Ok. I'm going to do this. After a huge number of increasingly frantic emails, I'm (we're) going to take on the topic of name changing. As long time readers know, this is a topic that has... not gone so well in the past. So, before we start, some ground rules: I'm really encouraging people to share their experiences and opinions on this, kindly. Please remember that just because I, or some other reader made different choices than you did, we're not telling you that you should do it our way. We're just saying, for better or for worse, that was our path. Also, no personal attacks. In one memorable comment last time we discussed this, someone accused me of hating my grandmother, since I didn't change my name, and she (rather obviously) did. So, let's steer clear of that, shall we? Thanks.
The specific question that I get asked over and over is this: how do you decide what choice to make when it comes to changing your name? An increasingly common corollary is this: my husband really really wants me to change my name, and it makes me cry when I think about changing it, and what should I do?
And for these questions, my response is simple and two fold: A) Talk about it with your partner. I mean really, really, really talk about it (especially if it's painful). And B) Don't. (I know! I just told you not to change your name! What the mother f*cking f*ck?) But this is what I really mean - you don't need to change your name now if you are not ready.
Within wedding circles, name changing is talked about as a very binary game: you either change your name or you don't, whether you change your name or not says something very specific about what kind of a woman you are, and you either change your name now or forever hold your peace.
This is all total nonsense.
To talk about this, I'm going to tell a small piece of my story. In one sense my story is a simple one, because I was never, not even for a milla-second, going to take David's name. It just wasn't on the table. But in another way, the story is very very complex.
First of all, I'm not sure David has strong feelings about my taking his name at all... but... I really wanted David to take my name. Really. And that was also not on the table, which was good for us in a way, because it was very even. He knew exactly why I wasn't going to take his name, because he was in the same situation as I was.
Second complicated facet: David and I both want a family name, and we want to share a name with our kids, and what do we do about that? Well, the bottom line is, we decided to wait. We'd discussed a million different ideas over our five years together (at one point David wanted us both to take the others name as a middle/pre-last name, and I pointed out then we'd be Meg His Hers and David Hers His, and then everyone would be like, "oh, are the His-Hers-Hers-His's coming tonight?" And "this is my friend Meg Hers His or is it Meg His Hers, and I can never remember, but anyway she's lovely." So we kind of ruled that one out early.*) But what has come closest to seeming do-able to us is hyphenation. Since I felt fairly strongly that the person in labor got to give the kid her name, and David felt pretty strongly that his kids were going to have his damn name... hyphenation has long seemed the default choice. So, we were considering hyphenating our names when we got married.
And then the wedding month came along. And we were really busy, and we were really stressed, and we had a million things to think about and we just couldn't devote the emotional time to the subject that we felt it required, so we finally just looked at each other and shrugged. And then we told everyone that neither of us was changing our names... yet. Since for us the name changing hinged so much on kids, we decided we were just going to wait till we were having kids, and then see how we actually felt in the moment, instead of how we hypothetically felt in the future.
And then, there is that other painful complicated thing I have to mention. The anger. I have been near blindsided by how angry I still feel over this choice. When mail comes addressed to me as Mrs. Meg His, I ask David to take the label off before I get home, so I don't have to see it. When someone addresses me as Mrs.** I literally get shaky with rage. And I didn't expect that response! What is that response? I mean, my mother is a first wave feminist, for gods sake, and she uses Mrs.! Why am I so so angry about it?
And then this weekend I figured it out on a real tangible level. We were having a long conversation with a lesbian couple who are good friends of ours, and the name change discussion came up. After we'd cycled through talking about all the different choices (combining names, hyphenating names, picking a new name, picking one persons name... etc, etc) they started talking about how they didn't really have any idea about what they were going to do about their kids names (or their names after they had kids, even) and they'd figure it out somehow. And then I fully, fully emotionally realized why I was getting shaky angry, I realized why readers were writing me, literally in tears and rage at the same time (readers who want to take there husbands name write me like this, the same way people who don't want to take their husbands name write me like this). It's because we're used to a level playing field, and on this we don't have one. It's not anyone's fault really, but thems the breaks.
When I tell people that I wanted David to take my name, they always, without fail, laugh like I'm making a hilarious joke. And I always just stare at them. Because I'm not joking. Not even a little bit. When David and I have conversations about how he wants his name to be last when we hyphenate, I feel like I don't have a even playing field. Not even a little bit. When I get mail addressed to Meg His and he never gets mail addressed to David Hers, it drives home the fact that the playing field is not level.
And so. And so. None of this means that you should keep your name. Or hyphenate your name. Not at all. But what it does mean is this:
If you are trying to figure out what to do, talk to your partner. I mean really really talk to him (in this example I'm using a male pronoun...). Try to figure out what you're feeling and try to articulate it in all its complexity. If he's not quite understanding it, ask him to put himself in your shoes, and see how that feels. And then talk some more. And cry if you want to.
Don't listen to outside voices. In most situations I say, listen to your family... and then decide. But on this one I think the voices that matter in this conversation are yours and your partners. It's your new family, and this is an emotionally core decision you are making about that baby family, and more than that about your NAME. In my opinion (and I may be wrong, but it is my rather firm personal opinion) your mother-in-law does not get a vote on this one.
Consider waiting if you need to. If you really can't figure out how you feel, wait. Seriously. Weddings are complicated times, you don't need a deadline on this decision on top of everything else. There is no reason to talk about your family name at the wedding, either way, so you can take the time that you need to think.
It's ok if your emotions are... whatever they are. Maybe you're angry, maybe you're excited, maybe you're zen, maybe you're something else. Maybe you're zen and then angry by turns (me), or excited and then sad (maybe Alyssa). NORMAL. I suspect that name changing has always been emotional for women, but we're one of the first generations that has so many legitimate options that becomes easy to talk about the confusion. So. Embrace that.
You have options. Lots and lots of options. They are varied, and they belong to you. You can pick amongst them. You can even change your mind amongst them. Remember that, on the bad days.
And breathe. Because you will figure it out one day... or you won't... and that will be fine too.
And now, Team Practical's words of wisdom. Go!
Update: read Part II here
*Though I think people who do this are ballsy and awesome
**When you don't take your husband's last name, you technically stay a Ms.
Categories: Ask Meg, Gender & Feminism, Marriage, Meg's Thoughts, Reclaiming Wife
Tags: Changing Your Name, Favorite Posts
I made it to the end of the comments! As a reward to myself, I’m posting my own. :)
In my particular case, my last name is the same as my father (which is 100% cool, no emotional family issues or anything like that). Because of this, I feel that whether my last name is my father’s or my husband’s, I don’t really care one way or the other. I like my last name, I like his last name, but the only “important” name to me is the one that was given to me by both of my parents, and that isn’t going to change either way. I strongly agree with Saartjie though, in that my name isn’t who I am. My name wouldn’t distinguish me in a room full of people, and I don’t feel as if I am who I am because of what I’m called. Whether I’m called Kim or Kimberly or I go by my father’s last name or my husband’s last name, I am me. A rose by any other name, or something like that.
When addressing our invitations, though, I flatly refuse to make anyone a Mr. & Mrs. Hisfirstname Hislastname. Because while a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, that particular rose strikes me as very, very thorny and unpleasant.
What bothers me most is the expectation of the name change — which is why I was so pleased just yesterday when a (married) friend of mine asked if I was planning on changing my name. No assumptions, just a question. When we started discussing it, we were able to discuss without any kind of judgment whatsoever, and that in itself was really refreshing.
As Elise mentioned, I do know people whose parents compromised — the last name of the children was part of the last name of their mother and part of the the last name of their father combined. I always thought that was pretty cool. And man, would it make for some interesting combinations!
Am I going to change? I dunno. I might just do as many posters have mentioned and keep my name in print, but change my name legally; he isn’t insisting upon me changing my name, but I know that he would prefer it and I feel that it just matters more to him than it does to me. My passport doesn’t expire until 2011, so I figure I’ll wait until then to figure it out. My boss did mention, however, that if I changed my name to Myfirst Mylast Hislast, my initials would be KGB . . . which I found inappropriately amusing.
So to sum up . . . *shrug*
And I will always me a Ms.
April 28, 2010 8:58 am
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Another thought on kids – my mom kept her maiden and it is my middle name. I’m Olivia Mom’s Lastname Dad’s Lastname. It’s not hyphenated, but I always go by all three. I like having the option, and I like the lack of hyphen. And in some way it’s neat to get to decide on my own to represent both names, because I could just as easily go by Olivia Dad’s Lastname.
