It’s been awhile since we discussed name changing on APW. And funny enough, in the time that we haven’t talked about it, it hasn’t gotten any easier, nor have the answers become any more obvious. So here is the first thing I want to point out: if you’re in the middle of making this decision, you have lots and lots of options. Society tends to present a black and white world view: you change your name, or you don’t. But thinking about it that way just disempowers you. As illustration, let’s look at people we know in the APW community:
- APW staffer Lauren was going to change her name, but then decided that felt wrong to her. She and her husband decided to hyphenate at the last minute. A new name for a new family.
- Cate changed her name, but was adamant about using Ms., not Mrs., because, “Because you shouldn’t be able to tell a woman’s marital status from her title any more than you can a man’s.”
- APW staffer Kate has a dream husband (hi Kevin!) who offered to take her name. But after a lot of discussion she decided that she didn’t want to keep her often-mispronounced-as-a-bad-word last name, so she changed her last name, and took her maiden name as her middle name. Well, socially. She hasn’t done the paperwork yet, and it’s been more than a year. She goes by Ms. as well, in case you were wondering.
- Brenna changed her name, and then it didn’t feel right, so she changed it back.
- APW Staffer Alyssa changed her name, and then cried about it, mourning the loss (which in no way made it the wrong decision for her).
- Marie-Ève lives in Montreal, where it’s actually illegal for a woman to change her last name upon marriage. We had a long conversation about this, where I said, “People here think that to be a family, you need the same last name.” And Marie-Ève said, “That’s crazy. To be a family, you just need to be a family.”
- And then there is me. I didn’t change my name, and I didn’t have any heartache about it. If you ask us what we’ll name our kids, however, you’ll get some flustered arm waving. Don’t think I’m going down without a fight.
So you have options. You have way more options than I’ve listed here, but this is just to get you started. You don’t even need to make a decision right now; you can wait til you feel ready. Or you can make a decision, and then change your mind. But don’t let anyone make you feel like you don’t have choices.
But here is where I have an issue: for most of us, this decision isn’t an easy one. Even if we take the most traditional route and change our names and go by Mrs., the process is often emotionally difficult, leaving us in tears, feeling like we’re mourning a loss. And if there is anything I’ve learned from the ongoing APW discussion about name changing, it’s this: the men in our lives, by and large, don’t know how hard it is for us.
Why? Well, I’d argue that we’re being too quiet about it, and we’re wasting far too much time judging each other for making choices different than our own. (Every second you spend judging a woman for making a different choice than you is a second you wasted.) For whatever reason, we’re internalizing a lot of the painful bits. Maybe we’re talking about it with our partner, but we’re not talking about it with the world at large. We feel like, “This is the way it’s always been,” and “I just need to figure out what I want to do,” and “There just are not any great solutions,” instead of saying, “I’m just not willing to put up with this anymore!” or “You need to know that this is painful for me,” or “I want more options, damn it, and better options, too,” and then politely lighting something on fire.
In the middle of a long conversation with a lot of my best ladies about name change, and what we name our kids, and how even when women don’t change their names, they rarely get to pass down their names to their kids, LPC at Privilege, our resident wise woman said, ”It seems to me that this issue is causing a lot of women a lot of distress and the situation won’t change until society prioritizes a resolution. Twenty-four years after I first become a mother I still wish I could have shared some part of my kids’ last name without giving up my own.” She pointed out that, society is really good at coming up with solutions when it needs to. For goodness sakes, we’ve sent people to the moon, so we can figure out how to make women feel honored during the name game if we put our heads to it.
But we have to start talking about it. And we have to stop judging each other about the choices we make, and start making it a priority to have better, and more, choices for all of us. We have to make a stir. After the initial public reaction to her book How To Be A Woman, Caitlin Moran wrote in her column for The Times, “As Steve wrote: ‘People forget that sexism is bad for men, too: it makes the women they know unhappy. Inequality is bad for everyone.’ It was something I hadn’t considered, but now it seemed obvious: the patriarchy has also made men’s lives difficult. Men and women really hang around each other a lot. Our fortunes are intertwined.” So here is the thing: once the men in our lives know that the name game is (more often than not) making us miserable, chances are, they will want things to change, too. Why? They love us. It might not be easy for them. They might have to do a lot of thinking and work past how-they-always-thought-it-was, but they will want change, too. Why? Because they are our partners. They are on our side.
So let’s talk about this, without judging each other for our choices (Seriously! Stop with the judging!). How can we make this less painful for all of us? What choices are we personally making? How can we improve things?
And as you know, my suggestion is this: hyphenation, where the boy kids keep the dad’s name after marriage, adding their partners mothers name, and the girl children keep their mom’s name, adding their partners fathers name (insert variations for gay families here). It’s got a certain symmetry to it that at least proves that more options are possible.
Consider this post my politely lighting something on fire. And feel free to join me. Maybe we can get a small bonfire going.
Photo: Katie Jane Photo, APW Sponsor
Yeah this… it has been a year and I still did not change my name. Can not put myself to it. The boy is very understanding. He knows is hard and he is not pushing it. We decided to do it, but I keep postponing, it is hard. It feels like giving up a little part of me-ness (but rationally speaking why should it, it is just a name it does not define me. Or does it?). I love Lauren’s solution of both hyphenating. I am also ok with hyphenating but thing is, this country is too complicated. Since I am mexican I have 2 last names Amanda + dadslast + moms last. Because that is my official name, and they don’t let me “drop” one last name in this country if I hyphenate that would be Amanda + boyslastname +dadslastname +momslastname and that is just too long. So we decided I will just in the end be Amanda + boyslastname, but it is still hard on me. For us it is important to both share the same last name with our future kids, so know I tell myself that as soon as I am pregnant I will get around with changing my last name to his since hyphenating will not be an option for us as much as I want it. Also, in answer to Lisa, in Mexico, actually children have both lastnames, the one of the mom and the one of the dad.
September 28, 2011 4:48 am
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If changing your name is such a painful process, you may want to keep the hyphenation option open. You may then, socially, use whatever combination you chose, and leave the 3 lastnames as something purely legal…just a thought…
September 28, 2011 5:32 am
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I agree that the problem with meg’s solution is that it’s limited to one generation… My surname is ‘double barrelled’ B-R, both are short and snappy and relatively easy as far as hyphenation goes (although that hasn’t stopped my mail from getting lost, not being able to use credit cards in machines, check in online etc – be forewarned possible hyphenates!)
This was because my parents, in all their lovely 70s feminism, decided to hypehenate – which I approve of though it has been inconvenient my whole life. the problem is now I have no options, I cant really just drop one of my 2 names, I can’t really be a triple barrel (B-R-S?) and I certainly won’t be doing that to my kids… I’ve kept my name and hubs has kept his. He has started saying lately that he wants our kids to be called the R from my name, rather than the S from his, partly because he’s been having some hard times with his fam lately. But then, that feels like no one’s name at all! We’ve been considering the possibility of making up a new name entirely, but I don’t know if it’s professionally viable, let alone legally.
September 28, 2011 5:38 am
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Anything you want is viable legally. When you change your name with marriage or divorce, you can change the whole thing or make something up FOR FREE! But the husband has to pay to change his.
If you choose to change your name after the free marriage name, you have to pay. It’s not cheap but not cost prohibitive.
When you name your children, you can give them any name you want.
September 28, 2011 5:42 am
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I think this depends on the state – in my experience, both the hubster and I were able to change our names for free.
September 28, 2011 7:58 am
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Yup! Some states have ‘name change equality’ laws. California lets either party to a marriage change to any combination of the two last names (hyphenated, not hyphenated, whatever). If you both want a new name that doesn’t derive from your old names, like some friends of mine did, the cheapest way is to have one person go through the entire legal name change procedure, including ads in the newspaper, before you get married. Then when you get married the other person can just adopt the new name for free.
September 28, 2011 8:23 am
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It does depend on the state–in Oregon, both my husband and I could change our names, but we each had only had five options: myfirst mymiddle mylast, myfirst my middle hislast, myfirst mymiddle mylast-hislast, myfirst mymiddle hislast-mylast, myfirst mylast hislast. For me, who wanted my middle and last as middle names, (or friends of mine who both decided to change their last names to something new) I would have had to go through a separate court-ordered name change process which is $$$.
September 28, 2011 8:40 am
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Not necessarily. In NC you can change your middle and last with a marriage license but not first, much to my annoyance. I was going to have a double first name instead of double middle.
September 28, 2011 11:51 am
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I also have a hyphenated last name! I also feel like I HAVE NO OPTIONS. In order to hyphenate, I HAVE TO CHANGE MY NAME. And people that don’t have hyphenated names just don’t get it. They just don’t. That part sucks. My name is 15 letters long; judges make fun of me when I introduce myself in court. It means hyphenating isn’t a solution at all, but rather prolonging the problem. Three last names for two people really is a lot, and hyphenation has it’s own problems. I think we need an APW post on having a hyphenated last name, since this community is the only place where I’ve found other children of feminist parents dealing with the same problem.
September 28, 2011 6:02 am
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As a new hyphenate (16 letter, I sympathize), figuring out what to name our child, I would totally love this post.
September 28, 2011 6:31 am
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But if the WHOLE SOCIETY was hyphenating, and re-hyphenating, then all names would come and go over time, no?
September 28, 2011 8:25 am
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WHAT LPC SAID.
September 28, 2011 10:44 am
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Wasn’t sure where to thread this, so I think I’ll reply here.
I just want to offer a counterpoint to say that I have a hyphenated last name, and I LOVE IT. I think it’s awesome, and I wouldn’t trade it in for the world (or my future husband). As for people who give me bullshit about it? F*ck ‘em. My name is awesome, and they just have to deal with it.
As for children, Meg’s idea sounds great. I’m also fond of the Spanish/Latin American method of simply threading names together for a million generations (the more names the merrier!). As for me, if we ever have kids, we’re making up a name – an acronym of both of my last names, his last name, and his mom’s maiden name. Whatever you go with, just own it. You’re kid won’t suffer unduly from having a long last name. Yes, some people are jerks about it, but some people will be jerks regardless of your last name.
September 28, 2011 6:31 pm
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Hey V and everyone. I’m also planning on making up a name for future children. Don’t know what it will be but I’m partly using the inspiration of the ‘fossil’ children from the book/movie about the three orphans who become a new family. They each become ‘firstname Fossil’.
I will keep my name, but for me it must go further than that. I want my (future) children’s names to honour the fact that they come from two people and two lineages, not one. It’s going to be interesting when I get there, but hopefully we’ll come up with something wonderful.
Just adding my voice to encourage other people to invent new family names for children if it feels right to them.
P.s. Meg you are awesome
October 2, 2011 3:07 pm
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I’m in a similar boat. My husband’s last name is already hyphenated, so re-hyphenation isn’t really an option for us. He also doesn’t feel right about dropping one of his last names, since he’s bicultural and doesn’t want to choose one side over the other. (He offered to take my last name, which would be lovely and alliteration-y, but due to cultural issues above it doesn’t really work either.) If I took his last name, it would be like we had hyphenated — except we didn’t, my name is nowhere in there and it would be super weird for us.
Our solution is for me to keep my last name. When we have kids, they’ll have my last name and he can socially use my last name when he wants to. No more hyphens for us! It’s just too confusing.
September 28, 2011 7:00 am
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While you can write it, I’m telling you, my solution IS a solution. If you were our kid, you’d drop your dad’s name, and add your husband’s dad’s name.
September 28, 2011 7:29 am
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Sorry, but what are the gay variations? Because I’m a W-W hyphen and I’m marrying a non-hyphen D.
Following this logic:
1. What would our names be post-marriage?
2. What would our kids names be?
3. What would our kids names be post-marriage?
November 28, 2011 9:43 am
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But then are you proscribing what your daughters and sons HAVE to do when they get married? Surely they should get to decide for themselves. Planning such a complicated drop-this-then-take-that only works if you have the consent of everyone involved in the process.
March 5, 2012 8:32 am
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Absolutely! My parents hyphenated and gave me the hyphenate (and the proceeded to divorce). Over the years my hyphenate has resulted in lost SAT scores and college applications, multiple credit scores, bank accounts that won’t allow you to use punctuation, being searched at airports because my name on the ticket (you can’t use the hyphen) doesn’t match my id (which does have it). It requires constant explanation in business/professional situations. When my dad remarried and had kids I begged him not to give them a hyphen (they did anyway). Also food for thought, if your last name does not match your children’s exactly (in California anyway) you have to bring birth certificates should they be hospitalized to prove guardianship. One more pain in the ***.
I am getting married next year and I am happily changing my name. I do not feel like I am “losing” a part of myself as my parents marriage was pretty much non-existent my whole childhood and my dad’s part of the last name was changed at Ellis Island anyway when they couldn’t pronounce or spell it correctly so there aren’t even true family ties. I think that I am for couples picking a last name together that they are both happy with, but until technology catches up to forward thinking couples, I just don’t recommend the hyphen.
October 3, 2011 8:03 pm
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Ah, my solution has the solution BUILT IN! Girls drop the dad’s name, boys drop the mom’s name. We plan to raise our kid on that idea, so they are good and used to it when it comes time (and of course they can do what they want, but that’s our plan).
September 28, 2011 7:28 am
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I’ve been looking EVERYWHERE for some advice on what to do if already hyphenated. I appreciate that you’ve come up with a solution that works for you, Meg, but there is no way I (we) would feel comfortable making everything so gendered.
I’m not comfortable with changing my name as I feel strongly that my hyphenated name is a huge part of who I am. The T-S name applies only to the 4 people in my immediate family. It wasn’t created out of nowhere but combined out of family names that came before. I would love to continue this with my future children — I want their last name to apply only to our new family, to stand for where we came from as well as who we are now. I really think I want to double hyphenate (!!)
I’d be willing to let my kids use his last name socially since it’s much shorter than mine (duh, I’ve got 2), but in terms of the logistics, I say tough luck if it’s annoying. As aggravating as it is (and I certainly understand), there really are worse things in the world than the automated voice on the telephone repeating, “I’m sorry, I did not understand you. Please spell your name… I’m sorry I did not understand you. Please spell your name.”
September 28, 2011 8:08 am
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For me, it’s less that it’s gendered, then that women then have names that represent a whole matrilineal line, and men have names that represent a whole patralineal line. I think there is something deeply lovely about that. Plus, I love the balance and symmetry, and the idea that our identities change over time.
September 28, 2011 10:46 am
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So if my name is B-R (b=mom, r = dad) and my husband is S, our kids are B-S? And if it’s a girl, her kids are B-? and if it’s a boy, his kids are S-?
September 28, 2011 8:14 am
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Yes!
September 28, 2011 10:47 am
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Oh my god. I know I just got back from a whole day of teaching and Back to School Night, but it’s STILL not making sense to me. And I so badly want to see how it works. Meg, can you do a mini family tree with names? My brain no workie.
September 28, 2011 8:30 pm
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I grew up with a hyphenated last name – both my parents took both last names when they got married, and my brother and I were given both at birth. When my brother got married, he used Meg’s solution – swapped out our mom’s last name for his wife’s last name, which he and his wife have both used since they got married, and which they gave to both of their kids. I just changed mine, though (this month!). I really haven’t liked having a hyphenated last name, for all the reasons you normally hear – people forget it and can’t spell it, computer systems can’t deal with it, some airline check-in machines reject it, etc. I’m pretty thrilled to go down to such an easier name, though it definitely is a weird change and I’m very much still getting used to it. That said, if everyone used this system, I’m sure I wouldn’t think twice about having a hyphenated last name.
September 28, 2011 10:11 am
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I’m not usually this dense, I swear. But, this is confusing. So: if my name is smith(mom) -jones(dad) and i marry paris (mom) – rome (dad), then I become smith-rome? and so does he? we both keep my mom and his dad since i’m the woman and he’s the man? then we have a son and daughter, both named smith-rome, and the daughter keeps smith and the son keeps rome if/when they marry? and so on and so forth?
in spain, do two partners who marry keep their hyphenated names in the same order? how is order of names decided?
trying to wrap my mind around this, since it really seems like one of the only viable options for my family.
September 28, 2011 11:19 am
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In Spain partners who marry do not change their names. The Children take the first name from each ( the name of the father of each partner) Father’s name comes first, mother’s comes second.
September 28, 2011 12:01 pm
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so my daughter’s children would have my husband’s father’s name – her partner’s father’s name? doesn’t the woman’s name still get lost in this arrangement after a generation? i think i need to see this mapped out visually to get it ;)
September 28, 2011 12:29 pm
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Yes, it does.It is still a patriarchal way of naming children.
September 28, 2011 12:36 pm
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I’m trying to answer PAF, but it won’t let me. Anyway, after a generation, even in Spain the name gets lost officially – but since we’re so used to the idea of not having a single last name, but more of them, I actually know 10 of my last names – they’re not really lost, I think.
And anyway, you can now choose which last names go first, actually, when children are born – and some people are choosing in alphabetical order. As someone whose first last name starts with a V (and second with a B) I would’ve loved that!
