One of the things that my future wife told me when we were engaged was that she wanted her married name to be Swan (actually, лебедь) and that she’d dreamed about it since she was a little girl. At least the cards were stacked in my favor. “Well,” I said. “Then let me tell you a little story about how I almost didn’t get this cool last name.” The surname swan isn’t all that rare and comes in several flavors. One “n” or two. We are of the two “n” variety. You see, my last name was pure happenstance. Or the fulfillment of a little girl’s dreams. My father was…