April 28, 2010 9:00 am
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Oh, this is the first time I’ve commented on the new website! It’s so nice and easy! So, I commented the last time it came up, but I think it’s worth saying again, just to communicate that it has been done…. My parents are feminists, and it is a second marriage for both. My mom kept her name; my dad kept his. They agreed that if I were a girl I’d take my mom’s last name, and if I were a boy I’d take my dad’s. Turned out that I’m a girl. So my name is First name, Middle name, Dad’s last name (my 2nd middle), Mom’s last name. My professional name is First name, Mom’s last name. Occasionally I did have the feeling that people thought my dad was not my biological dad, but it never really fazed me. I mean, who cares what a stranger might think. My gent and I have talked about choosing whatever sounds best phonetically for our kids. I do like the idea of having one name for the family and to pass on to the kids, but I am the only grandkid carrying on my particular name. Also I can’t stand my fiance’s father, so I do not want to take on his name (even though it’s a much awesomer sounding name than mine). So. Also, yeah, as a kid I was way into the idea that my family was untraditional. My dad worked from home and was the primary caretaker, my mom had the higher profile job and made more money. It worked. On the other hand, I kind of think it’s a blessing if taking the name feels right. So simple! Some good friends of mine just got married, and the bride changed her name. She’s more traditional in general, and I know she feels perfectly happy about it.
April 28, 2010 9:00 am
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Wow, over 100 comments already…
It probably doesn’t help that I’m finishing up reading The Handmaid’s Tale for the second time, but your thoughts on this really resonated with me. I’ve said before on here that we kept our names and that was largely my husband’s decision. To quote: “I don’t know who the hell Stephanie D- is. I fell in love with Stephanie G-.” And yes, that is just one of the reasons I married him. We toyed with combining (very, very bad options) and both of us taking my middle name because it is kind of awesome, but since both of us are published with our current names (me academically and online, and he musically) we decided to keep them.
However, because I’m not to attached to my last name (not that close to dear old dad) and my middle name is my totally feminist mom’s last name which I care more about, I don’t get too upset when people screw it up. Luckily it doesn’t happen often. Our friends asked once and that was it. His work assumed I took it, which is annoying, and a few of his relatives assumed too.
So we opted for the easy for now road, too. We have no idea what we will do when we have kids. I’m not really looking forward to it. My husband likes the idea of giving the kids the last name of the opposite gendered parent, but that has all sorts of problems in my feminist brain. But at least since we live in the bay area parents having different names than their children aren’t that unusual so that option can stay open.
April 28, 2010 9:04 am
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I think I’m probably in the minority here but I am going to change my name after our wedding in June and the thought of keeping my name never even crossed my mind. To be totally honest, I’m excited and relieved about taking his last name for a number of reasons:
1) I have ZERO relationship with my father. He and my mother divorced when I was 4, he remarried and I got stuck with the wicked stepmother. I spent every other weekend with them but only because I had to per the custody agreement. As soon as I was old enough, I stopped going over there all together and then when I was in college I cut all ties with him and his family. We haven’t spoken in over 5 years and I have been so looking forward to cutting the last remaining thread that ties me to him: our common last name.
2) Because of the lack of relationship with my father, I don’t feel like my last name is at all tied to my identity. I was adopted and I have much stronger ties with my first name (my maternal grandmother’s name) and my middle name (my “original” Korean name).
3) There’s a well known professional in my field with the same first and last name, which causes confusion.
4) His name is about 100x cooler than my last name.
That said, I completely understand why some/many people grapple with this issue. A few of my friends are going through the same internal debate at this time and I can see how difficult it is for them. I think my family issues have been a blessing in disguise when it comes to this because NOT changing my name was never even an option that I had considered.
On a lighter note, one of my friends married a guy with the same last name, so for her the name change issue wasn’t an issue at all…
April 28, 2010 9:10 am
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In college I had a huge crush on a guy with my same not-very-common last name and used to joke that we should get married and hyphenate our names. Since my current middle name starts with a J, I could have been J. J. Lastname-Lastname, which would have been awesomely ridiculous.
April 28, 2010 9:39 am
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I have always wanted to keep my name. I love my names, my initials, the meanings… the whole thing. Luckily, my fiance was the one who said “I wouldn’t want to change my name, so why should you have to change yours?!” So, that’s settled.
The more difficult conversation, as it is for many couples, has been around the issue of naming children. I want us all to be one big happy family, “The Soandsos!”, but my name-keeping choice and our aversion to hyphens means that just won’t happen. Plus, he is the last of the Hisnames, so he wants kids to carry that name, which I can understand.
I think we’ll probably follow the example of some good family friends: As a family, they are referred to as The Hisnames and the kids are named Kid Hername Hisname. She kept Ms. Hername as her legal name and uses it regularly. But we often call her Mrs. Hisname by accident and it’s not a problem. She knows it’s just because we’re identifying her as part of her family, and she actually embraces the mistake. I think this is pretty healthy and is a good model for me.
One last note: I will never be able to understand why you would EVER address things as Mr. and Mrs. Hisfirstname Hislastname. I know my grandparents think it’s proper, but I find it just rude to leave one human being completely out of the picture! Meg, I feel your fury!!!
April 28, 2010 9:11 am
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I really like that example! Thanks!
April 28, 2010 10:18 am
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I didn’t read through the very large response, so apologies if I am repeating. I totally agree on the lack of a level playing field, and went totally livid when my own grandparents sent a card to Mr. and Mrs. his first and last name. Really?! I plan on keeping my name, but the question is what do we do for any future children? I don’t like hyphenating, because then future children will be stuck with 3 or even potentially 4 last names that they need to merge if they get married/have children down the line. However, my husband is adamant that both children have the same last name to create the sense of a family unit, which I don’t dispute. He understands that I want equality, but he doesn’t like my last name (which I admit does have drawbacks). Our last names don’t lend themselves to blending either (one solution that I really like).
The only idea I’ve come up with as a solution is to link the gender of the child with the last name. So if the child is a girl, they get my last name, and a boy gets his. Since we want children with the same last name, the gender of the first child determines the names for any potential additional children. Not the greatest solution, but it makes me feel better that the decision is being left to nature, rather than patriarchal tradition.
April 28, 2010 9:15 am
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so glad we’re talking about this (like most things we talk about here!). i was really torn up about this for a really long time. i just kept feeling this massive weight and pressure, like whatever i decided revealed how i conceptualize myself as a woman, a professional, and a partner. it felt a lose-lose situation for so long. once i realized that my struggle was because i was suffocating under that pressure, i was able to crawl out from under it a bit. i just made the decision recently, about a month ago. i decided to take his name, and was a bit surprised by it. in the end, it came down to particulars of my/our situation, not grandiose identity issues. i realized i wanted to have the same name as him and our children, to really feel like a family unit (ok, maybe that’s a grandiose identity issue). then the questions was – what name? his? mine? a new one? here’s where it got particular – i really like his name and mine is a bit of a bore. his name is super unique, and mine is brutally common. that seriously played into it. and then there’s the professional issues. i always thought i was supposed to worry about confusion in my publication record (science/medicine). but then, one day, on a whim, i search pubmed (google of medical/scientific literature) for his last name and there were NO hits. i giggled. if you search for my last name in pubmed, well, you get a gazillion hits. suddenly changing my name to his seemed like a brilliant thing for my career! sure i’d have a few older publications with my old name, but all the new ones would be super easy to find and identify. anyway… just wanted to put it out there that some times it’s the particulars and maybe that’s okay.
April 28, 2010 9:15 am
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I’m changing all three of my names. Yep, first middle and last.
See… Mollie is a nickname. One that I’ve gone by my entire life, but still an odd nickname for another name. Like, as if my real name is Marianne Elizabeth O’Malley (just an example for the internet).
I don’t consider myself a Marianne, I never have– always been Mollie– my parents have called me Mollie from the day I was born. I am legally Marianne because I’m named after my mother.
So thinking of changing my name to Marianne Elizabeth Hisname was NEVER going to work. Not one of those names are ME… because I am Mollie O’Malley!
So I decided to change all three names…
Marianne to Mollie (to finally be what I’ve always been)
Elizabeth to O’Malley (make my maiden name my middle name)
and O’Malley to Hislastname (the traditional change when women marry)
So my name is going from Marianne Elizabeth O’Malley to Mollie O’Malley Hislastname, which seems odd to the people I am meeting for the first time at grad school orientation, but feels 100%, authentically me.
April 28, 2010 9:17 am
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I got married a few months ago, and I changed my name to Melinda MaidenName OurName. I use those words deliberately. I don’t know if it’s my head trying to justify the continuation of a questionable tradition, but for me, when we got married, it was no longer “his” name. It was Our Name, the one we share, just as much mine now as his. There was also another variable: he has a daughter, and she was thrilled I was going to end up with the same last name she has. So the choice for me wasn’t really fraught with complication, especially since I feel much more of a connection and tie to this new name, a “family” name, than I do with my prior last name (which is legally my middle name now, which keeps a connection to that name).
April 28, 2010 9:26 am
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I think that distinction is very important and I make it in my head as well. I want to have a family name that is ours. So I changed mine. It was harder than I thought to turn in my old social security card. In fact, I haven’t completely transferred my new name to my driver’s license because then it will feel so final. Personally, I love hearing Mrs. HisLast. I joined a host of women in the family who married into the name and I found a sorority of sorts that I like being a part of. Maybe it’s wishful thinking and justification, but sharing a last name makes me feel like we belong together.
April 28, 2010 11:09 am
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Yeah, that is such an important distinction. I think I was conflicted when in my brain it felt like HisName and then over the course of our engagement and our envisioning of our lives it grew into OurName and I knew I wanted it. Well put.
April 28, 2010 11:28 am
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Thank you for putting my thoughts into words and now I have a response when people ask why I decided to take “his” name.