September 28, 2011 2:21 pm
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The funny part of your solution is that is what has happened for us – my sister and I both go by my Mom’s name – but both of us are really hesitant to put our kids through the hassle that we have gone through. Also, with your solution, you still have to give up one of your names when you have kids – which still kind of hurts.
September 28, 2011 2:40 pm
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I actually really don’t like this, perhaps due to one reason: my boyfriend’s side of the family has had two females born in a few generations. Chances are, if we go the biological route, I still wouldn’t have anyone carry on my name. People pretend as if a boy or a girl is always a 50-50 chance, but that isn’t always the case.
September 28, 2011 6:57 pm
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a (former) step-parent did just that:
married once – hated maiden name, glad to take husb’s name
divorced once – kept married name
married twice – took husb2′s name
divorced twice – less amicable divorce than husb1
asked husb1 if she could re-take his name (he declined)
changed name legally – in court, to something similar, but not the same
married thrice – took third husb3′s name
… her kid’s name is different from hers (they parted ways two names back), but her parental status has never been challenged. nor, to my knowledge has her career suffered. anecdotal, but true.
September 28, 2011 2:05 pm
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There’s been so many great comments and I’m late to the game. But as someone with a hyphenated name from my parents, can I just say, this is NOT a solution. My names have been a total pain in the ass. One last name for your kids, please. Especially when you have two monster last names like my parents had.
September 29, 2011 2:36 pm
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Hi Amanda, I have a question for you! I’m European American and planning to keep my last name; my fiance is Peruvian and has paternalname maternalname. What I’m curious about is whether, if my kids are born in the US, there’s a way for us to keep their last name Latino-style, “hispaternallastname mylastname”, without hyphenating or putting one name as the middle name. Do you know whether this is an option for babies born in the US?
September 28, 2011 12:16 pm
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Hi Kaitlyn! I’m Spanish and born in the US – unfortunately they wouldn’t let my parents give me two last names like it’s the norm in Spain, so they hyphenated. But this was 20+ years ago, so maybe things have changed? I wouldn’t bet on it though…
September 28, 2011 2:31 pm
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Oh no, our plans are foiled! Unless I decide to give birth in Peru, that is… name changes, or the concept of a couple having the same last name, makes no sense to my fiance since it isn’t a part of his culture. After thinking about it, I realized that it’s not really a part of my culture, either! But, I would like my name to be passed to our kids, even if it were to get lost after a generation. Thanks so much for your reply :)
September 28, 2011 2:42 pm
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My fiance is Latino, was born in the US, and legally has two last names (unhyphenated). I think you can do it.
September 28, 2011 9:38 pm
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Very, very late to this conversation.
Here is a well-known couple in the publishing industry with a non-hyphenated double last name:
http://nielsenhayden.com/name.html
They explain the ins and outs of having a non-standard name.
January 24, 2013 12:39 pm
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I didn’t have a man to work this issue out with, but I did have a fiancee who was very, very attached to her last name, and I was very attached to mine. I wrote about it a little bit here: http://queerskiesahead.com/2010/04/mrs-and-mrs/
Since then, we have changed our names and we have the same last name, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. It almost feels *more* important to have the same last name since we *aren’t* having children: I want to be identifiable as a FAMILY without little ones to connect us. Yes, our last name (or at least my half of it) is difficult to pronounce; yes, sometimes I go by the much easier to pronounce second half of now-our last name (her original last name).
The biggest thing of it all is that we were both on board with our decision. I think we both gave a little bit; in the beginning, neither of us wanted to change at all. Now, we are both glad we did.
September 28, 2011 4:50 am
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My partner and I also want to have the same last name — partly because it seems like people expect us not to. It’s like, because there is no man’s name to take, everyone assumes that we will just keep our own. (Maybe this goes hand-in-hand with the view that a same-sex marriage isn’t as “real” or something? Not a “real” marriage, so no reason to change your name? I don’t know, I think it’s weird how surprised everyone is.)
She took her ex-husband’s name when she got married before, so we’re both going to change to her original last name when we get married. So we’re both changing, and both giving something up. She won’t have the same last name as her kids anymore, and I won’t have the name I was born with anymore. But we will both get to have the same name, and a fresh start together as a new family.
September 28, 2011 6:57 am
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It’s funny. Being queer makes me definitively NOT want to have the same name as my partner — totally aside from being attached to my own name — because then people will think we’re sisters. Which feels a) creepy and b) like an erasure of our relationship. It’s more of an issue because we’re about the same size and have broadly similar coloring (brown hair, blue eyes) even though our faces and our body shapes look nothing alike.
I like how people get really different places starting with the same basic concerns.
September 28, 2011 8:12 am
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I used to get the “are you two sisters??” all the time with my ex (we are both women), usually in retail check out lines. It creeped me out and made me feel very closeted, which we weren’t.
When we were on the marriage track, I had planned on changing my name to hers — the possibility of an increase in the sister assumption didn’t even occur to me.
September 28, 2011 9:59 am
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Genevieve, the EXACT SAME THING happens to me and my wife in check out lines too! How funny!
One of the reason I love my wife is that she always responds, ‘No, we’re married.’
September 29, 2011 1:56 pm
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The “sibling” issue is what comes up with everyone I’ve talked to who isn’t from a name-changing culture. In so many places around the world, couples don’t share last names. Only siblings do.
September 28, 2011 5:40 pm
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wanting to be identifiable as a *family* was a surprisingly big deal to me (i mean, it surprised me – i doubt it surprised anyone else). especially since my parents don’t have the same last name, i assumed i would be blase about it – obviously they are married, and she is my mom no matter what.
but i guess that is exactly the thing – it is not obvious to people that jamie and i are married – and it will likely not be obvious that we are our kids’ moms (if we acquire kids, they will be adopted, and likely obviously not biologically ours). and i want it to be as obvious to others as it is to me that we are a family.
September 28, 2011 8:12 am
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ooh, FIRE!!! who’s got marshmallows?!
I think what I struggle most with over this whole issue is that it’s only ever women who get asked by social acquaintances whether or not they are changing their name. So even when it’s being discussed in a social environment, the context is still about the woman changing.
It’s hard, though, to discuss the various options with female friends getting married without making them feel like I think they shouldn’t change their name.
Clearly I need to start asking their male partners if they’re changing their names!
Sooz
(who kept her name, and is planning kids with hyphenated names)
September 28, 2011 4:51 am
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HELL YES. If you’re a woman marrying a man, it’s an issue for you and not him. No matter what you ultimately do, it’s a struggle for you and he doesn’t even have to consider changing his name. It’s not a level playing field.
September 28, 2011 5:01 am
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Actually, it is an issue for him. Because if you choose to change both of your names, hyphenate, or have him adopt your name, then HE has to pay and go through the legal process of name-changing, which is long and annoying…whereas women get a free new name with each marriage or each divorce.
September 28, 2011 5:44 am
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This isn’t true everywhere- in my state both partners have the opportunity to change their names (for free) when applying for the marriage license.
September 28, 2011 6:25 am
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Here in Massachusetts, name changes during marriage and divorce are free for both genders. You just have to put it down on your application for a marriage license. Also anyone can change their name to anything on their state issued ID (Drivers license) at any time for the regular cost of a new drivers license. The only rule is that it can’t be “in an attempt to Defraud” … whatever that means.
September 28, 2011 6:36 am
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This should change. Though to be fair, if you do something even slightly off the beaten track (like APW Staffer Kate did) you have to pay too. It’s crap that we’re favoring one system over another.
September 28, 2011 10:49 am
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I completely agree Meg! It should be free for everyone!
My husband broached the topic of taking my last name because he knew I was ambivalent about taking his and because he no longer has a relationship with his father and doesn’t want to continue the name. When we found out how much easier it is for a woman to change her name versus a man in our state I wanted him to change it even more.
Ladies whose name choice comes from a cultural standpoint, like Amanda, who is Mexican, is it equally hard to change names to something that isn’t as traditionally Anglo-Saxon? Because then isn’t it also ethnical discrimination?
We haven’t gone through the process yet because we’re poor and a little undecided. But our kids will have my last name regardless of his last name. And I’m not going to care if people socially call me Mrs. Hislastname when they are unaware of our choices. Too many other things to care about. Besides, it has nice alliteration. :)
September 28, 2011 11:07 am
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It is crap that men have to go through a longer process and pay but if it’s what you want to do then DO IT. It can only help towards making this a legitimate choice.
States will vary but in Idaho all of the forms are available for free (with instructions) on the State Supreme Court website. You go to your county courthouse, file them, pay your $175, then wait for your notice to run in the paper in four different weeks, then appear before the judge.
September 28, 2011 11:29 am
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Yes! When I tell people I asked Kevin to take my name (I did, about 15 minutes after getting engaged) people LAUGH like I’m making a joke. It makes me so angry. Why is it assumed I’m changing my name and its a funny joke to talk about him changing? More work needs to be done, obviously.
September 28, 2011 6:28 am
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I know I’ve mentioned this before, but a male coworker who got married about a month before I did changed his last name to his wife’s last name – no hyphenation. Basically, he and I made exactly the same decision regarding our last names, for the same reasons – we wanted a shared last name for our family unit, and our partners were sympathetic to that but also far too attached to the names they already had to change them at all. And yet almost nobody reacted to our decisions in the same way — including some people who applauded his choice and denigrated mine. It’s really not unexpected, I guess, given how unusual it currently is for a man to take a wife’s last name, but still kind of bizarre to think about.
September 28, 2011 9:48 am
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Did he change it? And how have those friends or family members reacted to that? I think this is one reason why we’re still undecided (also $$). After awhile only our family members and friends who knew us before will even know, and we shouldn’t be bothered by what other people think, but I’d like to know what issues you guys might have faced with him changing his name.
September 28, 2011 11:12 am
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My own experience actually felt very different. When my husband and I decided to marry, I brought up the topic of last names. His response was, “Well, I guess we could either keep our original names or else come up with a new joint family name.” He never assumed that I would be the only one to change my name! I think that may be why this decision never felt like a struggle to me. It felt like we were partners on an exactly level playing field.
Either we both kept ‘em or both changed ‘em to a new combination name that equally represented each of us. We’ve come up with two potential combination names – Haston (my choice) and Barkell (his). I think Barkell sounds like a cartoon name, so we’re both keeping our given names for now. I rather like the simplicity of sticking with the name I’ve always had (just for laziness, not attachment to it). But we reserve the right to change our minds.
September 28, 2011 11:24 am
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We have told everyone that asked that “neither of us are currently changing our names.”
September 28, 2011 7:30 am
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yes! exactly!
it gets strange little side glances, but it makes a point. and i feel like i’m contributing to a change in how we think about names.
September 28, 2011 8:24 am
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We’re just getting our orders of service printed and I need to work out the wording to let people know our plan. I’m not changing my name mostly because it feels like giving up a part of me and also I don’t really like his last name or any of the hyphenated options. I started off with wording like “After the wedding Fran will be keeping her name” but I definitely prefer the idea of saying that neither of us are changing our names. Cheers Meg!
September 28, 2011 11:43 am
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I love this and have told pretty much everyone I know about it, by the way. :)
September 28, 2011 1:51 pm
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That’s what we (well, definitely I, not sure how he answered it) did. I just said, “Nope, we’re both keeping our current names.”
September 30, 2011 2:00 pm
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Yes! We got married a month ago (exactly a month ago today!) and used that exact wording on our website and every time we talked about it. People seemed to get the message.
May 21, 2012 10:29 pm
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For me the decision process was straightforward. I’ll take my husband’s last name, and I’ll be Mrs. In my particular case I guess, my last name is just a part of my history, not a part of my identity. Because I have a family that’s really into geneology, my mom’s maiden name feels like an equal part of who I am as my actual last name does, even though I don’t go by it – so as a result I don’t hold onto any fears or qualms about changing my name, because I know it will still be an important part of my history. It will still be on my birth certificate, my children will still have relatives with that last name and they’ll still learn about that side’s history and legacy.
I guess I also don’t really see any particular feminist attachment to keeping my last name. It’s still a man’s name (my father’s) – who in turn got it from his father, who got it from his father, etc, etc. Sure I could take a stand and say “I’m ending this patriarchal lineage right here!” but it doesn’t make sense for us. My last name is difficult to spell and difficult to pronounce. It sounds terrible with my partner’s first name, so him taking my name isn’t a viable option. It doesn’t hyphenate well. My parents swiped the only 2 baby names that actually work with my last name when they named my sister and I. On the other hand, my partner’s last name, which is easy to spell, easy to pronounce, yet still unique, sounds great with my first and middle name. It feels natural.
So yes, for me, changing my name was not a hard decision. My current last name will still always be an important part of me, it will still define where I came from, but I don’t need it written on paper to do that. It will still be an important part of my children’s past, just like my mom’s maiden name and the history associated with it have always been important to me.
September 28, 2011 4:56 am
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“Because I have a family that’s really into geneology, my mom’s maiden name feels like an equal part of who I am as my actual last name does, even though I don’t go by it – so as a result I don’t hold onto any fears or qualms about changing my name, because I know it will still be an important part of my history. It will still be on my birth certificate, my children will still have relatives with that last name and they’ll still learn about that side’s history and legacy.”
I am 100% with you on this. I feel just as much part of my mother’s (and grandmother’s) maiden names, as I know (or hope) my future children and grandchildren do.
I always wanted to change my name…not because I don’t love my maiden name, and I do, but because I do happen to like to tradition, and I wanted to share a last name with not only Eric, but his family, too. I had no remorse or harbored any sad feelings about changing my name. On the contrary, I was excited about it. Anytime any of my students calls me “Mrs. H” I am giddy with joy. For me, it was an easy decision to make. Do I miss my maiden name? Not really, no. I guess to me, I always just felt like “Olivia!” and that’s ME. Now, if you told me I had to change my middle name, I’d be a crying mess…I’ve always sort of just been Olivia March (my middle name) and now I have a new last name to go with that.
The beauty of feminism is being able to choose what’s right for you.
September 28, 2011 5:39 am
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And that’s lovely. But the beauty of feminism is also fighting for more and better options for others. I might not want FILL IN THE BLANK (a job outside the home, the right to not have kids, etc.) but I’m going to fight my ASS off to make sure other women have those rights. So I’d argue that just because you were happy to change you name, in no way eases your responsibility to fight for more and better options for other women.
September 28, 2011 7:34 am
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Uh oh, I hope that’s not how my comment came across! I thought we were sharing our stories of our own decisions about name-changing vs. not name-changing, and how we came to those decisions. My comment was in no way supposed to insinuate that because my decision was easy for me, that everybody else’s struggle is irrelevant and I don’t care to fight for their right to make the choice that’s right for them. Sorry if that’s how it was interpreted!
September 28, 2011 8:34 am
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Nah, I think that’s one of the major points of the posts and comments on this blog, is that we are allowed to share our individual experience without implying that that is the Greater Story or something. That said, I think Meg has a point that we can have our own story but still fight for increased rights for all people. But I didn’t take your comment like that, no worries!
October 1, 2011 7:07 am
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I dunno. I feel like in this one arena we have infinite options at this point, and they are all valid: keep name, change name, hyphenate in any number of permutations, create a totally new name (I know 3 couples who have done this!). Of course it is hard to decide what is best for you, but that is a personal decision. Why is there still a fight here? I’m asking honestly.
September 28, 2011 8:37 am
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I think just because not everyone’s choices are universally accepted as valid. I’ve been very fortunate to have most people I know assume nothing, but I have a close friend who’s asked me, twice, “you’re taking his name, right?”
On the side I don’t like to complain about, several people have been shocked and upset that I might actually do that. I appreciate that they see me as an independent woman with her own identity, and that they think it really IS important for society to accept women keeping their own names…so I’m a disappointment, maybe?
The problem with looking at it as a fight is that it often assumes there should be a winning side, and that the culturally dominant option (changing) deserves to lose universally. I’m not sure how to fix that, since we all do have somewhat different ideas of what names mean for women’s identities and independence, and some of those ideas entail not accepting change.
September 28, 2011 9:04 am
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Because not all women know that they have these options, a whole hell of a lot of men disregard most of these options, and because sometimes it’s really hard to decide which option is best when none of them feel like the perfect choice.
September 28, 2011 9:35 am
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What Ms. Bunny said. The options are NOT even yet. They are NOT respected by lots of society and by lots of men. We do NOT have great accepted options for passing our names along to our children. It is NOT a just a personal choice, it’s a political one. IE, for each of us the choice is personal, but making sure women have universally respected options is political, regardless of what choice we make.
My option is often dismissed (rather rudely), while people refer to me by a name that is not mine. And we still don’t have a good option. In Spain, hyphenation is the norm. It’s accepted. Here, it’s viewed as wrong or broken, and I’d like that to change.
I don’t think we’re done until when people get married they are asked, “Are * either* of you changing your names?” or when people have kids they ask, “What last name will the child have?” And we’re not close to there yet.
