or when the kids in school yelled “Judas Priest!” in the halls when I walked by. I had a long talk (approximately eight minutes) with my parents about changing my name from Judy Evans, and we decided I should stay Judy but change the Evans to a different family name.
    My dad’s mom’s last name was very Serbian and hard to spell and pronounce. So that was out. I still have no idea how to spell it. However, my mom’s grandmother’s last name was McGuire. Judy McGuire had a cute ring to it. The fact that I was drinking Guinness in Irish pubs all over Chicago at the time might have had a little something to do with my decision as well. On the night I settled on my new name, I fell asleep (passed out) happy with my new identity and excited about the future of Judy McGuire. The next afternoon, I arose from my drunken slumber to find a giant billboard right outside my window of Tom Cruise, laughing in his sunglasses, with two giant words next to his giant face: Jerry Maguire. In fact, the entire city of Chicago was painted with posters and billboards of it. I felt like I was in a
Punk’d
episode—everywhere I went, there was my almost-new name, sides of buses, benches, posters plastered all over construction site walls, phone poles. Maybe they did this for every movie, but with this one I felt bombarded; it seemed like overkill.
    Now, remember, this was before the Internet. I didn’t know Tom Cruise was starring in a movie called
Jerry Maguire
seconds after he was cast in it. To add to the equation, I was finishing college, so even if there was Internet, I totally had my head up my own ass and probably wouldn’t have used it anyway (someone recently told me there was Internet back then and a computer lab on campus too. Huh?). If you didn’t go to school with me orlive in the apartment complex I spied on across the street, I didn’t pay attention to you. After I saw that famous grin looking at me through my bedroom window, I felt at a loss. I didn’t want to be Judy McGuire anymore. I wanted something new, something different. I knew that the Jerry Maguire movement would have to eventually die down, but I didn’t want to wait that long. I wanted my name to be new and exciting now; I wanted to be ahead of the curve! The only option, as I could see it in that moment, was to steal the identity of Big Judy, my aunt Judy Greer. She was the Big to my Baby. She was the woman I was named after. It immediately made so much sense that I was mad at myself for not thinking of it sooner.
    My parents claimed that they knew several Judys and liked them all, so that’s why they chose that name. But, to me, Big Judy was the best, so I give her full credit for my first name. (Also, my dad dated a Judy before my mom, and I’ve always thought it was a little weird Judy was even a potential name for me in the first place but whatever, I guess my mom isn’t as needy and competitive as I am.) Judy Greer married her high school sweetheart, Jerry Hershman, and became Judy Hershman. But since she never moved from the town she grew up in, people knew her as both. Perhaps Judy Greer felt right because I had heard it my whole life, or maybe because I loved my aunt Judy so much and she was so special. Either way, I just knew it was the one, so that’s the name I finally decided on when I joined