I’ve been reading all these comments and I totally get that everyone feels differently for their own reasons. But I was wondering why this wasn’t an issue for me, and that’s it— it’s OUR name now (and a million other people’s too, because it’s “smith”)!
April 28, 2010 11:55 am
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I never thought that I’d be a name-changer. My mom changed hers, but not completely….her bank thinks she’s First MiddleInitial HisLast, her college diploma (earned a few years ago) is First MaidenIntitial HisLast, and her work is First MiddleInitial MaidenInitial HisLast. She is, after 40 years of marriage, having to change her name…and she doesn’t know what to do, especially given her rocky relationship with my dad’s dad, step-mom, and mom.
This coming year, I’m getting married. My fiance already has two children, so I will be changing mine….I want to have the same name as my children, and since they’re already born, I have to decide now. My plan is to keep all for of my names, and use First MiddleIntitial MaidenInitial HisLast as my legal signature. I plan on being a Ms, but won’t have a cow if I’m called Mrs. (My students sometimes call me Mrs. Maiden now, and did before I was engaged.) I will have a cow about being Mrs. HisFirst. I’m nearly 40, and am far too old to give up being me, even if I was so inclined. I won’t answer to it.
My mom’s mom prefers to be Mrs. HisFirst HisLast, and I don’t care. That’s her choice (especially since she’s a widow, she can do as she likes to remember him).
We have talked about having kids (it isn’t likely), but not about their names. We’ll have that talk once we’re married.
This is absolutely something that all brides AND grooms need to discuss. How many future grooms worry about this?
April 28, 2010 9:26 am
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Bravo Meg, this has made for such fascinating and positive reading! Clearly name related feelings run from the practical to the highly emotional, from keeping history alive to starting over fresh. I hope the comments stay in this vein of sharing, learning, live-and-let-live.
For me, this has been a great reminder to resist the urge to judge. It isn’t right to force emotions/politics into what is for someone else a matter of vowel sounds, and vice versa! Boo to any social pressure to make one “correct” decision. The correct decision is the one you make for yourself, for your own reasons.
April 28, 2010 9:27 am
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First of all, kudos on keeping this a mature, accepting, chill conversation – much nicer than most name-changing threads I have seen! This is such a huge, loaded topic – the decision has been by far the biggest struggle I’ve faced this year. There have been so many hurtful comments (“if you don’t take his name, you’re not really committed”), and well-intended but likewise hurtful assumptions (“how’s the future Mrs. B today?!”). I guess the best we can do is keep our heads high, be gracious but firm in declaring our choices, and know that it’s nobody else’s decision. Meg, thanks for pointing out something that I only realized very recently: you don’t HAVE to choose right now! Things like having or adopting children, changing your name, getting engaged, getting married – they are all very personal choices that you should only make if and when you (and your partner) are damn well ready. They don’t have to coincide perfectly or go in any particular order. I knew when it was time to get married; I’ll know if and when the time is right to change my name.
April 28, 2010 9:29 am
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I am so glad you posted this. I got married last year and there was no way I would take my husband’s name for several reasons. 1) I am the last in my family meaning I’m an only child and my dad only has a sister, so there are no other “have my last name” kids under my grandparents. 2) I have never really felt like I was part of my husband’s family. Which is sad, but true and he most definitely is part of my family. 3) My husband’s dad was adopted so no blood connection to his last name.
So the final decision is that we will join our last names. Not hyphenate, make one last name. Luckily my last name is short and his isn’t too long and confusing so it will be fine. Our officiant (pastor at my parents’ church) has a hyphenated last name with his wife so he helped my husband be more ok with it. We haven’t changed our names yet because we both got new passports last year and don’t want to pay for new ones again soon.
April 28, 2010 9:32 am
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Very interesting discussion! Most of my “pros and cons” have already been mentioned (feminism, etc.), but here’s what I have to add.
CON:
1. I am attached to the Eastern European identity conveyed by my last name. He has an extremely Irish name but feels no connection to his heritage, its tradition, or his geneology, and has a fair amount of resentment toward his father who is the source of the name. I’ve said this is a good reason for him to take my name, but my supposedly feminist guy looks at me like I’m nuts when I say this. (My other many Cons have already been mentioned.)
PRO
1. It will create a pleasant aliteration with my own first name.
2. Despite my non-simple thoughts about it, there is something simple about just biting the bullet and going for it. Streamlined. Family unit-clan.
3. Of course I’ll still be my kick-a** self, just like always. I know myself, no matter what name I have.
OK and here’s number 4 on the Pro side, the one that kind of put me over the edge to want to change my name. This wedding planning and engagement process has been WAY more fraught with pain and conflict than I thought it would be. The criticism I’ve received from my mother for our choice to get married outside of the Catholic church has cut so deeply that it may have cut my family name right out of me. Suddenly, I was in a situation where I had to ally myself with my fiance in a conflict situation and stick up for us as a family unit. It’s made me reflect a lot – and grieve – the extent to which this marriage process is TRANSFORMATIONAL. I feel different than I did before; I am different than I was before. My alliances have shifted. I want to change my name to reflect that transformation, on my own terms. In a way, I feel bad that my fiance, through choosing to keep his name and its emotional baggage, doesn’t get the opportunity to reflect on the outside the transformation that is occurring on the inside. It feels deep and ceremonial, and has in some ways been influenced by reading the book A Conscious Bride.
This being said, I love it when I hear my friends are choosing to keep their own names and think everyone should make the decision that’s right for themselves.
April 28, 2010 9:32 am
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I love this topic. I wrote about it recently from my perspective as I head back into this decision for the second time. For my first marriage, I took HisName as my last name and used MyLast as my middle name. This meant sacrificing my real middle name, which was a family name I shared with my mom, both grandmothers and a greatgrandmother. It was a huge sacrifice.
I have agonized over the name-change thing three times now: with my first marriage, with my divorce (I have two children with my ex), and now with my pending second marriage. It’s agony every time. My fiance happens to be my first boyfriend from way back when I was 14-16, long before any feminist ideals came into the decision. I still have high school notebooks with my “married” name scribbled in so many different forms: Sarah MiddleInitial HisLast; Mrs. Sarah HisLast; Ms. Sarah MyLast HisLast, Ms. Sarah MiddleInitial MyLast-HisLast. So it is not an easy decision to forego the tradition of taking on HisLast as my own. But a lot has changed since then, and all of these changes impact my decision:
- We both adore my family, and he is excited to become a member of my family (shouldn’t he want to take MyLast?)
- Although not at all close with any member of his family, he is nevertheless extremely proud of his mixed race heritage and wears it as a badge of honor. HisLast must stay.
- We’re not planning to have any more children, so less of a need for a “family” name.
- We’re both well established in our careers.
- I am ridiculously happy to have my RealName back after my divorce.
- My kids have adjusted just fine to me having a different last name than them.
When I divorced, I spent some time helping my oldest understand why I was changing my name back to my RealName (I hate the term “maiden name” because it suggests that my family name was a temporary name when in truth it was a huge part of my identity from my earliest memories). I explained that my ex’s LastName was his LastName, which he had loaned to me to use while we were married, and that I was giving it back to him so that he could give it to someone else if he ever meets someone else he wants to marry. And that’s when it hit me: nobody else’s name is MyName. I love my fiance. I love my children. But their names are theirs, not mine.
So I’m keeping mine. If someone calls me Mrs. HisLast, I won’t cry or get angry (this really bothered me during the early years of my first marriage when I tried to use my RealName as my business name but my efforts were constantly thwarted by those who insisted on calling me by my ex’s LastName). I will answer politely to Mrs. HisLast with a smile and say “Actually, I’m Sarah MyLast, but thank you.” I know that I will secretly smile when I see mail addressed to Mr. and Mrs. HisLast or to Mrs. Sarah HisLast. Because long ago, I wished for this marriage more than anything else in the world. But, now I know that although he is the husband of my heart and in truth, HisLast is not MyLast.
April 28, 2010 9:34 am
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Because there aren’t enough comments on this post, I feel compelled to add more, this time on the “level playing field” question. It does suck that in this culture the bias is towards the husband’s last name for naming both couples and children, and that women have to wade through a lot more name-related crap than men do. But the flip side of facing disapproval or confusion from someone no matter what choice you make is that there is more freedom to make that choice based on whatever factors are most important to us personally, and (generally) have it treated as a personal choice.
For men, any change from the default of keeping their own name intact inevitably becomes a Huge Statement (slightly less huge with hyphenated names, but a Statement nonetheless) and I’ve noticed that people seem much more entitled to an explanation of why the choice was made if it’s a man making it (which, if it’s because he is choosing to distance himself from abusive parents, say, he may not really want to share with coworkers). For women, now, in 2010, it’s much easier to just get by with “no, I’m not changing my name” or “I’m taking my husband’s last name” and because at this point, all choices seem so common, the personal reasons for making that choice can more easily be kept personal.
Though admittedly maybe I just operate in rarified circles where no one ever seems to assume a woman’s name will or won’t be changed upon marriage — true, the question is always asked of women but not of men, but it is a question that is asked.