September 28, 2011 10:54 am
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Because there are a ton of women I know who say things like “I’m sad I had to change my name,” or “I didn’t want to change my name, but my husband was very unhappy about my not changing it so I did,” or “My husband said it was a deal breaker for him” (seriously if you don’t believe me check out the Knot Boards — strictly for anthropological reasons, of course.)
I’m all for women who want to change their name to change it, but the truth is, there are a lot of women out there who DON’T want to change their names who do so because they feel pressured into it. It’s easy to forget that when you, as I do, live in a little APW-bubble. (Even in real life half of my friends changed their names and the other half either didn’t or chose a new name or hyphenated or did something similarly unconventional. But the statistics I’ve read are that 80-90 percent of women change their names, so obviously things are different outside my bubble.)
September 28, 2011 10:54 am
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Oh I have to concur about the Kn#t’s message board. There are a lot of women who feel like there is no options out there for them.
September 28, 2011 3:12 pm
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No, no, I wasn’t saying that either. I’m a question asker, debater, and fighter. I was just saying, in a glass-is-half-full way, that it’s awesome we have the right to choose these things, like picking our names–when in other generations they didn’t necessarily. I guess I was just seeing it as, all the options above in your piece are about not changing your name, but there is also the option of changing your name, without feeling remorse about it. Of course I will fight for women’s right to choose their name, but I will also fight for a woman’s right to not change their name. It’s just another option–and having an option is one of the cooler parts of feminism. Asking questions, fighting, debating, those are all parts of it too. Just because it was a good decision for ME, doesn’t mean it was a good decision for someone else, and I will 100% fight for a woman’s right to choose…anything.
September 28, 2011 8:58 am
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As I understand it, the call to action is to defend the choices of all women to help make a space for them.
Right? I don’t want women to hurt over a name change but there ARE lots of options out there (holy cow…look at the comments!) and sometimes that leaves those of us who weren’t conflicted feel a little bit helpless to help.
September 28, 2011 9:45 am
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Of course you can help! That’s like saying you can’t fight for marriage equality if you’re not gay. You can always share other peoples stories, and educate the people around you, even if you don’t feel you have your own story to share.
September 28, 2011 10:56 am
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In choosing to change my name (taking his), some of the factors you mentioned were really important — being close to my mother’s maiden name as well, and knowing that they are all male-patriarchy names anyway. I cried a lot, and often unexpectedly, but a few months after the wedding I did it. It’s weird, but I think all of the options would feel weird, either now or down the line. I love hearing what works for all the different women out there!
September 28, 2011 6:33 am
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I guess I’m always a bit surprised to read or hear about the issues around name-changing. But I agree that it is important to talk about it so others can appreciate the struggle.
I have to say that I agree with Rachel and LovelyOlivia. My family’s names are an important part of who I am whether they are attached to me or my new family or not. They will always be spoken and talked about. And I’m lucky that my future-hubs uses my last name constantly as a term-of-endearment :)
The only issues that I have is being recognized professionally after I’m married. I’ve spent a heck of a long time getting my name out there and being recognized for my work and I don’t want people to be like, “who is that”? My plan is to use my first, maiden, and new last name on all-things professional for a few years and eventually condense to just my first and new last name.
September 28, 2011 6:44 am
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I like this approach. While the name recognition isn’t as important for me as it is for people in some other fields, I’ve been a little concerned about confusing the heck out of anyone looking for my art after the name change. I think a really slow transition like that makes sense.
September 28, 2011 9:20 am
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Agreed! The beginning of my last name is also a bad word that was used as ammunition in school, so I’m happy to leave it to my brothers and our family history. It’s also a LONG last name, and I am desperate for a less than 20 characters-before-the-@ professional email address and a name that fits on forms.
September 28, 2011 6:59 am
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Interestingly, when I talked to my partner about whether he wanted to change his last name (which is also a rude word in front of a normal one), he said no, because he’d paid so much for his name throughout his life that he felt like he’d be giving up the fight!
the irony of course is that we’re planning to hyphenate for our child(ren), who will end up with my name that no-one can pronounce *and* his name that everyone sniggers at. Yeah, we’re cruel like that…
Sooz
September 28, 2011 7:37 am
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I empathize with your husband – my name isn’t a rude word, but I got made fun of for it a LOT up until college, at which point it became an endearing nickname. If you’d asked me in high school if I’d change my name with marriage, I would have said YES without a second’s hesitation, but now it’s more part of me because of that.
September 29, 2011 5:30 am
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Well, as I’ve argued in the past, MY last name is MY last name, not my dads last name. My parents gave me a name, first and last. Once they gave it to me, it became mine. My dad is lucky, in that I let him share it with me ;)
September 28, 2011 7:31 am
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yeah, that’s how I feel as well. The combination of my first name and my last name is MY NAME, and if I changed my last name, it would be the same (to me) as changing my first. It impacts my self-identity the same way.
Plus, my dad died when I was 11, and my grandad (his dad) when I was 14, and my grandad leaving me money is the only way I managed to pay my way through university, so in a way keeping my name is also part of honouring two amazing men who I didn’t get to spend enough time with.
Sooz
September 28, 2011 7:39 am
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Meg, I agree with you a thousand times over. How does me being female mean I have less of a claim to my last name than my brother?
September 28, 2011 7:57 am
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RIGHTTTT????? What, we don’t own our names, but our brothers do? Crap, I say! Crap!
September 28, 2011 11:00 am
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On the other hand, I feel like the name my parents gave me was a gift, and it worked wonderfully for 26 years, but now I get to CHOOSE my adult name, which will really be mine no matter what choice I make. So does my fiance, who finds the choice easier but perhaps doesn’t appreciate it as much as I do because of that.
It is a pretty exciting thing, having that freedom to determine what words express our identities. And that’s why it should be a true choice for everyone, of course.
September 29, 2011 5:41 am
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Meg’s point of men not owning names is a great one. I’m close to my mom and feel honored to share my last name with her (which also happens to be my dad’s name and my brother’s name, too!)
October 5, 2011 6:10 pm
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This is what I find so difficult– I have my mom’s name (she never changed it) and my dad’s name (but no hyphen– her name is my middle name)– and both names are equally significant to me. Not to mention the fact that all of the women on my grandmother’s side are referred to as “her maiden name women,” so that name, too, is important to me and yet it’s never been mine in any way but spirit.
Right now, I am planning on adding his name to mine, becoming ruth momsname dadsname-fiancesname legally but using my name ruth momsname dadsname professionally while being the “fiance’s name family” and giving our kids his last name though with middle names that honor my own heritage.
September 28, 2011 7:45 am
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This is me, too (mom’s maiden as my middle, and maternal family women being “maiden name” women). My last name (from my dad) is a pretty unusual/controversial one, and has caused me some grief my entire life. So, I’m pretty open to changing it.
However, with my ex-FH, I didn’t want to change to his. It sounded horrible with my name, I didn’t feel close with his family, and I hated the assumption that obviously I would change because I’m female. I suggested he change his as well, and that went over like a ton of bricks. :-(
I guess I’m pre-engaged now, and I haven’t broached this subject with the BF yet. I would love for us to pick a new name together, but I think I’ll change my name either way, and probably take my grandmother’s maiden name (so then I have my mom’s maiden as my middle, and my dad’s mom’s maiden as my last). It’s similar to my current last name, but without the controversy, and it feels like it would “fit”. If BF would be interested in changing his name as well (either to my grandmother’s maiden or something entirely different), then that’s cool. While I’d like us to both have the same last name and be really visible/obvious as a family, I can’t object to changing my name to match a man’s and then expect a man to change his to match me. So we’ll see what happens.
September 30, 2011 3:20 am
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Rachel, I too took my husband’s last name, and took my maiden name as my middle name. I was a little sad about legally losing my given middle name – but in my heart it is still my name – just not legally. I actually think we put too much weight on what is on our SS card and make things very complicated. My friends with complicated last names frequently have tons of headaches — can’t get plane tickets printed correctly; name is always misspelled. So I think it is important to think of the legal ramifications but believe your name to be what it is to you personally.
September 28, 2011 12:04 pm
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This has been weird for me because I thought I had it all figured out. I’ve never been caught up by names because since the day I was born my parents have called me Marley, but my legal name is Mary Lorraine (after my grandmothers which I love and have no desire to change). I assumed I would take his last name no problem, but then I started doing pretty well for myself in my carrear. Now all of the sudden I’m much more attached to my last name and the way it looks/sounds with my first name than I ever thought I would be and as trivial as it may be I love the way it looks on my resume and in print on my work.
That being said I really want to share a name with my partner. I’ve always felt that the moment I take on his name it stops being HIS and starts being OURS so that was never a problem.
The current plan is that I’m going to take on his last name legally, but keep mine professionally (we both work in theatre, so people going by names other than what the government identifies them as is pretty common). At the end of the day I may just end up with about a dozen names between the Mary, Marley, Last Name, His Last Name, What-In-The-World-Will-I-do-About-the-Middle-Name combinations, but all that really matters is that my partner is fully supportive of whatever I choose and I am comfortable in being able to do what feels right for me.
September 28, 2011 5:07 am
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I don’t think it’s trivial at all. Part of the problem I’m having with legally changing my name is that my husband’s name is more difficult to write and thus makes my signature very, very awkward (both in how it looks and in how long it takes me to actually write it). Seems kind of trivial, but it’s also made me realize how often I’m asked to sign my name!
September 28, 2011 7:36 am
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This is my plan too. My last name is unique and I like the sound of it, his last name is super common and I don’t really like the sound of it with my first name. I had assumed for a long time that I would keep my name. When my mom suggested the legal professional split I decided to give it some thought (I’m in theatre too and get almost all my work through word of mouth, a name change could seriously hurt my career), my problem is that my fiance and my family have just sort of assumed that this compromise was the way I was going to go ever since. There is no acknowledgement of the frustration and pain and confusion I still feel.
September 28, 2011 9:12 am
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I’m sorry that they’re just assuming that since there is a “solution” all the stress has vanished.
I am glad to hear that I’m not alone in wanting to remain “me” for job purposes. Until I began freelancing consistently in one city I never thought about how much work I get based on word of mouth. Plus every so often my fiance and I are fortunate enough to work at the same theatre at the same time and having different last names just seems easier.
I also have the feeling if a company got two resumes with the same uncommon last name it could raise the “married people working together drama” red flag some places try to avoid which is unfortunate and something I’d rather not have factor in during an interview process.
September 28, 2011 10:07 am
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Huh. I’m also Mary Lorraine, named for my grandmother. There was also no way I was changing that part of my name. I think if I had already established a “brand” for myself under my maiden name, I would have been more attached to it. As it was, I knew from a SEO standpoint, and from its memorable nature (Miley and Billy Ray, ahoy), my husband’s surname would serve me better in my business than plain-jane “Richardson”. I actually adopted his name for business purposes to some degree before we were married.
September 28, 2011 8:39 pm
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I remember in the months leading up to our wedding, wanting to storm out of restaurants twice practically in tears as I tried yet again to explain why the name change was so fraught and frustrating to me. It was one thing I doubt he ever understood.
In the end, I took his last name. It was for some pretty odd reasons such as when I googled my first name with his last name, there were no hits! It was way more unique than my common last name of which there are like 100 hundred of us with the same first and last combination on Facebook. He got upset that that was my deciding factor and tradition or love for him was not.
Anyways, I made my maiden name a second middle name and now go professionally as Ms. Maiden Name His Last and socially as Ms. His Last. I must say after 1.5 years, I am finally getting used to it. Oh and having two middle names is a pain in the ass. Forms only give you one box for the middle initial.
September 28, 2011 5:16 am
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Hey, I’ve done two of those things! Getting upset when he doesn’t understand why it’s so HARD even though he’s saying “but you can do whatever you want,” and finding out via the internets that my first name with his last is less common. Even the “weird” things we share sometimes!
September 28, 2011 5:38 am
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I also have 2 middle names, not because of marriage or anything, my parents just gave me two. I’ve basically just put E as my middle initial and nothing else. Even when I put 2 initials in the one box, they only ever use the E. Bothers Me. A lot.
September 28, 2011 5:55 am
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I also took my husband’s last name with my maiden name as my “new” middle name, and I have to say it bugs me so much when my husband fills out paperwork and doesn’t include my new correct middle initial/middle name. Its such a small thing, but I feel like I gave quite a bit on taking his longer, way harder to pronounce name, the least he can do is honor my maiden name by remembering its still in there.
September 28, 2011 6:33 am
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Amy that made me cross on your behalf. (Probably my issues). He needs to remember. It’s important.
October 2, 2011 3:22 pm
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Googleability is a huge plus for me too! I’m an academic, so the less google-scholar confusion the better, and I am WAY more unique with his name than with mine.
September 28, 2011 7:02 am
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AND THIS is what I’m saying. Whatever our decision, we need to SPEAK OUT, and let our partners and the world at large understand how we feel and why it can be hard for women.
September 28, 2011 7:35 am
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I went from one of like three Morgan MyLasts to the only Morgan NewLast in the whole world. (The name changed a few times during global immigrations, so there are very few with that last name, and they are all related to David.) I like being unique like that. (Also, his bastardized German last name is a heck of a lot easier to spell than my bastardiazed German maiden name. Double bonus!)
September 28, 2011 11:27 am
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I never did more than idly consider how my first name sounded with mu husband’s last. I always felt, deep-down, that my default was to keep my name. I felt like I’d need a good reason to change it, rather than needing a good reason not to. My husband felt the same way. He considered taking mine, but realized he’s already built enough of a brand under his name that changing it would be a problem (he’s a photographer).
I don’t feel any less married or any less of a family because we have different last names. Our whole ceremony was about becoming each other’s family. Our names don’t affect that for me. We are who we are, and we’re married.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised at just how much of a non-issue it’s been. People who know my husband before meeting me sometimes assume my last name will be the same as his, but when I say “No, it’s $Last, I didn’t change my name” they all say “oh, ok” and correct their address book and move on. No one has hassled me. No one has refused to believe we’re married or assumed we’re not.
If/when we have kids, I figure $Mylast-$Hislast will be good. Then schools and whatnot will be able to figure out we’re related (“oh, you’re the $Mylast in $Mylast-$Hislast”). Our names are short, so a hyphenated name isn’t super-long. People often ask “But what about when they get married?” to which I say, they will figure it out for themselves. It’ll be their name. They can do what they like.
September 28, 2011 5:18 am
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I didn’t really have an option, because of legal issues. I have two nationalities: I am Italian and Argentinian. Italy does not allow name change, not even hyphenation. Argentina allows for the addition of the husband’s name adding “de” (implying belonging..let’s not go there…). I wanted to have both my passports with the same name (=my maiden name) but when I changed my last Argentinian passport due to change in marital status, the consul added “de Hadzimehmedi” to my name without asking me. I didn’t have time to change it back at the time, but will do it in a month when I have to renew both my national ID and passport. This is not only about me keeping the name with which I was known for 29 years, it is also about the mess it would be to have two different names in my passports! (As a lawyer, I know this is a real pain in the neck!).
Our children have only my husband’s lastname, but there is the possibility of adding mine if we want to in the future. Since doing so will make their lastname quite long and probably even more complicated to write, I decided to give them the option. If they want to, I will be happy to do the paperwork with them when they are older. If they don’t want to, I know they are my children regardless of the lastname they carry.
That being said, I must say that I considered leaving my husband’s lastname permanently at first. But, as time went by, I realized I feel that my own lastname (alone, just as it is) is part of my identity. My mother added my dad’s lastname to hers (legally) because at the time it was not optional, and then dropped her own completely (socially). When they divorced, changing her lastname back to her original one was a very, very painful process. It took her a year to be able to sign with confidence, because she felt she had lost a part of herself, yet again.
September 28, 2011 5:22 am
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Usually women who have changed their name at marriage and who have children by that name, don’t change it back after a divorce.
Does your mother’s country have a law that required her to change her name back?
September 28, 2011 9:39 am
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It’s not a requirement, but to keep it is the exception (a woman has to make the request to keep the husband’s lastname because, for eg, she was professionally known by it, etc). She didn’t want to keep his name without being married, the issue was that she felt that she had somehow lost her old self in the marriage, and the name was a reminder of that. It was another thing to let go with the divorce. Also, some people were confused because they had never known what her maiden name was, so that led to more questions, etc. I should probably point out that my parents divorced very little after divorce was authorized in Argentina (Divorce there is legal since 1987 only), so it was all very new for society in general.
September 28, 2011 10:27 am
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I see.
September 28, 2011 1:13 pm
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I know several divorced American women, including my mother, who changed their names back to their maiden names, even though they had kids. Perhaps, this is why I’m not very concerned about having a different last name than my child (who will take his father’s last name) except for the logistical headaches it will cause…
September 28, 2011 10:52 am
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My mother seriously looked in to changing her last name back to her maiden name after my dad died. Becoming single, for whatever reason, can cause people to re-evaluate everything, including names.
September 28, 2011 11:30 am
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The first time my fiance and I discussed name changes and I said I’d be keeping my name, he was surprised. He said it was very important to him to have a family name. I thought about it, and after we each attributed a number (1 out of 10) to the importance of keeping/changing names (I said 7, he said 10), I thought “If this is so important to him, maybe I can change my name.”