April 28, 2010 9:34 am
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I have finally read every single comment and even though I don’t really have anything new to add, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to discuss this in such a great community of people. Because it has been a struggle for me, too.
I think for now I am going to follow Meg’s advice and wait. And, hopefully, the answer will come to me. Eventually.
I know I want to keep my name professionally – it’s already out there that way – all 3 names actually. And my fiance goes, professionally, by his first name middle initial and last name and I don’t want him to change it.
He doesn’t care what I decide to do one way or another. Which would be awesome if I had any idea what to do.
I do love that if I use his name people won’t expect me to spell it as soon as I say it. (It’s not actually that hard. Just the way it sounds, people! Which is inevitably what they say once I’ve spelled it).
I once made a reservation (before we were engaged) for us and his family and gave them his last name because it’s so much easier, but then they asked my first name (which I wasn’t expecting) and I thought it was a little thrilling that that might be the name I would one day have. Which makes me think I must in some way want to change it. But then recently I wrote my name with his last name and it just looks weird. And when I say it it in my head it just sounds weird. But it should right? Because it would be a totally new thing. But who is that person with that name? And which name becomes the middle name? And if I have my old name professionally am I going to start liking one more than the other? That would be a mess.
I’ve often been known as “Anna P” (in a nickname kind of way) so what happens if I don’t have the “P” anymore?
I have a boy cousin, so I don’t need to worry about carrying on the name (well…. unless he takes his wife’s name or doesn’t get married or who knows what else, but oh well).
And changing my name legally but keeping it professionally seems like it might get complicated. Although I am encouraged that several people have commented that they used both interchangeably.
If I decide to keep it (and keep spelling it every time) I don’t worry about any hypothetical children having a different name because I have my dad’s last name and my mom’s maiden name as my (only) middle name. And, yes, schools sent stuff to my parents with only my dad’s last name… I think often I was more upset about it than my mother…. which is interesting considering what she went through. Which brings me to her story – similar to a lot of the other moms of commenters who got married in the ’70s:
My parents got married in 1970 and my mom dutifully took my dad’s last name. I’m not sure what she did about her middle/maiden name at that point. After a little while with this moniker my mom decided it wasn’t the right decision for her. She suddenly didn’t know who she was anymore with that name. It just didn’t feel right. So she decided to change it back. But, keep in mind, this was 1970. My (amazing) mom was only 22, but she felt so strongly about this she changed her name back to her given name – with the support of my (also amazing) dad. I doubt he ever cared one way or another being the laid back kind of man he is. Here’s the catch: to take my dad’s name all my mom had to do was to sign her new name. To take back her name she HAD TO GO TO COURT! And she did, because she felt that strongly about it. And, luckily they got a somewhat liberal judge in a pretty conservative state/time. I think this makes my mom inspirational. I can’t imagine what is was like to explain to people, yes, she had taken her husband’s name, but now she was once again her maiden name, and yes, they were still married! I know it angered her that she couldn’t just have her name back when all she’d done to change it was sign my dad’s name after her first name one time. Yet by the time she had me and by the time I went to school I think she was used to people being confused and sometimes getting her name wrong. It was enough for her, I think, to know she was her name to the people that mattered, no matter what the outside world might call her. I always knew her name and once I learned the whole story, well, basically, I tell everyone I know whenever the subject comes up because what a strong woman I have for a mom and what an amazing thing to do, right?
However, I still can’t make up my own mind. What’s up with that?
April 28, 2010 9:35 am
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I love your comment about spelling. It’s nice that my last name is no longer MyLastName-M-y-L-a-s-t-N-a-m-e.
April 28, 2010 1:14 pm
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It’s great to see this discussion somewhere other than in my head and between a few close friends! I’m recently married and after much though decided not to make any immediate name changes. I love being a member of my family’s ‘clan’, and my husband didn’t really care one way or the other. We explored the idea of his changing names, but as the last member of his family carrying the name he felt obligated to keep it. If I do make a change, it will be to swap out my middle name for his last name, which will keep my middle initial the same.
I just wanted to add in one thought. The fact that almost ALL cards from his side of the family were addressed to Mr. and Mrs. HisFirstName/HisLastName drove me completely crazy. However, it made writing thank-you notes more satisfactory because I made it a point to spell out MyFirstName/MyUnchangingLastName & HisFirstName/HisLastName in the return address. I figure it is a polite way to correct any assumptions to the contrary.
April 28, 2010 9:38 am
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Meg, I’m pretty sure your mom is a second-wave feminist. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Coffin Mott took their husbands’ names, but I bet they had strong feelings on the matter. (1960s-70s feminists were second-wave, and we’re on wave three by now.)
April 28, 2010 9:40 am
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While that might be technically true, that’s often not the way it’s discussed. I would consider myself wave three, yes, but there is half a generation between my mother and I. I think earlier feminists are usually thought of as more foundational.
April 30, 2010 8:58 pm
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In women’s studies, history departments, etc., “first-wave feminism” refers to the movements of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. While there’s a lot of debate over where to draw the line and whether specific figures were a part of one wave or the other, there’s pretty much universal agreement that the feminism of the 60s and 70s was second-wave feminism. (See, e.g., http://www.georgetowncollege.edu/Departments/ws/1st,_2nd,_3rd_wave.htm or anything else that comes up when you Google “first-wave feminism.”)
I’m comfortable with keeping these definitions stable, not because I think it’s good to neatly label our mothers or ourselves, but because I think of them as defining specific historic events movements rather than individuals. It’s a really interesting distinction you draw, though, between what a term connotes for one personally vs. an academic definition, especially when you make the distinction consciously. It could also feel like a more accurate way to describe someone who’s concerned more with, say, equal property rights than employment discrimination.
May 1, 2010 8:31 am
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Meg- thank you.
For me, it never was much of a decision. I just plain LOVE my last name and kind of think my first name sounds and looks silly with anything other than mine. Plus, there is only one male on my dad’s side of the family to carry on the name, and our heritage is a HUGE source of pride for our family … and really for me. However, my fiance has a great last name as well and I realized that by choosing to hyphenate, not only would I have a kick-ass last name that’s uber strong, but would also be adding to my sense of identity by including his heritage … which he is also very proud of. I have friends who have hyphenated or done the hers-as-middle his-as-last because, as they’ve explained it to me, ‘no one would know who they were … like on facebook and stuff’ (yep, direct quote). Which, fine for them, that speaks to their sense of identity in as such as being socially recognized. I understand that. I don’t feel that way, I wouldn’t have such reservations just for social reasons, though I”m not a hugely social person. For me, it’s really about being able to carry on my family name … just as my father’s middle name is my grandmother’s maiden name, and if we decide to have children, we will incorporate that somehow.
The greatest thing for me is that my fiance is well aware of how important keeping my name somewhat intact is to me. And he was the one who suggested I just keep my name. But once we realized how freakin awesome the hyphenation sounded, that was the obvious choice.
April 28, 2010 9:42 am
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Christen, I didn’t put this in my comment, but the biggest reason my husband wants our kids to have his last name is because he is the only child of an only child of an only child (all males), and he wants the name to be carried on, which I truly understand and respect.
I also LOVE the feeling of having a name that includes both my heritage and his! Every time I see my name in print, I’m like oh yeah, I’m part of this family AND this family, and it is AWESOME!
April 28, 2010 9:53 am
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Ah. This is always so hard. I love hearing about other people’s decisions and knowing that people struggled like I did.
Where I live, and the people I know… well, it’s just not something that ever comes up. I really don’t know many (any?) people who DIDN’T take their husband’s name. I’d never even had a discussion about it with my friends or sister or anyone who was married before me. So when I knew I wanted to keep my name it felt like THIS HUGE THING, even though I didn’t understand why it should be.
I finally settled on MyFirst MyLast HisLast. But I use MyFirst MyLast everywhere. Still, legally I am both, which really opens up a lot of options for the future, for naming kids, for changing my mind.
My best advice is to wait. If you don’t know, don’t do anything. Wait a few months or a few years even. Things look and feel differently several months down the road.
April 28, 2010 9:43 am
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I’ve pretty much always wanted to hyphenate my name. Before we were even engaged, my husband and I discussed it and he was very much against me not just taking his name. “Because it’s what everyone does.” But as I pointed out, since when do we do things just because “everyone” else does? We are your “atypical traditionalists” too, Meg, and so we do sometimes do the traditional thing, but not without thinking it through first.
People asked me “it’s just a name, why does it matter?” JUST a name? It is a MAJOR part of my identity, and I love my family and my association with them! Another line I heard, that it shows you are really being accepted into his family, makes NO sense for us – he is basically estranged from his family and we are both super close to mine. By that reasoning, HE should take MY name.
Anyway, he finally realized it was very important to me as part of my identity and as part of my feminist/equality viewpoints (and by me pointing out how he would feel if he was Joe Doe instead of Joe Schmoe), and admitted he was more concerned about the name our children would carry. I hyphenated, but our children will have just his last name. I am OK with that, because I understand his thoughts about wanting us to be the “Schmoe family”, as well as the whole what do your kids do when they get married if they ALREADY have a hyphenated name.
I’ve had many friends ask me what they should address us as on invites and such. I tell them the “proper” way, and that I’m also OK with The Schmoe Family or even Jill & Joe Schmoe, because especially right now not everyone knows I hyphenated (fairly recently married). But man, being addressed as Mr. & Mrs. Joe Schmoe really bothers me. The Mrs. instead of Ms. for one, the lack of my real last name being used, but more than anything, I HATE that traditional etiquette has the woman being referred to only via her husband’s full name. ICK!
April 28, 2010 9:46 am
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Even as a not-yet-engaged-person, this is something I think about a fair amount. My mom fully intended to change her last name when she got married (though my dad encouraged her not to), but she said the first time she went to sign a check with the new last name, it was too weird for her so she never changed it :) So my brother and I both got my mom’s surname as our middle name, and dad’s surname as our last name. I had always thought I’d like to hyphenate when I get married (ok, depending on my fiance’s name), so my name would be Me Mom Dad-Husband, and then totally describe all my family connections. Still though, I’m undecided. The multitude of options is a little overwhelming, though I am quite sure that I don’t want to give up any of my current names.
I discovered recently while talking to my partner about the potentials if we were to get married, that he does not want his family name passed on to his children. It turns out it was an adopted name a couple generations ago, and all the men who carried that name (until him, I might point out) were abusive and manipulative in a variety of horrible ways, and my partner has no wish to carry on a name with that legacy. So, in fact, he might take a different name at some point, maybe his mom’s family name, as the history of that family more accurately reflects his values. I have a hard time with that idea, because to me his identity and who I love is him as his name is now. When he mentioned the possibility of taking my name, I was a little surprised to find that I didn’t want that to happen, but that I was willing to take on his name in some way. A strangely traditional side of me coming through.
On a related note, my brother is getting married this summer, and his fiancee, whose first name is very similar to mine, is changing her last name to our surname. I unexpectedly found myself totally weirded out by that- like by doing so she is stealing some of my identity, too. How did I get to feeling so selfish about my last name that I don’t want anyone else to share in it, even if they are joining the family and I think the world of them?
April 28, 2010 9:48 am
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A good friend of mine got married two years ago and her husband took her last name. He felt no connection to his last name because it was his step fathers who he didn’t have a good relationship with, and there was no one else on her side of the family to carry on the name. I thought it made perfect sense but i do know many people thought it was the strangest thing. At the end of their ceremony the officiant (who was her brother-in-law) fudged and announced them as Mr. and Mrs. Jayson Rylee. He completely left out any last name and in a way it was kind of perfect because even though they got married they were still teh same people regardless of who took what name
April 28, 2010 9:52 am
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“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Lame? Sorry =)
I almost feel ashamed that I do not feel as passionately as many of you about the name change situation. As for me, I will be keeping my last name (for now) for the pathetically lazy reason that his last name is far more popular than mine and I want to keep my email address (It’s my proper name and NO numbers!) – hey, a good email address is hard to find! I’m also not a fan of paperwork and doing all these changes – bills, mortgage, license, etc.. Who knows, maybe in the future I’ll change my mind. I’m one of those indecisive folks.
P.S. I absolutely LOVE reading all these unique stories of how certain names came to be. I must say, some of your parents and friends (and yourselves) are far, far more creative than my family ever was. Love, love, love it.
April 28, 2010 9:52 am
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YES! That was totally going through my head as I read every post!
April 28, 2010 11:58 am
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Hoh man. The names.
We got married in August and literally just filed the name change paperwork three weeks ago, it took that long to decide on exactly what we were going to do. Not to mention save the small fortune required if you want to do a name change that includes more than a last name.
We, like probably everyone else here, had some complicated things going on. For one thing, I:
1) Already had three middle names. (Yes. Three.)
2) Grew up with divorced parents and did not share a last name with my mother, which I hated. I knew I wanted a family name, that the kids would get, etc. I also wanted to get my mom’s family wedged into my name somehow.
3) Am part Asian, but you’d never know it by looking at me. I wanted to keep my Korean name as proof that, yes, I’m not quite white. And that came from Dad’s side.
4) Married a man who is pretty traditional, but, thank God, does understand where I’m coming from.
5) Married a man with a tri-syllabic last name.
He:
1) Did not have a legal middle name, but had been using his dad’s first name as his unofficial middle name his whole life (It’s Russian tradition to take the father’s first name as a middle name)
2) Under no circumstances did he want to take my last name (father’s or mother’s)
3) Wanted us to be “the ______________ family”
4) Understood and accepted the fact that he would have to make a name change too.
So, I had a few goals:
1) Get my mom’s maiden name as part of my real, legal name (which it wasn’t)
2) Get rid of my other middle name that I feel no attachment to whatsoever and haven’t used since I was ten years old
3) Keep my Korean name as a good party trick
4) Decide on a family name we could both agree on for the long haul
5) Not end up with 50 bajillion names (I already have two lines of names on my license, I’d like that to change)
When we got married, we were only allowed to make changes to our last names. We knew we didn’t want to hyphenate (the other thing I should mention is his 3-syllable last name and my 1-syllable last name RHYME) but would want to something that involved changing our middle names as well.
So. On our marriage license, he is Mr. E. His, and I am Ms. T. His. No changes other than that.
It just didn’t feel right.
To change our middle names, we had to go to court. Actually, it’s still in progress as we speak. It took a lot of paperwork, and a lot of money, but it feels good knowing that, on June 22nd, we will have the names we want. We’re not hyphenating, but we both took my mother’s maiden name as a middle name, and his family name as a last name. He also officially added his father’s name as his middle name, and I lost the middle name I’d hated for so long, and kept the Korean middle name.
So, in some ways, it feels like a huge “We are the _______________ family” gesture, but at the same time, we’re both doing something highly personal and not at all related to our marriage. I feel like I am reclaiming my identity, in a major way. And I am pretty freaking excited.
I know this isn’t an arrangement that would work for many people, but for us, it’s perfect:
Mr. E (Dad’s name) (My mom’s maiden name) (His last name) and
Ms. T (Korean name) (My mom’s maiden name) (His last name).
Oh, and I don’t even UNDERSTAND the whole Mrs. E. His thing. Who even came up with that?
April 28, 2010 10:02 am
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I have always known that I would take my husband’s name….not because I am extremely traditional or not a feminist, but because I can (in a very real way) remember as a child how secure I felt in the fact that my parents both had the same last name and I had that same name too. It made me feel part of a unit and I want to give my kids the same experience. My fiance refused to take my name but told me he has no strong feeling one way or the other about me taking his……and that made me sad….surprisingly sad. I would have been angry if he had demanded I take his name (which he would never do), but I wanted him to feel the same warm fuzzy feeling about having the same last name. It took a lot of conversation to figure out that he did indeed have a feeling about it, but he wanted to make sure I didn’t feel pressured and made the decision on my own. We are three months away from the wedding and got a card from his grandmother address to Jessica and Chris His Last Name and I took a picture. I’m still keeping my last name as a second middle name though. :)
April 28, 2010 10:09 am
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Having not read through all 218 comments, this may be redundant…but as a married-as-I-can-be lesbian I changed my name. My wife and I were married twice. 1st time in our home town where gay marriage is very not legal with 100 of our closest friends and family. 2nd time was in a state where it is legal. We gained nothing by that piece of paper except the validation of hearing, “By the power vested in me by CT I now pronounce you married.” We back and forth-ed quite a bit about what to do about our names. Both our last names are too long to hyphenate and there’s no way to combine them gracefully (trust me, we tried). So I went to court and had my name legally changed a few days before Christmas. Since then I’ve gone through all the rights of passage straight couples usually endure from getting a new drivers license and social security card to changing my name on our bank account. It’s been 4 months and I’m still not used to my new last name, but I do love it. While I love getting mail to Sarah and D C, the biggest reason we did this is that we plan to start a family soon and it’s important to us that we have a family last name.
April 28, 2010 10:09 am
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Oh…and I suppose I should mention, I didn’t drop my last name. I had it legally combined with my middle name. So now my name reads Sarah Middle Last Her Last. I still use my first middle initial, but it’s comforting to still have my last name in there somewhere.
April 28, 2010 10:13 am
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Meg, I’ve been reading A Practical Wedding for ages and have never got around to commenting. Before I get into my rather unwieldy response, I just wanted to say that I love, love, love your blog and your eminently sensible (and sassy!) attitude towards weddings and marriage. Yours is one of the only wedding blog I read post-wedding because it’s one of the few that keeps thinking and re-thinking about the meaning of weddings, marriage, and being a wife.
I was surprised by how difficult the name change decision was for me. I’m a dyed in the wool feminist, so I always assumed I’d keep my name no questions asked. As we got closer to the wedding, though, I became less and less sure and started to seriously consider changing my name. I went back and forth on it about a million times, talked to my fiance (who had no real opinion on the subject) about it constantly, read everything I could on the topic, and finally realized that my gut was telling me that, for me, the best choice was to keep my name. Once I figured out that I should trust my gut, the decision just fell into place for me.
To be honest, I’m glad that I had such an active internal debate over the issue because it really helped me see the various facets of this decision and realize how difficult the it can be to choose one way or the other. And, more importantly, it increased my respect and understanding of women who decided to change their names. Changing or not changing your name is a deeply personal choice, and going through the decision process myself helped me embrace that it’s the ability to choose what’s right for you that’s important–not what side of the debate you end up on.