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it’s MY name and I don’t want to give up what has been my identity for 27 years. Also – and I know there are a lot of people who don’t think this is a good reason – I just don’t want to have to go through the admin of changing it. Men don’t have to change their passports, drivers licenses, bank accounts, social security etc etc etc, why should I?
Back to the ‘family name’ discussion: my fiance said he would be willing to hyphenate, but that he would not change his name to just my name. Why? Because he comes from a socially conservative country, and if we were ever to move there he doesn’t think it would be accepted socially to have his wife’s name.
This goes to show that there is still a lot of work to be done! Although my fiance isn’t opposed to the idea of taking my name, he doesn’t feel comfortable doing it because of the way he thinks society will judge him.
For now we are keeping our own names, but I hope that by the time we have kids there will be a more feasible option for us to both give our kids a piece of our name history without being judged for whatever decision we make.
September 28, 2011 5:25 am
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I think the admin stuff is a great reason, actually. It’s a ton of work and hassle that you shouldn’t be just expected to do. It was a contributing factor for me too!
September 28, 2011 5:28 am
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I thought I had finished all the admin of name changing months ago and then I tried to pick up books at the library I had put on reserve. Turns out I needed a whole new library card for the new name. My work email, personal email, and Facebook account is still my old name. It’s so complicated.
September 28, 2011 6:38 am
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I agree that a lot of work has to be done, but one way you could perhaps set your fiance at ease: after the initial hubbub over the name change wears off, no one knows that he took your name instead of the other way around. One of my friends took his wife’s name and initially he got a little flak from people (at work I think mostly) but now, no one knows who took who’s name. (I would guess most people just assume that she took his.)
September 28, 2011 7:48 am
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My cousin’s husband took her name (our family name) and after the initial surprise, it was completely forgotten. 10 years later I couldn’t tell you what his “maiden” (there seriously isn’t a word for this, is there?) name was and it never seemed to be a big deal for either family. Much like all my girl cousins who took their husband’s names- a decision was made, everybody updated their contacts list, life moved on. As it should.
September 29, 2011 3:57 pm
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The admin side is daunting.
I had to laugh at myself, though, at my horror at the idea of having to re-monogram all my stuff! That seems like a real challenge! :)
September 28, 2011 11:23 am
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When I think that until very recently women were also losing THEIR CITIZENSHIP when marrying a foreigner makes want to scream.
September 28, 2011 12:10 pm
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Oh, and one thing I think would make it easier for all of us is to make it normal and polite to ask about names after the wedding, rather than assuming one way or another. And not “Did you change your name?” (assumption: to his), but something like “So are you guys’ names different now?”
It’s not perfect, but just thinking of ways to lift the weight of the assumptions a little bit. Somehow get away from the assumptions about what any name choice means, or that any of them need to be defended.
September 28, 2011 5:26 am
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I think this is a great idea and a great start!!
September 28, 2011 5:34 am
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YES YES YES I agree so much and my favourite thing about this around our wedding was when MEN asked me “So what’s your name now?” or even “Have you changed your name?” I am in a fairly traditional community and I always tried to make a point of saying “Thank you for not ASSUMING that I would change my name.” It meant a lot to me.
September 28, 2011 5:40 am
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Because the thing is, I think that choosing HisLast should be a valid and equally feminist option to choosing MyLast (and us both taking mine) – but it’s not, because it’s assumed. That’s how I see it anyway.
September 28, 2011 5:41 am
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The nice thing about having a hyphenated name to start out with is that it screams, “HI I’M A GIANT FEMINIST AND I WAS BORN THAT WAY” and also begs the question, “so wtf are you doing with your name?” I had like, three people assume that I would be changing my name, and they didn’t know me very well at all. Of course, now, everybody assumes that my second last name is my husband’s name, but that’s a different battle to fight.
September 28, 2011 6:06 am
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I fight the second battle a lot. After we got married and I didn’t change my name I changed jobs and moved. At my new job where everyone has only ever known me as a married lady, they assume my last name is my husband’s. It’s actually sort of hilarious to introduce him with his full name and watch people get slightly flustered (if only because I had to watch so many people fluster at me when I explained over and over that I wasn’t changing my name).
The only other way people realize it is when I talk about my parents or extended family of “Kenobis”and eventually someone will be all, “Wait is Kenobi not your married name?” to which I usually respond “Kenobi *is* my married name. I’m married and it’s my name. Ta-da!”
September 29, 2011 4:04 pm
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Yes. I’ve been guilty of this myself (only asking the woman), but would like to consciously stop, and would like to answer (if asked individually) not only with my decision, but with the additional information that “I let him keep his maiden name.”
September 28, 2011 6:04 am
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I always think its nice when you attend a wedding and somewhere in the program there’s a little note about the couple’s new address (if they are moving) and what name they’ll be going by once they are married.
Isn’t this information also requested in wedding announcements? I think I’ve seen the NY Times note if the bride is keeping her maiden name.
September 28, 2011 6:37 am
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“I let him keep his maiden name” Hilarious. HA!
October 2, 2011 3:28 pm
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Yes! There needs to be much more open discussion about all of this. It’s always so awkward when someone at work half-whispers to me “er, so are you changing your name?” or “are you going to be listed under a different name in the email system soon” like it’s something they have to be embarrassed about asking, or is so politically charged that I’ll be offended they don’t already know what I’m doing. It makes me want to hyphenate my name to MyLast-YesI’mKeepingIt
September 28, 2011 6:50 am
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YES. We’ve corrected everyone who didn’t ask using this language… and we would have even if only I had changed my name.
September 28, 2011 7:36 am
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Ugh. This. I did end up changing my name eventually — now MyFirst MyLast HisLast — eventually, but that wasn’t the part that bothered me all that much in the end.
What bothered me was the assumption everyone made that I changed my name. I didn’t change my name for a while after we got married, but things would come addressed to the house with MyFirst HisLast. Even close friends who KNEW I hadn’t changed my name yet would address it to MyFirst HisLast. To me, that was incredibly rude, and it drove me up the wall.
Himself and I did discuss it, because I would pretty much lose it every time that happened. (Except once, when a friend addressed something to me as MyFirst MyLast but then added “Or is it MyFirst HisLast now?” and I was like YES! THIS IS ALL I’M ASKING FOR!!! and waved it in front of his face, pointing.) His point was that it’s a cultural norm, so why would it be so outrageous for them to make that assumption? My point was that it’s not as common anymore, and what’s the harm in asking? If you don’t know how to spell someone’s name, you’d ask, right?? Wouldn’t you do the same thing when you don’t KNOW their name? Plus, we all know what happens when you assume. He had to agree with me on that one.
September 28, 2011 10:17 am
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I did not change my name (I am in Quebec) and if I get something in the mail from someone from the US who assumes I changed it, addressed Myfirst Hislast, my husband holds up the letter and says “Who’s this?” Haha. I think he gets more worked up about it than me. (But then again, I grew up with the idea of name changing, and he grew up with the Quebec mentality of no name changing and he doesn’t get why anyone would change their name with marriage in the first place.)
September 28, 2011 7:47 pm
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In Spain, we all get two last names – one from each parent, because women don’t change their last names when they get married. Traditionally, the dad’s last name came first, but nowadays parents can choose which one comes first.
Since I was born in the US though, my parents had to choose a single last name for me, so they hyphenated. Although both my last names are really short (see above) so it’s not too complicated to pronounce even as a single last name.
September 28, 2011 5:26 am
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I love this. For everyone who says “two last names can’t work” I say, “Hum. Spain disagrees.” I also think it’s interesting: in the US the dad’s name is last, in Spain it’s first. Years ago David says having his last was a “deal-breaker.” It’s taken years, but I convinced him that he doesn’t get any deal-breakers on names. We play on a level playing field.
September 28, 2011 11:06 am
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Do you get the sense that having the husband’s last name second in a hyphenated name is more common here (in the US)? In my family, my original late name was dadslast-momslast, and now my brother’s new hyphenated name is the same pattern. On the other hand, most of my aunts who hyphenated (as the only member of their nuclear families to use both) did herlast-hislast. I know that my parents chose that order just because it sounded better, and I suspect (but don’t know) that it was the same for my brother. I know that when people wanted to shorten my name by dropping one or the other (which really wasn’t all THAT common), they almost always referred to me just the first last name, but my work username (for signing into things, not for email) is based just on the second last name.
September 28, 2011 4:05 pm
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I took a hyphenated name, my husband didn’t. I wanted a verbal link to my husband and future children but I didn’t want to give up the name I’d always had. We don’t want to give future children a hyphenated name (since our friends who have had hyphenated names since birth mostly wish they didn’t).
September 28, 2011 5:28 am
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The name issue also seems to be one of the major wedding issues that just won’t die with the wedding. A year on (and even though I never thought for one single second about changing my name to David’s) the thought of naming children sends me into a tailspin of doom. Hyphenating is great but my parents already did it. I’m Hannah Mothersname-Dads and so I would have to pick a name to pass on in the Hyphenating system. Not to mention David’s last name is something like Davidsdads so out children’s name would be little Jimmy Davidsdads-Dads. Not cute. If you have a weird last name but you own it and it’s yours it makes a lot more sense than making up a weird last name that you give your children while you languish in the lovely that is your own last name. So I feel tied and torn. I also feel like this is only my problem. David doesn’t worry about it. My father doesn’t worry about it (unless I opt to pass on Mothersname and not his) and my mother thinks that it would be really fascist and weird to pass on my father’s last name but not my children’s fathers last name so the only thing to do is just call them by MY last name and David can also change his name and “there you are, dear! That solves everything!” Thanks, Mum. From when I was a wee wee girl I never for an instant considered changing my name but until I was actually with David I never thought about children. Maybe we’ll just raise westies instead.
September 28, 2011 5:29 am
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I WANTED to change my last name. I really feel like something has changed in my identity since I got married. I feel like we are new people, together….I know that sounds funny, but I really do feel an identity shift…and if I think about it, that makes sense…it was a huge deal to decide to intertwine my life with someone else’s in the way we have decided to and we didn’t do it until we got married. We didn’t even move in together until we got married. So we are a family now and I am part of a different family than I was before I got married and that is a big deal. So I love that changing my name is a marker in society for the fact that I am still the same person (same first name) but also a new person (different last name). To me family and identity are very closely connected concepts.
BUT I wanted my husband to change his name too. It’s no MORE of an identity shift for me than it is for him and I HATE (find it so painful) that there is currently no public recognition of that…I’m going through all this ridiculous paperwork and email changes and all sorts and yet NOTHING has changed for him…and he could walk away…and nothing would change…in terms of name/legally/publicly I mean. He wouldn’t, but that’s beside the point…where is the recognition that getting married was just as significant identity wise for him as it was for me? We should have a name that’s OUR name…not his old family name…not a name we share with his parents…I haven’t joined their family, we’ve created a new family! Or at least, no more than he’s joined mine. We need a new name, and we want it to be a shared name to mark our change.
We got married two months ago and we still haven’t figured it out. We’ve tried making up names…we’ve tried hyphenating…we just haven’t found anything that sits right with us both yet.
It’s hard. It’s definitely harder for me too. And that in itself is hard.
Also just for the record I hate the Mrs. HisFirst HisLast tradition…what happened to the fact that I am still an individual, the fact that I am still the same even though I am changed? I find it offensive! Continuity of identity is important as well as identity shift.
September 28, 2011 5:35 am
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Sorry that was so long!
September 28, 2011 5:36 am
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This is a lot of why I finally decided to take his name (months post-wedding) — I felt a new identity. Reading A Conscious Bride helped me think this through in its writing about how transformative getting married can be – not in the sense that you lose yourself – more like gaining and growing beyond what you were before. So I re-framed it — we are both going through major shifts in identity and forming something new, but me, the one obsessed with ceremony and symbols, gets this outward, symbolic shift in name to represent to the world that we are a new family and I am as different as I feel. I “get” that. It’s an opportunity, in a way.*
*This is what I thought in the half of the time I wasn’t sobbing over this decision. One of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make.
September 28, 2011 6:45 am
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Exactly! As I struggle with the name change and trying to figure it out, the one thing I have been very clear on and sure to tell everyone who asks, is that I will NEVER be Mrs. Hisfirst Hislast.
I don’t think I’ll be offended if people call me Mrs. Hislast, or Jesse Hislast (even if it’s an honest mistake and I decide not to go that route) but removing my name for it entirely is totally unacceptable.
Side note- Two friends of mine recently got married and at the wedding they were introduced as Mrs Hisfirst Hislast and Mr Herfirst Herlast. It was a joke in the moment and totally improvised but I think it was a great nod to the ridiculousness of name changes.
September 28, 2011 9:27 am
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Baha, that’s funny. And an awesome way to prove a point.
September 28, 2011 10:20 am
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We actually requested that our pastor/officiant say at the end of the wedding, “I now present to you, the newly married Buddy Hislast and Laura Herlast.” It totally felt right, and no one really laughed about it. It felt funny writing in on paper when we wrote out the ceremony, but in the end, it was a really natural moment.
May 21, 2012 10:44 pm
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Well, I’ll say that I felt that I had a new identity and a new family… I just didn’t feel that had anything to do with our last names. It’s like Marie-Eve said: we’re a family because we’re a family. Not because we share a name.
September 28, 2011 11:08 am
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I felt exactly the same way. I had all these nice thoughts and reasons about changing my name–marking a new beginning, becoming a family, etc. But then one day I was like, WAIT A MINUTE. How come it’s only ME marking a new beginning, etc. when we are both getting equally married? I still felt warm fuzzy feelings about name changing, but it also felt incredibly unequal to have those things associated with me alone. We talked about him changing his name too (taking part of my name as a middle) but he didn’t want to change his name, and since he was also 100% okay with me not changing mine either, his position was tough to argue with. It’s not okay for husbands to demand their wives take their names so the reverse isn’t okay either.
And really, the more I think about it the more I’ve realized that the entire wedding world emphasizes the bride’s transition into becoming a married woman while the man seems to show up, say vows, and walk away the same ol’ dude. It’s more than just the fact that she changes her name and he doesn’t (traditionally). She also walks down the aisle with her parent[s], he just walks in from the side and waits to receive her. There is a father-daughter dance. Toasts are traditionally made to the bride. These traditions add up to more than just the regular notion of it being her big day where she gets to be a glamour princess, it’s also recognizing this day as a transitional moment in her life, while not really recognizing the same for the groom. Same with the planning, and how everyone asks the bride how it’s going. It’s not just that people assume women love dresses and colors and men are clueless about flowers. It’s that this is a big deal for her, while the groom is supposedly checked out.
What to do about names is a choice for the COUPLE, as is every other wedding/marriage choice, and I hope that we do start to move toward directing our questions to both parties, not just the woman.
September 28, 2011 5:32 pm
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Totally agree about the unequalness.
Because even if you’re both on the same page and you’re both happy not changing your names, the man never has to explain his choice. My decision to not change my name has been championed as an admirable feminist statement and judged as an impractical choice for our future children. My husband’s decision to keep his name hasn’t been considered at all. At worst, he’s taken flack for not convincing me to take his name. No one will ever question his decision. That’s the sucktastic part.
September 29, 2011 4:18 pm
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Hyphenation is fine and fair . . . . for one generation. What happens when Ms. Jones-Smith marries Mr. Brown-Turner? Do they hyphenate to become . . .. Mr and Ms Brown-Jones-Smith-Turner? What do they call their baby? You can’t have it all, and that’s what hyphenation is trying to do. You have to make the hard choice to keep, or take, combine, or create anew.
On another note, a very dear friend of mine has her father’s name and her mother’s maiden name as two last, nonhyphenated names. Her brother has her father’s last name and her mother’s mother’s maiden name. I love this. It’s good to remember that “my” last name is my father’s last name, and so this name I am so ardently defending in my own marriage is really just one generation removed from the patriarchal decision my parents made in naming me to preserve the man’s name. We need to think about preserving the whole history of women’s names, and maybe giving each child a different maiden name will connect the new generation to the legacy of almost-lost names.
September 28, 2011 5:36 am
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They will figure it out. My cohort includes a large number of 80s babies with hyphenated last names, and they are figuring it out for themselves the same way anyone else does.
September 28, 2011 5:42 am
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If by “figure it out” you mean flail around wildly, then yes. As I said in my comment below, my fiancé has a hyphenated last name and it’s created some additional layers to the naming difficulties. I am sure we will “figure something out” eventually, yes. I am not sure that writing it off as “oh shrug, they’ll make do” is helping us move towards the kind of open conversation Meg’s post advocates.
September 28, 2011 5:57 am
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Well, there is no socially mandated process in current American culture for dealing with hyphenated names and changing them upon marriage, so there’s no clear way to handle it. There are other cultures that do have procedures in place (Meg’s suggestion about matriarchal and patriarchal naming in her original post being one of them), but they only have those processes because people have hyphenated names with regularity. I don’t think it’s productive to just say that hyphenating your children’s last names shouldn’t be an option just because it’s not clear-cut.
And I don’t have a hyphenated last name, but the marriage name-change-game still felt like flailing about madly, to me. :)
September 28, 2011 6:09 am
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I didn’t mean to sound like I thought hyphenation shouldn’t be an option (yes! it should!) or that for those without hyphenated names, name changing is a non-flailing walk in the park. Apologies if that’s how I came across.
September 28, 2011 6:14 am
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THIS. There can be a system. And that’s what I’m fighting for.
Besides, we pass on lots of complicated things to our children. And if we raise them well, we give them the tools to figure it out for themselves. That’s the whole point of raising children… teaching them to navigate the complexities of the world with grace.
September 28, 2011 11:10 am
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Writing off the difficulties of having a hyphen is a huge pet peeve of mine. If you ask anyone with a hyphenated last name, it creates problems for them at school, at airports, with their families, at any doctor’s office, at work, and in pretty much any environment. People have been assuming I’m married since I was 18 years old, and now they assume that my second last name is my husband. When you have to figure out your name-change issues, it’s not the same as anybody else’s. You have women who marry men with hyphenated last names who want to take their husband’s name but don’t want to take the hyphen, and who don’t get the option of hyphenating because they don’t want 3 last names. You have women who have to actually change their name to hyphenate, which makes hyphenating feel like not-an-option. You have women who, even if they hyphenate their kids names, still have to give up one of their names. I battle with this constantly, because my husband thinks that our kids will figure it out if we hyphenate, and I’m reluctant to stick them with the difficulties I know they will face.
September 28, 2011 6:11 am
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I exactly-ed this, but that’s not enough– thanks for saying this more eloquently than I could. :)
September 28, 2011 6:15 am
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I don’t think hyphenation is without it’s challenges, and my husband and I plan to discuss the options with our children early on and continue that conversation. My comment was in response to the original commenter in this thread, whose comment I read as saying no one should hyphenate.
September 28, 2011 6:25 am
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I totally agree with Ellie. Hyphenation is not always easy on the kid. I was hyphenated as a kid, with two really long last names that didn’t flow. I hated it from the moment I knew it was my last name. I changed it legally before graduating college (I dropped the hyphen and my middle name, making my dad’s last name my middle).
In an effort to keep our own identities, let’s not forget the real goal — giving our kids the best start in life they can have. Names matter.
September 28, 2011 6:45 am
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As someone who is also Ms. Hyphenated Last Name by birth, exactly. It may seem like a small burden, but it pops up in all kind of little ways (such as answering the phone with my full name in a professional setting and sounding ridiculous). The small things add up. And it definitely complicates the after marriage decision. If I had one maiden name I would absolutely keep it, mostly because of where I am in my career. But I do not want two last names that are not the same as my children. (And having lived the hyphenated by birth life, I chose never to pass that tradition down to my children).
September 28, 2011 8:37 am
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But we give our kids all sorts of complexities. The world is complex. I’d rather give them something that reflects our values and is complicated (with a suggested system of dealing with it, as noted in the post), then just copping out and going with something that’s easy that I don’t believe in. Something being hard has never stopped me from doing *anything.* I don’t expect it will stop my children either.
September 28, 2011 11:12 am
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I can’t reply below, but I wanted to clarify that I was just contextualizing my first comment, which was in response to the original commenter in this thread seeming to say that hyphenation shouldn’t be an option because it’s not clear cut.
September 28, 2011 7:02 am
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Again, not what I said. The whole point of this post is that we shouldn’t tell other people what to do with names, and that we shouldn’t judge the choices they make. I subscribe wholeheartedly to this and resent your continued implication that I think people should not hyphenate. I think people should do whatever they want. I just think that hyphenation does not solve the problem of choosing a marital or family name.
September 28, 2011 7:11 am
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I don’t think that’s what she’s saying…
September 28, 2011 11:13 am
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To be honest, I figure if the worst thing my kids have to deal with is how to navigate a hyphenated name, then I’ve done pretty friggin well…
September 28, 2011 6:12 pm
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Shaelyn — I never suggested that no one should hyphenate. What I said is that hyphenating does not solve the problem of marital and family last names. It delays the problem by a generation and multiplies it by two. Be careful when you interpret another poster’s comments without careful reading.
September 28, 2011 6:59 am
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Apologies – I didn’t see this before I responded again, I was just trying to clarify my comment. I absolutely agree that hyphenation has its own challenges, as I’ve said. I did read carefully, I just misunderstood the last 2 sentences of your first paragraph. Thank you for the clarification.
September 28, 2011 7:24 am
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From what I understand Meg’s suggestion to be, this would not be an issue. I would be Mei MeiMotherslast-MeiFatherslast. My darling dearest (presuming a hetero-relationship) would be Hubs HubsMotherslast-HubsFatherslast. When we got married, we’d be Mei and Hubs MeiMotherslast-HubsFatherslast. That would be the name we would pass on to our children. Then when they got married, they would go through the same process. There would never be more than one hyphen. Of course, this would be logisitically and emotionally difficult to impose upon the first generation that did it, but after that, would be a more equal system.
September 28, 2011 6:21 am
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CORRECT! Yayyyy!
September 28, 2011 11:14 am
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Okay, sorry, I’m totally dense right now and I really want to get this. So can I use real names? Cause that’s what I need.
SO–Janet Huber(Ma) Harry(Dad) marries Ed Smelly(Ma) Pits(Dad). They become Janet and Ed Harry Pits. Their kids are Simon Harry Pits and Rachel Harry Pits. Simon marries Laura Myers Lemons and he becomes Simon Pits Lemons. (That one was totally accidental!) ;) And Rachel marries Bob Carter Cherries and Rachel becomes Rachel Pits Cherries.
Is that anything close to right? My brain just blew its last breaker trying to put that down on paper/screen.
September 28, 2011 8:55 pm
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Close, but the mother’s name doesn’t get lost- the first couple becomes Janet & Ed Huber Pits, their kids are Simon Huber Pits and Rachel Huber Pits.
Simon and his wife are Simon and Laura Myers Pits, and Rachel and Bob are the Huber Cherries.
The mother’s name follows the women and the father’s name follows his sons, and you end up with siblings with completely dissimilar names.
September 29, 2011 2:05 am
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I don’t feel ready to fight this fight. Thinking about changing my name when I marry makes me feel tired and almost defeated somehow. Do I change it to have the same last name as my new husband which will match the potential new baby but will be different from my two kids now? Which kids will I share my last name with? I can hyphenate, but you know that never really “sticks”. You always end up shortcutting it to one name or another, especially since both names are multisyllabic. So frustrating, draining and time consuming, especially knowing that there’s a good chance I’ll never be truly satisfied with any of the choices.
September 28, 2011 5:39 am
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As you already have kids, is he willing to change his last name to your current last name and then you can all have the same last name as your kids?
September 28, 2011 6:01 am
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This wouldn’t be an option for me. My daughter’s last name is that of her bio-dad. I’m not ok keeping that name (We divorced after 4 years. It wasn’t a “we’ve been married longer than I was single this IS my name” kind of thing. It was also an awful, dark divorce & I never want that name tied to me ever, ever again.) and I would never ask my husband to take it, either.
It gets tricky =/
September 28, 2011 6:45 am
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Good point, I’m so sorry that not having been through it myself I didn’t think about the ramifications of what your previous last name would have been. VERY good reasons and well articulated – sorry for the insensitivity on my part.
September 28, 2011 7:11 am
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Oh, there was absolutely no offense taken – don’t worry. I was simply saying there are some scenarios where it won’t work. AND IT SUCKS MONKEY BALLS.
(I’m especially eloquent today.)
September 28, 2011 7:12 am
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Jumping in here as the kid again. While I can’t speak to your children (obviously) I can say that I never had the same last name as my parents (not my mom, not my dad, not my step-dad, not my siblings). And only recently, as an adult, did I even begin to think that was weird. My parents always presented us as a family and that was that.
So…all I want to say is that whatever you do, just make it clear to your kids that they are all a family and I think it will help solidify whatever decision you make.
September 28, 2011 7:39 am
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Thanks – that’s the goal I’m working towards. The family is the thing.
September 28, 2011 7:55 am
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Maddie, I really appreciate your input on this. I worry so much about my daughter and don’t want her to feel like she’s not part of our family because of her name. I don’t want her to feel like she’s the oddball because the rest of her family doesn’t match her.
We’ve already instilled a deep sense of family within her (she loves to snuggle on the couch & say, “We love each other because we’re family, right?” in her adorable 4-year-old way). I have always told her from the beginning how lucky she was to have such a big family, and so much love around her. I just worry it won’t be enough. But maybe that’s a silly thing to think.
So. Thank you. <3
September 28, 2011 7:58 am
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THIS. YES. I would never keep my former married name, and was unbelievably glad to have it dumped off of me when I remarried, but now all I want to do is change my baby’s last name to our new name. It pains me a lot inside to know that we now have different names. It may sound silly in open context, but not so much in this conversation about how important names are to people. It says who they are.
Most frustrating of all is my husband has BEEN my daughter’s father. DNA doesn’t make you a daddy. It just means you were equipped with the proper appendages to make a child. Your involvement defines it. And my daughter’s daddy is my husband – not her bio-dad. So for her to not be able to share his name is a frequent headache of mine. And her bio-dad would never agree to let her change it. Ever. Ever in a million years.
I guess all I have left to cling to is “To be a family, you just need to be a family.” For now. Until some other magical answer appears or until she reaches age where she can legally decided whether or not to change it. But at that point it will have been her name for her entire life – will she want to change it?
We are trying for a baby. Soon 3 people in our household will be V****, whereas my daughter will be W*******. I hate that. So, so, so much.
It’s frustrating. Incredibly frustrating.
September 28, 2011 6:41 am
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Hello other Melissa on this board! Just wanted to say woah I totally sympathize with your tough name situation. I have a friend dealing with the exact same thing. It’s hard. (hugs!)
September 28, 2011 6:52 am
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I agree with your comment about how last names CAN matter, it feels tribal to me like a “These are my people” kind of thing. I wish I could be one of those people who see the situation as, “To be a family, you just need to be a family”, if I could feel that way I’d be so much calmer. But family names have always been important to me somehow and that’s ok too. It’s just stressier.
Being the only son, he will not be changing his name and I haven’t even asked. I’m working the, “Maybe one day this won’t aggravtae me so much and I need to be more universal in my thinking” angle instead.
September 28, 2011 7:06 am
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Exactly.
Adam is also the only boy, with two older sisters. He really feels the pressure to “carry on the family name”. BUT. He told me last week that if we ended up only having girls, and no boys to “carry on the legacy”, he’d be ok with that, too. My daughter is AWESOME & he’s having a blast with her. Baby steps?
I had no qualms whatsoever about changing my name. It is now my daughters name that hurts my heart – for that reason. “These are my people.” My husband IS her daddy, even if DNA says otherwise. We are a wonderful, happy, loving family. And I really wish we could all have the same stupid name.
September 28, 2011 7:11 am
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But girls could carry on the legacy, depending on how the kids were named and how they name their kids. I am an only child and my last name would die out with me if I had traditionally changed my name (but I kept it). My (conservative!) dad has encouraged us to consider the idea of naming at least one (hypothetical) kid with my last name. And thankfully, husband is completely open to this possibility.
September 28, 2011 8:12 pm
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I am in the minority I’m sure but I don’t think of my ex-husband’s name as “His Name”. I think of it as my name. Probably because I married young and all of my adult experiences and associates are tied to the name. It’s my name and I didn’t ever consider dropping it.
I have been told that “It isn’t my name” a few times and it sends steam out my ears. What, pray tell, IS my name then?
September 28, 2011 7:19 am
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My mom was this way. She never changed her name back after the divorce. Her stance was she’d kept that name for 20 years, longer than her maiden name, and it WAS “her name”. Why should she change it? It wasn’t my father’s name – it was hers.
I don’t carry that same mentality though, because even though I married at 19 and transitioned into it through marriage and had a baby and did all of these things, our divorce was finalized in the same month as what would have been our 4th wedding anniversary. So it isn’t my name, you know? It tied me to 2.5 years of crying myself to sleep every night and horrific depression and poison.
Names are deeply personal – so I can absolutely see why they vary from person to person
September 28, 2011 7:55 am
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Oh I get it Melissa! I am lucky to have had a “good divorce” and pleasant associations with my married name. If I’d had your experience I probably would have made the same decision.
September 28, 2011 8:12 am
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Just a thought, but do you have full custody of your daughter? If so, then I think you can change her last name regardless of what her bio-dad wants. However, as a child whose name was changed when I was 6, I would suggest that you talk it over with her. She’s not fully grown, true, but discuss, on her level, what she wants. Even if you can’t change her name, maybe talking about it with her would be great (and maybe you already have, I don’t want to presume you haven’t).
September 28, 2011 9:55 am
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This is such a tricky situation. My mom remarried when I was a child and changed my last name to her second husband’s last name. (He also legally adopted me.) Now later in life, I feel very conflicted by her decision. I love my “original” last name, its uniqueness and how it fits with my first name and how it ties me to my favorite grandmother. I wish I could go back to using it without breaking my mom’s heart. Part of me wishes that she never changed it. But I get why she did, to make our new family a solid unit after she changed her own name and my younger brother was born.
All you can do is make the very best decision you can at the time and talk it through with your daughter. Hopefully she will understand down the line and respect your decision. Either way, you’re definitely a family.
September 28, 2011 10:35 am
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Just wanted to pop in and tell you about a good friend of mine — she grew up as Ann BioDadLastName, but was raised by an amazing beautiful step-father. When she turned 18, she legally changed her name to Ann StepDadLastName, and it was a *very* big deal to her to be able to honor her step-dad that way.
She changed her name to Ann HusbandLastName when she got married and it was emotional for her, since she had CHOSEN her maiden name consciously, which very few people do. She definitely wanted to change it, but it was especially moving for her.
My point being…your daughter will know who loves her and raises her, and last names have nothing to do with it.
Best wishes!
September 28, 2011 10:37 am
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My high school boyfriend did this too (legally changed his name to his stepfather’s when he turned 18 because that was his DAD). Before that he had a unofficial hyphen. His legal name was smith but he went by smith-jones.
September 28, 2011 3:25 pm
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Great comment, I feel ya on the “tired and defeated.” Even worse, this huge, emotionally fraught decision happens during what was one of my least-sane times in my whole life: wedding planning. It was like adding a dollop of insanity on top of insanity and I would just cry every time I tried to decide. (It worked out for me to wait until a number of months post-wedding to decide.) Good luck – I “second” the commenter who hoped for a modern male who would take your name.
September 28, 2011 6:50 am
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It makes me feel tired and defeated, too, and I am already married. I feel frustrated by the whole thing, probably because it’s a way I am reminded of persisting gender inequality in my daily life.
September 28, 2011 7:05 am
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I have never been attached to my name and decided, in high school, that I would change it. In my early twenties, I had a friend who changed his name (took his mother’s maiden name, because his father wasn’t a part of his life and he didn’t want that name attached to him) and it made me feel like I really could do that. When I was 30, I did it!
I just decided to get rid of the whole thing and make up an entirely new name.
The reactions I had from friends were varied. I heard a lot of, “What does your MOM think?” I hadn’t even considered what she thought. It was my name and mine to change. But after the seventh person (yes, seventh) asked that, I asked her. She didn’t care and ended up helping me in the final choosing process.
Some of my friends were APPALLED. I mean, seriously, jaws dropped, speechless, look of disdain as they asked, “WHY?” And then when they found it it would cost me $301, they had the audacity to tell me it was a waste of money. I didn’t understand that reaction at the time.
Some friends were really supportive, but said, “Oh you’ll always be *insert original name* to me!” They said that cheerfully, as if deciding to change my name were as flippant as wanting a belly button piercing. Some of those people still forget my new name, though it’s been two years. I try not to hold it against them.
There were three friends who were not only supportive, but immediately made the switch with no mocking. They knew I wanted it, saw me changing it in social networks, listened as I went through the process of changing it legally, and then started calling me by my new name right away. One even sent me a card, addressed to my new name, which felt really good.
It’s been two years, and my mom is starting to call me by my new name at home. That feels a little weird. I still put my old name on applications that ask about maiden names or previous names. I still haven’t changed my passport. I have a friend who lives far away and sees me rarely who can’t always remember my new name. I have a hard time talking about my past, because I want to refer to myself as my old name.
I’m glad I made the change, obviously. I love having control over my name. But I was really amazed at how many people attach their names to their identity. To me, it felt so wrong. I never fit into my old name. It felt so good to pick something new, even though dealing with that decision was difficult.
As I talk to my friends who are marrying, I just ask it as I would anything else, “Are you taking his (or her) name or doing something else?” There is no judgment in my voice, because whatever is always ok with me. I think that can be an amazing first step for everyone…when bringing it up, keep the question open…because there ARE other options, and whatever you choose is totally fine.