One thing I’m struggling with now is dealing with friends and family who simply refuse to acknowledge that I kept my name. Never mind that my husband and I were announced at our reception by both our full names or that EVERY! SINGLE! thank you note we sent out had both our names written correctly, most of the mail we get from people who KNOW us and even attended our wedding comes addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Kevin HisLast or Mrs. Laura HisLast. This drives me absolutely batty!.
Meg’s point about this not being a level playing field REALLY hit home for me here. We’re trapped in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation with no way out. It’s to the point that I can’t even explain why keeping my name is important to me because I feel like I’ll be stepping on the (very, very conservative/traditional) toes of my friends and family. And even though I constantly remind myself that the reason my friends and family don’t address me by my name isn’t that they don’t care about me or my choices, it’s that they assume there isn’t even a choice. In the end, I almost feel like I brought this upon myself by forcing a choice where one didn’t exist before (at least in my world). This is especially frustrating because it makes me feel like my anger and disappointment with their, well, thoughtlessness is invalid because I stepped outside the norm.
This has gotten to be a bit of a ramble that I don’t know how to wrap up. The most important lessons I’ve learned from the Great Name Change Debate are: trust your gut and go with what’s right in the context of the family you’re creating with your partner and respect other people choices regardless of whether you agree with them. And failing that, have a really big glass of wine and just say screw it.
April 28, 2010 10:16 am
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Just to share a laugh, I’m one half of a lesbian couple, and literally one of the first questions out of my dad’s mouth after we told him we were getting married was whether I was keeping my (his) last name. (I am, for now, until we reach the kids stage in life.) It’s apparently a REALLY big deal to him that someone carry on the family name, and as funny as it sounds, I think it’s actually made him glad he has a gay daughter. Who’da thunk?
April 28, 2010 10:16 am
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We have lesbian friends where one of the very traditional fathers is on a full scale lobbying campaign for them to have a kid with his last name and his daughter’s DNA. It’s sort of hilarious.
April 30, 2010 9:03 pm
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I changed my name. I seriously debated losing my middle name, which I’m not attached to, and replacing it with my maiden name, but frankly, the paperwork and the money and the getting fingerprinted by the RCMP was too much for me to bother with. (Intertia for the win!)
I just got my new driver’s licence this week. Can we please talk about how freaking WEIRD it is to have a new name? I mean, I choose my choice, I am happy with my new name. I’m happy going from a super rare last name to an even rarer (but easier to pronounce) last name. I’m happy to be the only Morgan LastName in the whole world. But it’s so strange. Developing a new signature. A driver’s licence with a different name. Trying to break 28 years of habit of writing/typing my old last name. I’m happy with it, but please tell me I’m not the only person who struggles with just how strange it feels…
April 28, 2010 10:19 am
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Tell me about it! I never had to think so carefully about my signature in my life. Combine that with moving to a new state at the same time, and all my new ID documents have me feeling like a stranger. But I do love being Ms. Erin Ourname
April 28, 2010 10:52 am
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Same here!
My now-husband reallyreallyreally wanted me to have his name. I wanted to keep my own. My name is rare, his is common, I am my own woman, my parents woud’ve loved me to keep my name, and most of all: I just coul’dn’t get used to the idea. I just am (still) a MyLastName. Name and identity are somewhat connected in my head.
But in the end, after a LOT of talking and thinking and all, I decided to change my name. For him. Call it our (my!) first marriage-compromise.
And now, I never introduce myself with any last name, I pick up the phone with only my first. I just can’t get used to it. Every time I call myself Harmke His I don’t really believe myself. And I would change my name again. Because it is do important for him, it really makes him happy, and I decided I was willing to give him this. But. It just takes time getting used to it!
April 28, 2010 11:52 am
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I just got my new DL this week too, and it’s totally weird. It’s a little less so because I changed my “old” last to my middle, so the identity is still there a bit.
One good/bad thing, my “new” last starts with the same letter as my “old.” My signature is so sloppy, you couldn’t ever read much past the first letter of my last name anyway, it just looks like KellyS… so, can I just keep signing the same way in my head, because they’ll look the same in the end? Or do I concisously need to concentrate on thinking the new last name when signing? :)
April 28, 2010 12:05 pm
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YES it feels very strange!! I haven’t even changed it legally yet so I haven’t even seen my license with my new name on it (man it was rough enough changing it from Maine to Virginia, can’t imagine what it’s going to be like seeing my new name on it for the first time). makes me want to ask every woman in my family about their name changing experience, what it felt like for them, was it a choice or a requirement, etc. It’s weird, now that I think about it, EVERY woman on both sides of both of our families has changed their name to their husband’s. would make for an interesting documentary….
April 28, 2010 12:09 pm
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That never occurred to me until I realized the final change was only three weeks away… now I feel like one of those high school girls with a crush rewriting her name all over her binder. I am literally practicing. The good thing is, the last letter of my old name is the first letter if my new name, so that’s a start.
But, gah!
April 29, 2010 9:20 am
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This conversation has been amazing and open and impressively free of judgment. So I hope the rant I feel compelled to share isn’t read as a flame… it’s really not. It’s an entirely semantic rant, which I think this crowd will appreciate, and it’s something that has been brewing in my head pretty much since the moment people started talking to me about whether or not I would keep my “maiden name.” I hate the term “maiden name.” I desperately wish we could banish it from existence, and I would love it if Team Practical would help me out with that. “Maiden name” means “the name you had when you were a virgin.” Which now you are not of course, because now you are married. Maiden = virgin, it’s right there in the OED. Continuing to call it a “maiden name,” in 2010, is troublesome. I know that some people are virgins when they get married, and that is entirely up to them, but statistics tell us that a resounding majority of American women (and Canadians and Western Europeans) have sex before they get married. I think if we could divorce the language of marriage and marriedness from the language of sex and sexuality, that would be a wonderful thing for a lot of reasons. So please: call it your unmarried name, call it your family name, call it your given name, call it ANYTHING ELSE. What should sex have to do with it?
April 28, 2010 10:20 am
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good call, Molly!
April 28, 2010 11:24 am
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OED defines maiden name as the surname of a married woman before her marriage. I understand your semantic rant but it’s not wrong to call it a maiden name even if you’re not a virgin.
April 28, 2010 12:11 pm
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Yes, but the OED defines “maiden” as “virgin.” So while yes, absolutely, common usage and therefore the OED defines “maiden name” as “unmarried woman’s name,” my problem is with the words that make up the phrase. No, it is not technically wrong to call the surname of an unmarried woman her maiden name, but it is highly problematic, because of the fundamental implications of virginity rooted in the language. We’re all about challenging the usually unchallenged here at APW, and to me, “maiden name” is something that warrants a challenge.
April 28, 2010 12:24 pm
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I too hate the term “maiden name.” Even if it is now used to refer to your name prior to marriage, it is an unnecessary and gender-specific perjorative for which there is absolutely no male equivalent — nothing coming even remotely close.
What about “premarital surname”? I call it my Real Name, but that is partly because I divorced and took it back. Clearly, it can’t be my “maiden” name as I never relinquished it (I kept it during my previous marriage and simply used both my Real Name and my ex H’s surname), I used it during marriage, I continue to use it after marriage and I will keep it as part of my legal and emotional identity for all of my days.
April 28, 2010 2:06 pm
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Right on! I think “society pages” say nee to mean maiden name–example Jane Doe, nee Smith.
Way to bring the question of sex in again, patriarchy.
April 28, 2010 2:27 pm
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“Nee” is French for “[was] born”. It is gender-specific, being a romance language; the male version is ‘ne’–but doesn’t actually mean ‘virgin’ or ‘unmarried’…
So maybe Birth Name would be good, but that’s often used for first names, maybe? BirthLast would work on these boards, for sure…
;)
August 17, 2010 6:17 am
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Yeah, I really dislike the term maiden name. Less because of it’s virginal implications, but because of it’s connotations. It feels very dismissive – that was your name when you were a little girl, now you are a woman.
NO. Change or no change, no matter where your name came from, that was your f*cking name. Not your little girl name.
April 28, 2010 10:15 pm
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holy effing comments, Meg.
not that one can actually read 221 comments, but I’ll add mine…
I know 4 families who decided on a new name altogether, which I think is super sweet, especially the one who chose “Home” as their new last name.
I am not changing my name. Though hyphenating so that I have a name that said out loud sounds like “Leaf Arrow” is super tempting, his last name just doesn’t suit me, which is a whole other can of worms — what if your last name reflects your ethnic heritage, and your partners does not? However, hypothetical unborn babies will have his last name because it’s easier to say and match first names with. My brother and sister in law gave the babies middle names that were HER family names (Hazen and Lull, how cute) and she and the babies took my brother’s last name. Lots and lots of thoughtful compromise and variation.
I’ve already been called Mrs. His Last Name in hotels & a few other situations, it’s TOO BIZARRE. It’s not me, period. I’m not a Mrs (I get crazy when even called ma’am, for cods sake.) And it -is- upsetting and strange and un-level that Mrs. His Last Name is so easily the default.