I know that my name change is not entirely the same as getting married and the social constructs that go with that, but I’m hoping that it was still good to read. Because I feel like names and identity are often very intertwined. For some people, their family name has really deep meaning. For me, it never did. For some people, they are just waiting to become Mrs. So-and-So. There is a lot of tradition in that and taking a husband’s (or wife’s) name can feel really good. Talking about names is a surprising subject, because I always just saw my name as something two people I didn’t know chose for someone they didn’t really know. But a lot of my friends saw it VERY differently.
So, I think it’s about being open and non-judgmental, because this is identity we’re talking about…and identity can be complicated and have emotions attached to it, even we didn’t know we had. (Or in my case, a complete lack of emotions, when I was supposed to feel something more.)
September 28, 2011 5:39 am
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This was super interesting to read!
September 28, 2011 6:54 am
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I’m really interested in non-marriage related name changes. Thanks for posting this!
September 28, 2011 8:36 am
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Patriarchy doesn’t only hurt men because they love women, it hurts men because it puts all kinds of expectations and social pressure on them to be masculine and powerful and do things like PASS ON THEIR NAMES, DAMNIT!
My husband, who is one of the most progressive, feminist men I know, didn’t really understand the name change struggle, except in the context that he didn’t want to change his name, so he could relate. However, that experience doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of the fraught expectations for a woman getting married and being expected to change her name (similarly, I can’t really understand what it means for him to feel he should pass on his name). It’s just complicated, and along with not judging other women for their choices when having this conversation, we also should stop explaining and explaining and explaining why we’ve changed our names to other women who have gone through this process – it’s not productive.
I didn’t change my name. And I am ardently a Ms., just like my mother was when I was growing up. I remember, proudly, correcting my friends who called her Mrs. MyDadsLast, and I hope my children (with their adorable little hyphenated last names) will do the same for me.
I have talked to several women since I got married who, upon learning that I didn’t change my name, have expressed their own frustrations, disappointments, and regrets about having taken their husbands’ names when they married, but when I suggested that they change it back, or use their born name professionally or socially, they have been taken aback. It seems to me that it’s a problem with a simple — if occasionally inelegant — solution. And then one of my coworkers IS changing her name back, and she is so excited about it she is basically counting down the days.
Guys, names are IMPORTANT, and if we’re still struggling with our decisions after they’ve been made, it’s okay. I’m not saying that everyone who changes their name regrets it or should change it back. We just need to know our options (and then speak up about them!).
September 28, 2011 5:41 am
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“Patriarchy doesn’t only hurt men because they love women, it hurts men because it puts all kinds of expectations and social pressure on them to be masculine and powerful and do things like PASS ON THEIR NAMES, DAMNIT!”
…Or to retain ownership of their wives. OWNERSHIP of another human being.
September 28, 2011 6:03 am
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I wanted to come back and say that I didn’t mean for this to sound like people shouldn’t talk about the reasons for changing (or not changing) their names upon marriage. I just meant that, especially in what’s supposed to be a safe space such as this one, women (and men!) shouldn’t feel that they HAVE to defend their choices.
I also wanted to add that I wish changing one’s name for reasons other than marriage was more socially acceptable in our culture.
September 28, 2011 7:01 am
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I just got married, and am struggling with changing my name or not. The boy is supportive either way, but doesn’t really get why it’s such a big deal for me.
Conversely there is my mother who never wanted to change her name. She did reluctantly only after she had me, and only because we lived in a very small socially conservative town at the time and she though it would make my life easier. She’s turning 60 this year, and changing her name back! I think this is amazing, and she’s doing it both socially and professionally consequences be d*mned. My Dad is supportive, and my Mum is beyond excited. However, she has experienced a lot of confusion and judgement from anyone that she has told, as they all assume it must because she’s getting divorced or has gone crazy.
I have been telling as many of my friends as possible about my Mum’s name change, because I think it is amazing and brave and healing for her since she never felt at home with my dad’s last name.
And yet, here I am still torn about my own name choices. And to be honest, every time I’ve been asked about it by anyone whether they are a friend or a random person I hardly know, almost every one of these women (it’s almost always women) has then told me what I SHOULD do based on their own happy or unhappy name narrative. It’s not healthy, we need to change how this conversation happens.
Meg you rock for lighting this fire!
September 28, 2011 8:53 am
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“every time I’ve been asked about it by anyone whether they are a friend or a random person I hardly know, almost every one of these women (it’s almost always women) has then told me what I SHOULD do based on their own happy or unhappy name narrative. It’s not healthy, we need to change how this conversation happens.”
THIS. For me the point of this post was that I want us to step back from the conversation being “THIS IS WHAT I DID,” and not being able to hear much beyond that, and have the conversation be about, “How can we continue to make society change? How can we make men get it more? How can we put more options on the table?”
I want this to stop being about the choice we made, and start being about more accepted choices for everyone.
September 28, 2011 11:21 am
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YES. This makes ever so much more sense and is what I was alluding to in the comment where I said I felt a little helpless. Those three questions make it a lot more manageable, regardless of where you stand on your personal choice.
September 28, 2011 11:40 am
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I would be interested in a post from your mom about her journey with her names and her ideas about how all this could better in the future for everyone.
September 28, 2011 8:21 pm
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THIS.
September 28, 2011 11:17 am
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Oy, this has been the biggest source of conflict in the wedding-planning process so far. My lovely fiancé E. already has 2 last names (or, one hyphenated name, if you prefer). If I were to take his names, it would be like a double whammy (pun intended): losing my own identity on an unequal playing field; and undoing his parents’ gesture of equality (they kept their respective names and hyphenated E.’s). Having 3 last names is out– how awkward and clunky, plus the combination of my last name in front of his sounds like “blister,” I kid not. He refuses outright to take my name (naturally!). And round and round we go…
My ideal situation would be to create a new name from letters in our original names. But while we’ve come up with some hilarious possibilities (TARDIS! Burrito!) we can’t find a name we’d like to attach to ourselves for the rest of forever. I’ve even tried using anagram generators!
I’d be fine keeping separate names, but the question of future generations looms overhead. That’s not something we have to solve now, of course, but it is something I’m already thinking about and giving myself a headache over.
September 28, 2011 5:44 am
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It’s totally sexist of me but I often think to myself that if I have girls I’ll hyphenate their last names but I won’t do it to boys. It’s totally terrible, and assuming my kids will be straight, which is also wrong, but I’m seriously worried about their wives someday having to deal with their insanely hyphenated last names.
September 28, 2011 6:13 am
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It also assumes your female children would be ok dropping one or both of their last names. Which, you know, is kind of a scary assumption, since this whole post is about the emotions and difficulties with changing (or not) one’s name, especially when one is a woman. :)
September 28, 2011 9:43 am
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Mr. and Mrs. TARDIS sounds like a fantastic option!
September 28, 2011 7:04 am
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TARDIS!!! that would be a super-cool name! do it, do it!
(Fez’s are cool)
Sooz
(geek and Dr Who fan, in case that didn’t come across!)
September 28, 2011 7:48 am
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Well, we’d be Dr. and Mr. TARDIS. I’d be DOCTOR TARDIS, Y’ALL. And yet, I just can’t be that forever…
September 28, 2011 9:36 am
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Hollaaaaaaaaaaaaaa . . .
September 28, 2011 10:52 am
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Or you could do my suggested plan: keep his dad’s last, and add yours.
September 28, 2011 11:22 am
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Ah yes, forgot to mention that E. is convinced that dropping only one of his names would insult that parent. But your point is well taken and I believe we’re due for another round of conversation on this– hopefully involving his parents, so we can actually know where they stand.
September 28, 2011 7:45 pm
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I thought for a long time about changing my name and went back and forth. My husband didn’t care either way, but just requested no hyphenation because both of our names are about 12 letters, so it was just a mouthful. We also tried to combine names, but with hilarious results and also not any real keepers (though I still think Leitenstein sounded regal) In the end, I just went with my gut feeling and changed my name to his. It certainly has not made me feel less of an independent woman, but it has made me feel more a part of our little family. I guess everyone just needs to do what feels right for them regardless of what society says you should or should not do.
September 28, 2011 5:54 am
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I agree that talking about it is important. I’m still officially undecided, but I’ve been asking almost every married woman I know why they made their choices. It’s been very lopsided, since I’m in academia and there’s a very strong default against name-changing, closely followed by hyphenating, so it’s been hard to find people who made thoughtful choices to change, or even wrestled with their choices to NOT change. (Actually I am leaning toward changing emotionally, but it feels almost like making an anti-feminist statement, and my fiance thinks it’s my “right” to keep my name since he wants to keep his.)
I hit gold when I asked my college roommate about changing her last name – she is more socially and religiously conservative than I am, so not all of her reasoning applied to me, but in her view, women making their last names middle names is a tradition in families, not a way of losing identity. It helped that in her husband’s culture, women’s maiden names also become middle names for their children – and even though it’s not my culture, my fiance said that since giving the kids his last name is important to him (which we agreed on previously), we could give them my last name as a middle if it’s important to me. This conversation made me feel so much more at peace that I realized I’ve been looking for “excuses” to change.
Also, if I think about sticking with my maiden name I feel a little disappointed to be stuck with a middle name I’ve never liked, and I feel like replacing it with a last name would sound very grown-up and inclusive of my life history. Now I’m leaning toward Emily Myname Hisname first, or Emily Hisname Myname if i can’t quite do it. Either way I’d like to keep publishing with my maiden name (and maybe his too) but be Mrs. Hisname socially.
September 28, 2011 5:54 am
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I’ve been leaning strongly towards making my current last name my middle name, and taking my fiance’s name. I think I’d be disappointed, as well, to stick with a middle name that makes me go… “meh.” It’s not awful, but it’s boring and I’ve never liked the way my three names sound together. Plus, I don’t think my mom put very much thought into it (the parents had a boy’s name picked out for me. Surprise!)
My only qualm with this solution, however, is that I don’t want to completely lose my maiden name. I love it. Though really, people are going to call you whatever the heck they want to call you, and I know I’d get a whopping sense of satisfaction writing out my spiffy new name. Katie MyLast HisLast sounds like someone I don’t really know, but I’d like to. I love that name. But the PAPERWORK. Sheesh.
September 28, 2011 7:30 am
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I’m a grad student and I’ve experienced near hostility when I’ve informed some people that I changed my name. Some ask why I would do that in an accusatory manner! It is possible to be a name-changing feminist. I’m just the kind of feminist who doesn’t care too much about my last name, but more about how I am treated – as a person who can make up her own damn mind about her last name!
September 28, 2011 7:37 am
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Amanda, I agree 100%. Yes.
September 28, 2011 9:09 am
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As another academic who changed her name, YES, thank you, it is possible to be a name-changing feminist. Luckily no one has actually been visibly appalled by my decision yet. If they were, I’m not sure what I would say. There isn’t an easy position to state that doesn’t sound like I’m just defending tradition, even though it’s not really about that for me.
September 28, 2011 10:25 am
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Name-changing feminist here too. Using Ms helps convince any doubters (not that we should have to…)
October 1, 2011 4:07 am
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In my mind, the most important thing is that name changing is not automatic. I see no reason for the woman to automatically take the guy’s name; I think this is a big decision with many options to be considered.
We briefly considered hyphenating, but my parents hyphenated, so that wasn’t really an option for us (I already have two names, a third would just be too much!). Plus, I was adamant about not taking his name – I just don’t like it!
We thought of not changing our names, but then we thought – what would happen when we have kids? And it seemed all wrong for our kids to have different surnames, or for them to only have his!
So after quite a lot of discussion, we decided to both change our names, and took his mother’s maiden name. I thought it was a nice name and liked the link to that side of the family. It felt like we were both compromising, and it felt pretty fair, since it wasn’t either of our names. And, it wasn’t making up something totally new, it was a name already in the family with its own tradition, and that was important to us too. So my message is: YOU CAN BOTH CHANGE YOUR NAME!
September 28, 2011 5:55 am
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Love this!
September 28, 2011 6:58 am
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Ditto, I LOVE this.
September 28, 2011 7:22 am
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My cousins did this when they got married 30+ years ago, they just chose an entirely new name. I remember someone asking them what they would tell their son when he asked why he’d never met his Grandma and Grandpa NewName, and they shrugged and said, “We’ll just tell him they were gypsies.”
September 28, 2011 7:49 am
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I am in nearly exactly the same situation. I have a combined last name from birth, wanted a family name, and I don’t feel comfortable taking his and dropping mine. We both really like the idea of changing to something new together, but picking is SO HARD! We have considered my great-grandmother’s maiden name but taking his mother’s maiden name (which I would have gladly taken) was being taken as a rejection of his father (too close to home, somehow). Did you experience that at all? In all this taking a bit from here and a bit from there, there hasn’t been much discussion about how parents and grandparents react. Anybody have useful advice in this regard?
My main problem is now that FH is sold on the idea of a name I saw on offbeat bride that was being presented as possibly a joke – Starblade. He LOVES it. I don’t like space and science fiction…can’t quite get on board with that. And I’m worried no one will want to co-author papers with Dr. Starblade. Problem number two is that we live in CA (and are getting married in OR), neither of which allow you to choose a name that is not one of your existing names. We don’t have time to change one of our names before the wedding so we’ll have to pay two court fees to change them in the future ($400/person YIKES!). Thinking of making it a 1st anniversary present to ourselves :)
September 28, 2011 7:48 pm
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Dear Jasmine,
Yes, I guess picking a new name can be hard! For us I guess it was less difficult: by husband has two older male brothers who kept their names, so we felt his family wouldn’t mind too much; in practice they minded slightly more than we expected, specifically his father, but I don’t think it bothers him TOO much (and if it does, he’s chosen to keep quiet about it). One of my husband’s brothers also teased him about it, thinking it was too big a compromise/”unmanly” of him, but he knows how to take that in stride :) We have gotten many raised eyebrows from other ppl who were surprised to hear about our decision – I guess that’s what you get when you bend society’s rules – but we’re both pleased with our choice, and that’s what matters in the end. So good luck finding a name you both like and feel comfortable with!
September 30, 2011 2:27 pm
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In the spirit of offering solutions:
We both took my Mom’s name, which suited us for the following reasons:
-we wanted a family name, both of us grew up with parents with different names, and we liked the cohesion of having a name to share with our children
-I wasn’t keen on taking his father’s name, and he wasn’t keen on taking my father’s name (for different reasons)
-I didn’t want to make up a name, family history is important
-my Mom has a very nice name.
I liked that we both went through the name changing process (since I had my Dad’s name), but nobody needs to know our business- e..g people will probably assume that the family name is my father’s Dad’s name. We live in Massachusetts, so this could all be done on the marriage certificate.
September 28, 2011 5:55 am
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I always knew that not changing my name was an option, just not one that I necessarily wanted to exercise. I like the idea of joining my fiance’s family, although I had never thought of how he was joining my family just as much. The thing that troubles me, though, is how my new name would make me sound. It sounds like a frumpy woman in an ankle length floral print dress with weird permed bangs.
Also, all of my friends call me regularly by my first and last name all in one breath, that is my nickname. My last name is Bane, and it has produced all sorts of wacky nicknames; The Banester, LeBane, Baney, etc. So I don’t really know how I’d deal with all of that. I guess I’ll be changing my name, but disliking some of the things about it, which is a part of making big adult decisions…
September 28, 2011 6:02 am
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My last name has also given me lots of nicknames, so this is something I worry a bit about losing because those mark parts of my life for me. But I think (hope) the people who gave me those nicknames are not necessarily going to retire them if my last name goes behind his, and when I shared this concern with a friend, her husband started making up a bunch of combination nicknames from both of our last names. People who like funny nicknames aren’t going to stop just because the material changes! It’ll just be new names for new life chapters, I hope.
(I’m not trying to convince you to change because I haven’t convinced myself one way or the other, of course. Just sharing a funny and comforting moment.)
September 28, 2011 6:09 am
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Great post, Meg! My husband and I decided that our new marriage deserved a new, unique last name that set our baby family apart. So, we both change our last name to MyLastName HisLastName (with no hyphen in between). I love that we did this, and one thing I do is discuss it with any new acquaintances we meet. I want our story to be out there so others realize this is a choice that they have.
September 28, 2011 6:04 am
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I just wanted to say hell yes to Alyssa, and mourning the loss of her last name. I made the decision to change my name because I didn’t think I was all that attached to my last name, with my first and middle feeling much more like “me”, and was tired of all the jokes and comments my former last name caused. When it came time to finally change it, I squirmed a bit and decided to throw a going away party for my former last name. I bought some champagne, yummy cheese and cried while toasting the loss of my former name with my husband. It was so much more complicated emotionally than I anticipated, but I’m giving myself time to ease into my new name and using whichever name socially I feel at the time. It’s a little bit fun deciding I feel like using X or Y last name in this situation, and relieving for me to process the change over time.
September 28, 2011 6:04 am
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You’re so charming! I love the idea of throwing your last name a farewell party.
September 28, 2011 9:13 am
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thanks! it felt appropriate and any chance to enjoy champagne is alright by me! :)
September 28, 2011 10:27 am
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I LOVE this idea! Genius!
September 28, 2011 10:03 am
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Love the party idea! I’m also planning on changing, and I feel pretty sure that I won’t be too sad about resigning my current last name. (It’s fine and it’s gotten me this far, but it always felt slightly awkward coming off the tongue, and his name just feels… good. Like taking off a tight jacket and slipping into a comfy t-shirt.) But I’ve heard enough stories to not assume I won’t do a little mourning when the time comes.
Not to mention my life always needs more excuses to eat yummy cheese.
September 28, 2011 11:53 am
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I’ve honestly never had any qualms about name changing. My mom never changed her name, and her only regret is that she did not have my middle name reflect her last name (She did this with my younger sister, so that my sister’s name is “Rachel momlast dadlast” — thank god she didn’t with me, though. I LOVE MY NAME!).
So, I guess in a weird way, because I’ve never seen my mom struggle with not changing her name, I’ve always assumed that I would not struggle with my own decision not to change my last name. And really, my name for me is a part of my identity — the whole thing is very unique, and I love it :)
My conversation with my FH was pretty simple — I didn’t want to change my last name, he doesn’t want to change his, and we mutually decided that when we have kids, they could have my last name. He has two kids from a previous marriage and they have his last name — and I’m not concerned about their half-siblings having a different last name from them. Because a family, to me, is more than just names.
(As an aside — it does weirdly bug me that his horrid ex-wife kept his last name, even after their divorce.)
September 28, 2011 6:07 am
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“(As an aside — it does weirdly bug me that his horrid ex-wife kept his last name, even after their divorce.)”
Well, traditionally it has always been standard for a divorced woman with children to keep her married last name. She may very well be horrid, but she hasn’t done anything unusual by keeping her married name.
Most divorced women who change their name back after a divorce don’t have children from the marriage. But they don’t have to either.
I didn’t have children and I still didn’t change my name back. I just didn’t want the bother at the time and I wasn’t ever emotionally tied to my maiden name because I had issues with my father. It wasn’t a happy name for me.
September 28, 2011 10:20 am
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Which is why it “weirdly bugs me” — I know it’s irrational, but it doesn’t change how I feel, which may possibly affect how I also feel about taking on my FH’s last name.
September 28, 2011 11:06 am
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I’m anticipating getting a lot of name-change questions over the next few weeks as we’re just a couple weeks out from our ceremony…I first broached the subject with my fiance about 6 months ago and after some initial consternation, he’s ok with me keeping my name.
We survived a 3,000 mile, coast-to-coast separation for 5.5 years while I completed my PhD. I’ve published under my maiden name, so it doesn’t make sense for me to change my name to his. I also moved across the country for my fiance after grad school and am marrying into a very large, very close family. While I love them all (most of the time), I’m not quite ready to assimilate into the Borg just yet!
Wedding planning has made me even more aware of my individual identity within the context of both of our families. I’m even more sure that I won’t be changing my name than I was when we got engaged. It surprised me how annoyed it make me to get mail addressed to Mr. and Mrs. His first name, His last name. We both sacrificed for me to finish graduate school and I’m determined to use Dr. My Last Name as much as possible. I feel like that title honors both of us because my accomplishment wouldn’t have been possible without him.
The acknowledgement that this issue is about individual identity as well as collective identity is a huge first step when discussing name changes. It surprised me how upset my future father-in-law was about me not changing my name, it turned out that he really wanted a Dr. His Last Name in the family!
September 28, 2011 6:08 am
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I’m glad to hear someone else going through this. The majority of women I work with that are in or have finished graduate school have opted to not change their names. That totally makes sense to me. I don’t really know anyone that hasn’t (or at least they aren’t coming to mind).
I’m in a similar boat. I’m working on my PhD and have the same choice ahead of me. While my boyfriend and I haven’t gotten engaged, it’s something we’ve been discussing seriously. I really surprised him when I said I didn’t want to change my name. Honestly, if I wasn’t in this line of work, I probably would. It would be hard in a lot of ways but I think that’s the decision I’d make. I don’t think he ever thought about that as a possibility.
I’ve been published several times already with my name and have every intention of a few more publications before I graduate or get married (whichever comes first). So my career thus far is based on MY last name and first initial. He’s very adamant about wanting me to change my name. I’m not even sure he knows why he’s so adamant, I’ll have to ask him next time we talk about this. On the other hand, I’m not sure how I’d handle it professionally if I did change my last name. My CV would look a mess and anyone that wanted to track me down from past work wouldn’t be able to connect my two names. I’m probably over thinking this but it seems difficult.
This is what I was thinking: that my “official” last name would be our names hyphenated so that I can use my name professionally, his name for anything else, and the hyphenated name for any official paperwork like taxes and whatnot. But would this just cause massive confusion and problems that I’m not seeing?
September 28, 2011 7:04 am
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My fiance and I are also doing the (nearly) coast to coast PhD separation. We had some great (and some ugly) talks about changing our last names and the implications for family and our careers. I know several tenured professors at the institute who decided to keep their last names and many others who did not which leads me to believe it’s very possible to do either.
In the end, my beau and I decided to take both our last names together and hyphenate, but for my professional life, I’ll only use my last name. This keeps the publication record easy to track and avoids the indexing problems my Spanish compatriots of both genders often experience. It’ll also be fun to be the new Dr. D in the family as my dad has retired and stopped using the title!
September 28, 2011 8:02 am
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I’m also in a PhD program (my husband has finished his PhD), and we’ve both published, so we’re both keeping our last names legally and professionally. Since his family is wonderful, welcoming, and traditional, and wants so much for me to be Mrs. Hislast, I’m going to be happy to go by that name socially and informally, for anyone who wants to call me that. I know it is an expression of love and welcome for them to call me by their name. “Oh, we’re having Mr. and Mrs. Hislast over tonight!” and the like. We just got married, so we haven’t tried this out much yet, but I have a friend who did this, and it seemed to work out quite nicely for her.
Secretly, though, I’m not keeping my last name legally for professional reasons. I’m keeping it for personal reasons. It’s been my last name for almost 30 years, I’m very attached to it, and I chafe at the idea the name-changing tradition symbolizes: that my identity is defined by marriage, while his is not. My husband doesn’t quite get how strongly I feel about this, I think, but he wants me to be happy, and plus the “I’ve already published” argument was compelling to him.
If/when we have kids, I’m planning on smooshing together the beginning of my last name and the end of his last name for the babies, an idea I’m borrowing from another friend. It’s a name that sounds nice, is not too long, and has some of each of our names. However, neither I nor my friend have actually gotten our husbands to agree to this plan. Discussions are ongoing.
As a side note, I actually go by a gender-ambiguous first name on purpose, because I think it is fun to see people do a double take when they meet me for the first time, having only known my name. Subverting expectations is fun. : )
September 28, 2011 8:19 am
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I’ve been thinking a lot about a compromise like that to keep a professional identity connected to my maiden name, and I can’t really see any crazy confusion or problems ahead. I’m not even going to hyphenate, I think it honestly might be as simple as continuing to publish and present under my maiden name, regardless of whether I make it my legal middle name or keep it as a last name. If I were to use both names in official professional capacities, it shouldn’t be too hard to connect “E. Myname Hisname” on a CV with “E. Myname” on publications. And then I get to decide whether I want students to call me “Professor Myname,” which is frankly pretty silly sounding, or “Professor Hisname,” which sounds much better, when I actually GET the PhD!
I say this partially based on the example of a scholar in my field who went through both sex and name changes – everyone who needs to know who he is, knows to look under both names, and it doesn’t seem to have hurt his career.
September 28, 2011 8:52 am
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As a fellow PhDer I had the same concerns. A lot of great work has been published pre my name change.
I have a colleague who changed her name to her husband’s when she got married and when she publishes she uses this: Dr Fabulous (nee Maidenname) Husbandsname. So on pubmed when they search for Dr Fabulous Maidename or Dr Fabulous Husbandname they pull her papers.
It works for her and she’s not found any problems with it.
-Meg
September 30, 2011 4:54 am
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Shout out to my fellow APW PhDers!!
A big topic of research in the field of bibiometrics is the disambiguation of citations, I think this will diminish concerns relating to name changes in academia as it relates to CVs. You can easily be linked to your old work by co-authors and by the field of research as well as the papers you cite. Just food for thought.
September 28, 2011 11:47 am
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You definitely make a good point. Especially with all the digital media available, it’s easier than ever to deal with things like name changes and finding/identifying people. And yet, I still find it hard building my career on my name and then changing it.
September 28, 2011 8:02 pm
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I’ve always wanted to keep my last name, and my FI totally supports it. He grew up in Iceland and Sweden so for him that is normal. There is a complication though, he is set on using the Icelandic patronymic naming system for our children. So if his name was Jón Stefánsson our hypothetical son could be Edward Jónsson and our daughter would be Erika Jonsdottir. So, -sson is th ending for a male child, and -sdottir is the ending for a female child. Strangely enough, I don’t feel that strongly against it. I figure that I plan on embedding in my last name as either the middle name or second middle name anyways, and they would probably be taking there dads name regardless. I’m all for hyphenated, taking the moms name instead, etc., but I don’t really feel strongly enough want to go with that.
The only times I get a little nervous about the patronymic naming system is when I think about how complicated this scenario could get with things like school and international travel. Also, no other child is going to have this naming system, so will they lose a sense of family because we aren’t all the “Smiths”? I generally snap out of this and realize that love will probably win out over any hatred towards their last name. I mean I grew up with a completely unpronouncable first and last name combination, and I not only did I survive but I would trade my name for anything in the world. Plus, since the definition of family has changed so much, does it really matter? I know this is a little off topic, but I thought it might help fuel some flames.
September 28, 2011 6:08 am
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That is so interesting about Icelandic naming!
The only thing is that here in the U.S. some single women like to get mail in their initials and last name so that no one knows if it’s a man or woman living in the house. Same with entries in phone directories.
The Icelandic name ending would do away with the mystery! Ha!
September 28, 2011 10:32 am
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I hadn’t even thought about the initial thing for the mail — although I have done it on some online profiles just because.
September 28, 2011 11:01 am
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This decision was hard for me. I was born with a white bread last name because when my father immigrated to the US, he and his family picked a new last name out of the phone book so Americans wouldn’t have a hard time with the original. When my sister and I got old enough, we demanded a legal name change back to the original last name because we wanted to honor our heritage.
Making the decision to change my last name a third time was tricky, because the name will “die out” of this branch of the family if my sister and I don’t keep it. Our last name has a unique variation because my great-grandfather changed it when he was hiding from a communist government that wanted to ruin him (!). So with all that crazy, wonderful history, shouldn’t I just keep it?
I eventually decided to take my husband’s last name. Sharing a last name gives me the warm fuzzies, and although he offered to adopt my maiden name instead, I like the relative anonymity his very common last name offers. But overall, it was a pretty tough call.
September 28, 2011 6:10 am
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My mother and I are both name deadenders. And yet, in the end, those names are still alive for as long as we tell stories about my father’s family and my grandfather’s family. I think in a world with smaller families, the dead end of names will become increasingly common. (If you have 10 kids, at least some of them will probably be boys who may pass on the name. Have only one kid? Odds go way down.)
September 28, 2011 11:51 am
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This post is by far and away my favorite on APW (which is hard to say!). I have been struggling with this issue in depth over the past few months and have recently realized that I should treating this decision like I do with all of the others nin my life: by what feels right for me. And what’s right for ME is to hyphenate my name with my fiances. This has caused grumblings and stirrings in both of our families, particularly from the women. I get frustrated beacuse we’re all women, shoudln’t we be supporting one another? I think I will conveniently leave this post open on their computers next time I visit…
Thank you again, APW, for challenging the status quo and calling us together to start a much-needed movement.
September 28, 2011 6:12 am
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I am engaged and we have a daughter who has Dad’s last name. I have been planning to change my last name (considering tattooing it on my wrist, but that is another conversation) and taking his name. On the phone with the doctor’s office this morning, the receptionist called me Ms. Hector. It was a bizarre who-the-heck-is-that moment.
I don’t think I am changing my mind, I will probably be in the cry in the car camp. Just an odd moment to have only a few minutes after reading this very good post.
Thank you!
September 28, 2011 6:14 am
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One thing I think is important to keep in mind is that this problem takes really different forms in other places–yes it’s icky to have everyone assume women are going to change their names, and not even ask men about it, but there is hope, not everywhere is like that!
In some places in Africa (where I grew up), everyone just has their father’s first name as their last name, and no one changes their name with marriage–so every family member could have a different last name. And I’ve read that in Scandinavia lots of couples just make up a new name when they get married…either a combo of both their maiden names, or an entirely different name that they just think is cool. And I have a Peruvian friend whose married last name is “Herlastname DE Hislastname”.
Not that those societies are free of patriarchy by any means, but I personally just find it helpful to step back and realize that this is not the only way it has to be. Yay perspective!
Personally I think I’m going to do two last names, my last name and his, no hyphen. I think it would be cool if he could do that too, and he’s open to it, but it would sound terrible with his first name, so we’re probably not going to do that. Sigh. Haven’t decided what to do for kids yet–I would love to give them both names, but feel hesitant to saddle our poor future children with long names to learn how to write and spell.
September 28, 2011 6:21 am
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I think you’re right — and not only does the practice obviously vary internationally, but I think there are some strong regional and cultural pulls within the U.S. My husband and I live in Vermont, and I have a number of very inspiring women friends in their 50s — almost none of whom took their husbands’ names when they married in the 70s and 80s. My mom, on the other hand, married into the military when she was my age, and when I asked her about why she took my father’s name she told me that it felt too radically different from the military culture at that time to keep her own name.
I wish this didn’t have to be the case, but I found it so useful and inspiring to see women around me — who’d been married for decades, who’d raised children with any number of last name options, and who’d turned out JUST FINE — who kept their own names. Coming from a family where I’m the first to keep my name, I took a great deal of comfort in this. While I’d guess I’m in the minority in my community in making this choice, it’s not wildly unusual, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for the women who’ve paved the way for me in this regard.
September 28, 2011 8:25 am
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My feelings about the potential name change have caught me by surprise because I’ve always thought I had it all figured out and there was no way I was going to change my name. However, now that I am engaged there is a part of me that is reconsidering and this doubt is unexpected.
In a way I am lucky that I have a PhD and therefore go by Dr. so I do not have to choose between Ms. or Mrs. However, this also means that I have been publishing under my maiden name and professionally I feel that it is frowned upon to change your name. So I want (or feel that I have to) keep my maiden name professionally.
When I mentioned to my fiance that I was thinking about it he was surprised I was even considering it and said he had always assumed I wouldn’t change my name and that was fine with him. His mother never changed her name (he has his dad’s last name) and my mother hyphenated hers and kept it that way after my parents divorced. There is a part of me who wants to socially use his last name. Already now, when I make restaurant reservations I use his last name because it is common and easy to understand unlike mine.
I thought this would be easy and that I had it all figured out (Why would I ever change my name, I’m Dr. M.?) but it turns out my feelings are not as clear what my brain thinks. I am still leaning towards doing exactly what his parents did, keep my name but give any potential eventual children his. I don’t think it would make me feel like we are any less of a family but I also didn’t think that I would ever think of changing my name either and now I’m having doubts.
September 28, 2011 6:22 am
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This is a really important perspective, because it has gotten to the point that women with PhDs are “not supposed to change their names,” or at least it’s unexpected. That undermines choice all across the spectrum. Choosing what you will do is a deeply personal decision (often without an easy or obvious answer) and I think it’s important that we don’t pass judgment on each other no matter the choice.
September 28, 2011 4:40 pm
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This: And Marie-Ève said, “That’s crazy. To be a family, you just need to be a family.”
And this: Every second you spend judging a woman for making a different choice than you, is a second you wasted.
These two statements are basically the epitome of why I love APW with the fire that I do. These essential mission statements are bred into every single post and it’s amazing.
(This is all I have to add. I was very happy to change my name :) )
September 28, 2011 6:22 am
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Sniff!
September 28, 2011 11:26 am
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I am incredibly lucky. So I want to add my little twig to the fire. I am married (three years) and did not change my name. My husband did not change his. If we have kids (only a remote possibility I think) they will have my last name. This is mostly because I feel more of a history-connection to my father’s family and its name than my husband does to his. (And also because my husband is awesome, obvs.)
We know another married couple with a toddler who has only his mother’s last name. It is possible. This is happening.
My husband and I also have a secret only-for-us made-up last name. It’s our private and silly way of having a family name, and it’s enough for us. For a while we talked about officially changing to make this only-for-us name our legal middle name. I guess that could still happen, if we wanted, but it kind of doesn’t feel necessary anymore.
Good luck to all of you. Like I said, I feel incredibly lucky, because this was easy for me. Totally agree with Meg that if we keep these conversations going, among women and with our partners, we can open up and normalize everyone’s options.
September 28, 2011 6:34 am
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I just posted my comment below, but we’re planning to do this too! (Kids taking mother’s last name only.) So glad to see there are others out there — I have yet to meet any!