There’s a system that’s residual from women-as-chattel where changing one’s name and being known by the mans name was simply what was done, and now, as reflected in the post about Alyssa, women want a process, a ritual, a well thought out meaning behind what they’re doing and why it’s being done.
We’re smart and self aware and analytical in everything we do, including this. When people don’t honor or respect that by being as thoughtful as we are, it is jarring! (It’s symptomatic of the whole culture, though, think of how easily & without awareness slurs are tossed around i.e. “Oh, I never thought about the word ‘gyp’ as an insult” etc etc etc.)
April 28, 2010 10:28 am
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ALSO. I would like to note that the FIRST THING out if his father’s mouth when we announced the engagement was “Is she taking your last name?”
So weird. It’s not even THEIRS, it was changed recently enough at Ellis Island.
April 28, 2010 10:38 pm
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I knew that I would change my name to my husband’s solely because I wanted ONE name for our family. I knew families where the wife didn’t change their name, and the introductions always went like this: “This is David and Chase Brown. and Diane Smith.” I didn’t want to be an appendage or give my kids a long hyphenated last name. In so much of life, simple is usually better.
My husband wasn’t tied to his name at all and we thought about changing his (want to watch your in-laws explode? Tell them their son is going to change his last name.) but it is actually a bit difficult. We also thought about making a mashup of our names, but the one that stuck was the absurd sounding one, of course. Both of our last names are very good examples of each of our backgrounds (we’re steadfastly interfaith and intercountry), so to change either and adopt the other means to lose a bit of one of our cultures to take on the other’s. We’re not into that.
So I decided to keep my original name for professional purposes, and tack on my husband’s name legally and for personal instances.
HOWEVER, we will have been married a year in June. I still have my one last name. I just couldn’t let go of it. I come from a large family, and we were defined as a group by our last name. I still want to be part of the group! I’ll change it someday. Probably when I am about 6 months pregnant.
April 28, 2010 10:29 am
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My own experience was quite similar to yours, Meg, in that I never envisioned myself changing my name upon marriage. I did afford my partner the respect of at least THINKING about it once we decided to get married, although like David, he was perfectly fine with me keeping my name. So I tried his on for size, writing my first with his last, saying it outloud to myself, having others say it outloud and just trying to get a feel for what it’d be like.
But ultimately, I decided it just didn’t fit. I really, really love my last name. It’s rare and quirky and very, very me. So much so that about half the people in my life use it exclusively when referring to me. My disinterest in giving it up had nothing at all to do with not having brothers and worrying about the longevity of our family name – those are things I truly could not care less about. But it had everything to do with an identity that was 31 years in the making. It also had a little bit to do with me being incredibly lazy and not wanting to deal with the actual process of changing my name.
And like you, I hoped my partner to take my last name, but he was having none of it. His reasons were very different from mine (he’s ambivalent about his name at best, but did not want to change mostly for reasons relating to the inevitable response that people would have), but I chose to respect them.
And like you, I also decided that not changing my name immediately upon the conclusion of our wedding didn’t mean I could NEVER change it, if I so wished. IF we have children and I have a change of heart (or if HE has a change of heart), that is an option that is available to us.
We’ll just cross that bridge when we come to it.
April 28, 2010 10:36 am
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woah, hot topic! I’ll admit I haven’t read all the comments, but here goes: we’ve already had the legal stuff, and in Cali both men and women are allowed to change their middle and last names. We both have mylast hislast, except for him, mylast is a middle name, and in mine I have a no hyphen double last name.
I plan on sticking with my “real” name in the professional realm, going by hislast in the social/family world, and the double last name no hyphen legally. I know of many women who do this, and to me it encapsulates all that I hope to be: successful career woman and mother/wife (not that you need to have the same last name to be a good mother/wife, but I prefer the unity that a single last name provides). Our children will have mylast as their middle name.
April 28, 2010 10:43 am
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Oh Meg thank you so much. Just…thank you! My fiance was really hurt and offended that I didn’t want to take his name, and it has been the hardest conversation to have. I guess I need to force him to have it, because if I change my name just to appease him I will be resentful of it for the rest of my life.
April 28, 2010 11:22 am
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Meg thanks for opening the discussion. I have to admit I never wanted to change my name, it was never up for discussion. He knew from the beginning how strongly I felt about my identity, with that being said as we got closer and closer the wedding his feelings started to change and even though we aren’t planning on having children at least for the time being, his thoughts on them not having his last name and me not being a part of his family identity, was his only “traditional” requests. It should be said that I’m hispanic and he’s asian, so to me taking on his name was not only a name change, but an entire ethnic identity change. I would no longer be known as ms. x but mrs. y and this presented a total crisis for me. Long story short, it took me over a year of discussions and conversations on the topic and we felt that hyphenation was our best compromise, I did not want to get rid of my name and he was never going to take mine (though I tried and tried to get him to think of that as an option). I know that this choice feels like a cop-out to most but it has worked out for us. For one I get to keep my name professionally and socially but legally we are a family (so we dont have to explain ourselves everytime we’re travelling or legal documents). For us its been the best choice. I really do feel its the most important and personal decisions in the entire wedding planning. Its not something that should be rushed through. As Meg has stated over and over in this blog, a wedding is about the family you both are creating, sometimes that takes compromise on both ends, I say talk to your partner, listen to each other, sometimes we dont know why they feel so strongly on a subject until we take the time to hear each other out.
I will share one extremely funny experience from our honeymoon. Our travel agent booked our hotel under my name, so for the entire 2 weeks we were there the staff kept addressing him as Mr. Her Last Name….I can’t tell you how great that was to hear for a change! thanks for listening to my long rant. :)
April 28, 2010 11:30 am
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My Dad occasionally gets mail addressed to “Mr. HerFirstName HisLastName”. I don’t know how he feels about that, but I always got a kick out of it.
April 28, 2010 7:32 pm
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For some reason I’ve never been that attached to my last name. Am I the only one? I have my dad’s last name, and we were never very close to his family for lots of reasons that I won’t go into. We were, however, close to my mom’s family, who have a dutch last name that starts with Van. (My mother, incidentally, did take my father’s last name. But never really identified with it.) But I always considered myself more one of them, the Van clan, not part of my-dad’s-last-name family. Then I found myself engaged to someone who’s last name also is one of those dutch Van names. So I guess it’s not really that odd that I feel more at home with his last name then I do with my own. I never felt like I was worried about losing my identity or anything because I don’t really identify with the family that my last name comes from anyway. I do identify with the dutch side of my family. So I guess I should feel lucky that my decision to take his name was so much easier than it could have been!
April 28, 2010 11:43 am
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I really like my husband’s family name and we decided that my name looks good with his. So of the places I could change my name, I did, which for right now is all in my head & on my resumes since the SS office won’t let me change my name as I’m here on a dependent visa, not a work visa. It’s kind of ridiculous. Though to be honest, I still struggle letting go of my name on the resumes I’ve been sending out post-marriage. It’s weird. But we decided that when we have kids, they’d get his family name in English and they’d get my family name in Chinese. I think the fact that I still get to keep my family name in Chinese makes me less attached to my English name, which is just a translation of my Chinese name.
Just a little extra tid-bit of info: In Chinese culture a woman’s married name is just the husband’s family name + her full name (full name = family name + name) and that’s only when used in formal settings/formal paper work. In everyday life, the woman still goes by her original name and is addressed as either Mrs. [husband's family name] or Ms. [her family name]. Basically the woman never parts with her family name =) Or at least that is what I’ve come to learn.
April 28, 2010 11:48 am
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I just don’t see any compelling reason to change my name. So I’m not changing it. As you say, Meg, the option is always open in the future if I do change my mind.
About the only name-change option I’d be happy with would be for both of us to hyphenate our last names. We already have that domain name registered (without the actual hyphen), and it feels right to refer to our family/household by both names. Our names are short, so this would only result in a 3-syllable, 10-letter last name. I don’t want to hyphenate if he doesn’t, though. Even if we don’t hyphenate our own names, we’ll still refer to our family and household by the hyphenated name — like Jane Smith and Joe Brown make up the Smith-Brown household. Right now I think we’ll give kids the hyphenated name.
And I really, really, REALLY hate the uneven playing field. It frustrates me so much that women have to agonize over this and defend their decision all the time, but no one ever asks a man “Are you changing your name?” Men don’t talk about how their wife’s name was earlier/later in the alphabet, or was more ethnic/WASPy, or was shorter/longer, or more common/rare, or flowed better/worse with their first name. They very rarely even consider it.
Even some comments in this thread show how uneven it is: men (if anyone even mentions it) simply reject taking the woman’s name, and it’s an unquestioned final decision, but women almost always at least consider the possibility of taking the man’s name in some form. If a woman refuses to even consider it, it seems disrespectful. And if a man does change his name, it’s a big deal and there’s drama.
I’m not trying to judge individual people and individual situations, or say it’s right or wrong to change or hyphenate or add or whatever. I don’t know you guys personally, and I absolutely HATE feminist cred pissing contests. I’m not more feminist or better or whatever because I’m not changing my name. I know and respect women who have gone with basically every name option.
But the unevenness still bugs me.
April 28, 2010 11:53 am
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i think it’s just the beginning of the shift.
i know quite a few men who have mulled it over.
i think i see the reverse in the “uneven playing field”- like you said, the feminist cred pissing contest. when folks know i’ve changed my name, there’s this assumption that i mindlessly, numbly did it- without considering it, or putting thought into it.
April 28, 2010 12:05 pm
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My parents have different names and everyone refers to us as the Smith Doe’s. Like you say, you certainly don’t have to hyphenate to do that.
April 28, 2010 12:38 pm
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Oh, thank you thank you. I attempted to tackle the name-change thing (Just talking about my personal choice) on my blog last week. It is such touchy territory. You’ve verbalized a lot of what I struggle with.
April 28, 2010 12:02 pm
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Meg, you’re so right about this. There’s no hurry.
I was going to use Hislastname socially and Mylastname professionally. Then we went on our honeymoon and we were married and suddenly I realised I wanted to use Hislastname everywhere. It just felt right, even though I saw myself as a keeping my name kinda girl.
18 months later my brother married his girlfriend Catherine, who took his name i.e. my maiden name. Suddenly it all made sense, I would have hated to have the same forename and surname of my (very lovely!) sister-in-law, I had made the right decision – following my gut :)
April 28, 2010 12:13 pm
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Maybe the solution is just to drop our last names altogether… like Madonna. :)
April 28, 2010 12:26 pm
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if i had a name like persephone, i WOULD.
April 28, 2010 12:37 pm
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Or become just a symbol, like Prince.
April 28, 2010 1:57 pm
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We started this conversation almost four years ago, and just came to a decision together in the last few months. It takes time and lots of talking! My mom kept her maiden name, and while I prefer a common family name for myself, I also know having different names can work well for a family too. (For those worried about kids and school issues if you keep your name: Some will make honest mistakes assuming what your name is, and if you can graciously correct them/ignore it, it will be just fine and they will adapt to it, even kids) If I was in a straight relationship, I bet I would feel differently. But, since I’m marrying a woman, it’s important to me to outwardly show we are part of the same family with a common name that we will share with our future children. It’s also a bit easier to change your name in a same sex relationship. No one has an expectation of what lesbian couples *should* do with their last name. And, my first name will never be dropped out of a formal address because we will be Mesdames Ginger and Wasabi Whatever-name-we-choose. In this way, the playing field is more level. My big hang up was that one of us would be changing and one wouldn’t, and that didn’t fit with my idea of our equitable relationship. It finally came down to either me changing my last to her last (I want to keep my middle, but am not as attached to my last), or both changing to my mom’s maiden. We thought about taking my mom’s maiden alot. We both like the name as well as the idea of us both changing. However, as I work toward my conversion to Judaism, it makes more and more sense to take her Jewish last name as our family name instead of both changing to a Irish Catholic last name. So, I’m changing mine to hers and keeping my middle the same. I think my dad (who loves to call me by my first and middle smushed together) would be more upset if I lost my middle than if I drop the last name we share.
April 28, 2010 12:30 pm
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Thank you for a very well written post, before we got engaged I was convinced I would keep my name. I’m the youngest of three girls so the family name ends with us (I only have male cousins). Since we have been engaged I’m becoming more and more keen on having his surname. Neither of our surnames are particularly special. The name I’m most attached to is my Mum’s maiden name and I hope we can incorporate it with our children’s names. So I’ll be changing my name because that is what feels right for me.
April 28, 2010 12:42 pm
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Maybe it’s because I wasn’t super fond of my maiden name, but I never even thought about not changing it when I got married. I just think that a family should all have the same name, and hyphenating is cumbersome not just for you but for your children. What happens, then, when your hyphenated daughter grows up and gets married? When do you stop adding more last names to the string? The man could take the woman’s name, I suppose, but there is something to be said for tradition and convention, even if it’s based in “the patriarchy”. It wouldn’t be any less biased if we all switched to taking the woman’s name, and beign wishy-washy about it just makes things confusing. When we all follow the system of taking the man’s name there is no confusion. As for keeping “my own identity”, well first of all I replaced my middle name with my maiden name, so it’s still legally there, and second why is my identity so tied up in what my last name is? I didn’t get to pick my old one in the first place.
April 28, 2010 1:04 pm
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Sara, if someone asked you to change your first name how would you feel? Your name, your WHOLE name is part of an identity. And if you choose to change it that’s fine, but is it so hard to undertand why people think of it as part of themselves?
And maybe it’s not the name, but maybe it is the decsions. Maybe the option to NOT “all follow the sytem” is part of the identity.
And I don’t necessarily think people are saying the tradition should switch to taking the woman’s name, as much as that it is not mandatory to take the man’s name.
As for the issue of the kids, what if there are no kids? What if the child with the hyphenated name opts to keep it when they get married? What if they like the fact that they have a piece of each parent with them? I hope that whatever I choose to do with my child’s last name, they can know that I thought throught the descion of what to do about it, and that it wasn’t simply rooted in sexist history. That’s what I hope my child thinks about their last name.
April 28, 2010 2:27 pm
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I wish you had said “I think MY family should all have the same name” instead of “I think A family should all have the same name.” My family didn’t all have the same name and when I read comments about how someone thinks families SHOULD be, I feel like family diversity is being discouraged.
April 28, 2010 7:06 pm
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Amen to that.
April 28, 2010 10:18 pm
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Thanks for this Meg. I just recently blogged on the same issue and have been stewing over the matter a lot lately. My situation is frustrating to say the least and reading about others experiences is helping me process somewhat.
In my case I have a choice regarding my name, but in a way I don’t have a choice regarding my childrens’ names. I feel angry and powerless about it. You see, my fiance is Egyptian and he wants our children to have dual citizenship. Unfortunately, in Egypt you take your father’s name by law. You cannot even legally change your last name when you come of age. I have spoken with a lawyer about it and she informed me that even if they take another name in the US we would have to have them issued birth certificates with their father’s name on it for them to receive Egyptian citizenship.
It’s funny, I always wanted to keep my name and have my children share both my name and my husband’s (hyphenation or a combination of the two), but I never thought I would be faced with not having a real choice.
As much as I want to argue the importance of equality in this matter and push for our children to have a hyphenated name that, in itself, would not be equal. How can I ask him to allow his children to give up their Egyptian citizenship when I would never accept my children not taking American citizenship? The answer is…I really can’t. I still find myself angry about the idea though.
My respect for my partner and my desire for our relationship to be equal puts me in a position I always considered unequal. Odd, yes? Lol! The problem with all of this is that I am extremely angry about the entire situation. I feel powerless because a portion of my life that I always considered mine to govern has been taken from me by the Egyptian government. My fiancé and I are both activists. He fights for social and political change in Egypt, but you have to choose your battles. Allowing legal name changes is low on the list of priorities for activists here these days.
…but I always thought I would get a chance to decide and I am in morning over my loss. As it stands now our children will take his last name, which actually consists of five names (five generations of the men’s names in his family), and I will keep my last name. I am saddened by the fact that I won’t share their name, but still do now want to change mine. My name is a part of who I am. I will not compromise my own identity in that way.
-Kat
P.S. Sorry this was a REALLY long comment! Cheers to anyone who made it all the way through! =)
April 28, 2010 1:11 pm
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Kat, thanks for sharing, this is really interesting. I would be terribly frustrated too. I think your kids will learn a lot by the story of the family names and be better for it, especially being raised by activists. Good luck to you!
April 28, 2010 2:01 pm
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Thanks for your story Kat! I agree with Melinda. Even if your children aren’t able to have the name you wanted, they can have the knowledge of what was intended to happen, why it didn’t and why it’s an issue.
April 28, 2010 2:29 pm
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As others have said, thanks for sharing!
I have three very close friends who’s family names are structured like the one you describe (Mother has one last name, Father & Children have another), and both my friend’s really loved that their moms had different names. The have all said that, because of it, they have felt very free to make their own decision about keeping their names upon marriage.
One of these friends was married recently, and she said that keeping her father’s last name also felt like an awesome tribute to her mom.
Anyway, I say all this because, if I were in your shoes I would feel sad too, but the dynamics might set a great example for your future kids!
April 28, 2010 3:07 pm
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Wow, that is INtense about the Egypt laws! Best Wishes, sounds like a rough patch to navigate.
August 17, 2010 4:59 pm
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I’m think I’m really lucky when it comes to changing my name, because this time I get to have a choice in the decision. My mother legally changed her last name while she was pregnant with me in order to pretend she had gotten married and keep her job as a school teacher. (apparently single mothers weren’t looked upon favorably in the South in the late 70s.) So I started off the last name of a man I have still never met.
Then my mother married my stepfather when I was 9. He adopted me and I ended up with his last name. But he’s a horrible, awful man and she greatly regrets the decisions she made in order to give me a father. So I have his last name though I have not spoken to him since the day I turned 18.
This time, I get to take the name of someone I love and get to be in a family with. So I’m quite happy to be taking my fiance’s last name.
April 28, 2010 1:12 pm
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Wow, what a story! I’m so happy you get a name you are happy with!
April 28, 2010 2:03 pm
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