September 28, 2011 6:53 am
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Yay! Good for you.
September 28, 2011 6:54 am
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Commenting on my own comment. I feel like I just caught myself engaging in some useless cultural chatter. Why should I say my husband is awesome because he agreed to give our hypothetical children my last name? Is he some sort of husbandly hero for making the supposed sacrifice of not giving his offspring his name? GAH! Really, this option should be one we’re all allowed to discuss and to make if it feels right, and I hope our society gets to a point where it is not considered unusual, or that the man is making some crazy sacrifice. It’s a sacrifice women have been making FOREVER.
September 28, 2011 6:53 am
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This. Absolutely.
September 28, 2011 7:22 am
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Erika you are great! Love your hubby too!
September 28, 2011 11:12 am
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YEAH!!! F*CK YEAH MORE OPTIONS!
September 28, 2011 11:27 am
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I took the very traditional route and just swapped my surname for his. I’m far too attached to my middle name to replace it with my maiden name. My maiden name has always been rather clunky and boring, and not at all the family tree line I felt most drawn to, so I was perfectly willing to wave it adieu. I think that was one of the only aspects of marriage I gave much thought to as a child. I would have kept my maiden name if my beau had a name I disliked though. And then we would have the same child-naming dilemma!
So yes. I took a name that earns me far too many Miley Cyrus jokes, but that’s okay. I got to drop 5 letters and it rolls off the tongue much nicer. I hope to incorporate family names from my side if we have children, so that’s part of my legacy. My first and middle name were my maternal grandmother’s, so I already represent the women of my family with the rest of my name. My sister was named for our paternal great-randparents, and my brother for both of our grandfathers. It’s a tradition that I can get behind. It’s common up all of our family lines.
I only wish my fella had a Mac or O’ name instead of good ol’ West Virginia Cyrus. C’est la vie. I like Cyrus too. Mainly because his line has significantly less inbreeding than the Tennessee line…
September 28, 2011 6:37 am
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I really like this idea of the first names carrying on family traditions, but the last name staying simple and representing the newly created family. Thanks for the idea!!
September 28, 2011 9:57 am
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I hear you.
I am also far too attached to my middle name to ever give it up. In fact, my middle name was supposed to be my first name, except my parents couldn’t figure out a middle name that sounded good with it. My nickname is taken from my middle name and it’s what I’ve been called all my life. My legal first name only appears on legal documents, bills, and credit cards.
My brother is also called the nickname of his middle name.
In my family, our middle names were not afterthoughts that could be easily given up. I know a lot of women in the south give up their middle names and put their maiden names in the middle and take their husband’s name as their last when they get married. No one in my family ever followed this and everyone has a meaningful middle name.
There is so much variation out there.
September 28, 2011 10:58 am
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Is it a southern thing?? All of the women in my family have done it (and I have done it party for that reason), but I never associated the practice as being southern . . . very interesting.
September 28, 2011 11:09 am
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From what I’ve seen, it seems to be common among middle and upper-class families in the south.
September 28, 2011 1:23 pm
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Ha! Another nickname for a used-but-not-even-official middle name here (and no, that’s not always southern, it can also be WASP. Everyone goes by something elese, because everyone was given a family name so crazy it’s unusable. I’m a sixth. Yes. There is that.)
September 28, 2011 11:30 am
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My middle name isn’t crazy, but my parents loved it and planned to call me by it’s nickname. Making it my middle name didn’t stop them from calling me the nickname.
No one in my family calls me anything but that nickname.
It was a problem in school though. They established that I was to be called by my nickname when I started school, but when I switched schools in sixth grade, the new school evidently didn’t get the memo and I didn’t bother correcting them.
That led to different groups of friends in junior high and high school calling me by different names depending on how long they’d known me.
I gave my mother a piece of my mind about it too!
Come to think of it, my uncle (mom’s brother) is also called by his middle name and it’s a wonderful one. Good grief.
September 28, 2011 1:30 pm
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My father’s family have all done that- almost all of them are known by middle names instead of first, or some nickname version. And we found looking up genealogy that my mother’s family was almost as bad- there was a tradition (still there, a bit) that the first son is named for the father’s father, the second for the mother’s father, and daughters were named after grandmothers. In practice, you get a lot of cousins with the same name and people go through life being called odd nicknames (like, there were two Mary’s, so one got called “Marye” which sounds like Mariah with a syllable gone). People named the younger ones whatever they liked, luckily.
It used to be common in Italian-American families as well, but mostly because EVERYONE was either Maria or Joseph as a first name- my great grandma and her sister were both called Maria- one’s Maria Giovanna (Jean) and the other (my Great Grandma) Maria Antonia (which got shortened to “Antonette” and then “Donuts” (because brothers are wonderful things) and then “Dot” and she became “Aunt Dorothy” to her sisters entire family.)
September 29, 2011 2:37 am
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I can’t generalize as to whether its a “southern thing”, but I do know that ALL of my girlfriends in New Orleans, Louisiana have taken their husband’s last name and replaced their middle name with their maiden name. It’s definitely standard practice, at least among my own circle of friends in that one little corner of the south.
September 28, 2011 12:19 pm
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In my Jewish family (and many other Jewish families I know), it’s common for the middle name to be after a deceased relative. This makes the middle name culturally significant, and dropping it isn’t really an option at all. It was easier for me to lose my last than to give up my middle, actually.
September 28, 2011 12:32 pm
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I’ve always loved my middle name, and wouldn’t want to give it up. In my heart of hearts, I want us both to hyphenate- but he refuses (we live in the UK, where double barrelled names are a sign that you come from Old Money, but if they’re both Irish names it would apparently sound weird) and even if he didn’t, they sound awful together. I’m keeping my name because it is a part of my identity- I thought about changing and realized that I would spend three quarters of my life with someone else’s name and that freaked me out.
I must say though, its much easier to do this when his mother insists on everyone using her first name because “Mrs. Hisname is my mother-in-law”. She is awesome.
September 29, 2011 2:39 am
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This is a good point, about what hyphenated names suggest, at least here in the UK. I would hope that it would be changing as more children are born outside marriage (around 50% now) but my experience is that children are almost always given the father’s name only, whether the parents are married or not and whether they have the same name or not. I think it’s a shame more women don’t push to have their own name included. (Didn’t do it in my case because our names sounded awful together, but if it were more common, I probably wouldn’t have thought that…)
October 1, 2011 4:24 am
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Yes! I am Meredith Linsey but have been called Linsey my whole life. Which is great, but Meredith is my first name and appears on all my professional documents. And it’s so damn pretty! Alas, it has caused me much distress and many an undue notary service because I was foolish enough to only put my middle name (as I was/am called) on my driver’s license (silly 16 year old!)
September 28, 2011 9:04 pm
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We’re talking baby names right now, and we went through all of our family tree to find a family name we can maybe use. It’s such a shame that it’s full of Elmers and Helmuts and Agnes. Lovely people, all, but just not great names for our baby.
September 28, 2011 11:59 am
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Oh yes. I understand that. My grandmother was actually miffed that her grandchildren kept getting named for everyone’s parents except hers. Her parents were Gertrude and George. So, my parents named me after her (my grandmother Mary Lorraine who went by May) instead.
I even have the odd Cletus, Archibald and Lemuel up my family tree too. My husband’s pre-Revolution (West) Virginia brood is where the really comical names pop up, to be honest.
September 28, 2011 8:47 pm
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Oh my goodness yes.
I am a Yankee living in the South, and it shocks me how something that was so normal growing up (women keeping their names or hyphenating) is so completely foreign to people down here. I chose to add Husband’s name WITHOUT hyphenating. I still have my first, middle, and last names with his last added on to it. NO HYPHEN. For some reason this no hyphen was really important to me, because I felt like I had an out to drop either last name if it turned out I didn’t like this solution. Nevermind that the DMV said I either had to hyphenate or I couldn’t have both names. Oh, that still ticks me off.
But back to Southern culture- several things have happened. Some people (like my in-laws) simply refuse to acknowledge that I have two last names and call me by his last name. And I correct them. Every. Single. Time. Other people can remember I have two last names and Husband has one, but insist on referring to us as a unit, and attach my last name to him. (As in, “there go the Smith Joneses!) I am also a student living in campus housing, and the campus mail room refuses to put Husband’s mail in the box, because his last name isn’t *exactly* like mine. Craziness.
It has been almost two years of living this way and I have had several moments when I think I should just drop his name because saying all of them just wears me out, and it doesn’t feel like me anyway. I really wish sometimes that I was one of those people who didn’t have what feels like an existential crisis about names. It would be so much easier. But I’m not.
September 28, 2011 6:37 am
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We know of a mail order pharmacy that refuses to ship husband and wife meds out together unless they have the same last name. Not sure if this is common practice everywhere or not.
That means that if their names are different, they have to pay two shipping charges.
September 28, 2011 11:03 am
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Bastards. Seriously.
September 28, 2011 9:06 pm
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My husband was just recently harassed by our insurance company because we have different last names. He took his car in to be serviced and needed a current insurance card for the loaner car. When he couldn’t find his in the glove box he called the insurance company. They were skeptical of faxing him a card to the dealership and his name is on the insurance policy. They said that there was no way to prove that we were married because we had different last names. Of course, I called and made sure that they noted specifically on our policy that we were married and wasn’t especially polite. We were so surprised because this is the first time we’ve encountered this situation, then we remembered that we live in TX and that socially we’re still an anomaly.
October 29, 2011 2:03 pm
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As an artist who has used her last name to promote herself for years (and because, well, it’s MY name), I chose to keep my last name. This was also very important to my husband, who thinks the whole custom of changing to the husband’s last name, strange. However, I have never liked my middle name, and I DO like his last name, so I changed my middle name to his last name. So, I’m Laura HISLastName HERLastName. I’m a fan of this option– it marked the transition of marriage for me, without changing the last name that I really like.
The down side: people get confused. I get a lot of mail that’s addressed to Laura HERlast name-HISlast name, or mail from my extended family where they just ignore my request. I was getting mail for Laura HisLastName before we even got married.
Point being what Meg said: don’t judge others’ decision- it’s a hard one. Find something that feels right for you. And, take the time to make sure that you’re calling people by the CORRECT last name– the one that they’ve chosen.
September 28, 2011 6:38 am
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I agree, taking time to get the names right is a big thing. I have to remind myself to change my friend’s names on cards, boxes, and even email. It can be hard though. I’ve been friends with this girl since 2nd grade. I’ve known her husband since junior high. They dated for 8 years and even knowing they were going to get married and knowing them both so well, I have to remind myself to change her last name.
On a side note, your comment made me think of the things I’d miss about my name.
1) It would mess with my nickname. Both my first and last names can be difficult. Sometime in college I started going by KK to make it easier. KK would be forever confusing since those are actually my first and last initials. My middle name is Cathleen, so changing that to Kathleen might actually help people out since they assume that’s how it’s spelled anyway. But I’ve spent my lifetime running around reminding everyone that it’s a C and not a K. Three K initials is not the kind of association I want.
2) I was looking forward to being the first Dr. MY last name in my family.
3) Because my last name is so difficult, it takes me 2 seconds to identify telemarketers and often even junk mail (they misspell it sooooo often). It’s kind of a perk of an unusual last name. :)
4) There are very few people with my last name out there. There are only about 10 people on facebook that have my last name that aren’t my extended family (and honestly, they probably are, I just don’t know it).
September 28, 2011 7:23 am
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Hey, I just wrote about this very subject! http://carpaltunnelbride.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/not-about-the-dress-changing-my-name/
I felt that I needed to elaborate about my decision to change my name because there are other, valid reasons for doing it than “it’s traditional” or “it’s easy” or “he wants me to.” Coming from a non-traditional background is remarkably freeing, but at the same time when I told my mother I was changing my name her response was to compare my six-year relationship to her first marriage, which occurred when she was 18, lasted less than a year, and is essentially a joke. I’m afraid my decision is being taken as evidence that I’m too young and/or naive to be getting married instead of a conscious, well-thought-out choice.
That said, I’m also changing my name because I want to divorce myself from the history of abusive, neglectful, and generally ugly parental behavior that has been associated with it for at least the past two generations. My mother doesn’t need to know that part, though.
September 28, 2011 6:40 am
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Annie, I partly had the same reason. I didn’t want to keep my father’s last name. It comes from a family with at least two generations of dysfunction. The associations are all negative.
September 28, 2011 11:07 am
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This also happened in my family, so boy do I get that.
September 28, 2011 11:32 am
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Yeah. So naturally I’d still change my name if I ever got married again since I’m never going back to THAT name … no way, no how.
If I had control of destiny, the future hubs would have the same name as my maternal grandparents. That would be like having my cake and eating it too. ;)
September 28, 2011 1:45 pm
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hmmm…you can marry cousins in a lot of states… :-P
Sorry, couldn’t resist the stupid joke.
September 29, 2011 2:43 am
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My mother’s last name is very pretty and short and easy to spell and I would absolutely love to take it if I didn’t associate it with dysfunction and alcoholism and abuse. Shame, though, really a lovely word! These things are so complex.
September 28, 2011 12:34 pm
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I’ve been over this and over this with my man and the fact is I am not comfortable changing my name. And he is ok with that because he is not comfortable changing his. The thing is deciding which name(s) our children will have… and after many late night discussions he finally said, “you know what? Our children can have your name and one day when they are older and ask me why? I’m going to say cause your dad didn’t want to fight with your mum anymore!’
He was just kidding. The conversations are tough. But it helps that we are equals in our relationship and I’m sure we’ll find a solution we are both happy with.
September 28, 2011 6:43 am
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I just wrote (and submitted!) a Reclaiming Wife post about this very topic, and how it went for me…
But here’s the gist: In thinking back to all of the women that have come before me in my family, I made my choice. I took my husband’s last name, but I remained a Ms. It was a compromise that I was willing, no, that I was overjoyed, to make. My choice was an acknowledgment of my identity as Sara, and my new identity as the partner of Jordan. And for me, I also made another compromise, a symbolic one, to honor myself as I’ve always been, and the new self that I was about to become, as a partner, a wife: I hyphenated my name professionally. To me, my career was (and still is) my own, and by symbolically hyphenating my name professionally, I was able to ensure that I entered into marriage with my feminist womanhood in tact.
Kudos to Meg for encouraging all of us to light a fire, to talk about it, to think about it OUT LOUD, because if social change is to happen, it’s by speaking out loud and dreaming out loud about our needs, not by brushing them under the rug.
September 28, 2011 6:43 am
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This issue was by far the most difficult one we faced during the wedding planning process. I read through all of the hundreds of comments on the first name-changing posts on APW and made my then-fiance do the same. We argued over the issue for a long time. I was never going to take his name, but I was open to the possibility of our both changing our names to something different. We considered taking my mother’s maiden name. At the same time, however, I strongly wanted to pass my own name on to hypothetical future offspring; it will die out in my family otherwise, and I’m pretty attached to it. I also really wanted us to share a name. Eventually, we realized that all of those conditions couldn’t be met simultaneously and that we would have to choose.
I really wanted him to take my name. He seriously considered doing it but in the end didn’t feel comfortable. He was going to hyphenate MyLast-HisLast, but he ran into a gigantic guilt trip from his parents. His father in particular absolutely freaked out. We had a ton of drama, and it took many months of indecision before he finally decided not to hyphenate but to take my name as a middle name. We agreed that any future offspring will have my last name. So, in this way, I do get to pass my name on, and we do share my last name in some way, even though for me it’s a last and for him it’s a middle. It’s not the perfect solution, and it was one of the worst decision processes I’ve ever been involved in, but I’m happy about the way it turned out.
Actually, what made me completely livid was that every single member of his family, all of whom gave us checks, addressed the checks to some version of Mr. and Mrs. HisFirst HisLast. It made me mad for 2 reasons: 1) We had told his parents, though, to be fair, not the rest of his family, what we were doing. Clearly they were too upset/embarrassed to share with the other members of his family. 2.) I absolutely hate the underlying assumptions present here. Even if they didn’t know, aren’t we at a stage where you shouldn’t just assume? Even the younger family members, in families where the women had hyphenated, wrote that… (For reference, not all of my family members knew either, but no one did that.) We ordered cheap address labels online and put them on all of our thank you notes to spread the message, but we haven’t heard any comments. I kind of wonder if they even noticed. I have this awful feeling that in a few years, the next time there’s some event that requires written invitations in his family, we’ll get one addressed to Mr. and Mrs. HisFirst HisLast.
Apologies for the length of this comment, but I’m wondering if any other people ran into incorrect assumptions about name changing and what they did to correct those assumptions…
September 28, 2011 6:45 am
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I TOTALLY ran into those assumptions, with checks and mail written to Mrs. Laura Hislastname, despite being very vocal about my decision. With some people, it was an innocent mistake. They ASSUMED, and didn’t take the time to ask. So, I ranted and then stopped giving energy to it until I had the opportunity to politely correct people.
I was in Ohio a month ago, talking to my Aunts (who weren’t at our wedding). They wanted to write down the spelling of my new last name, and I told them that it was the same. They looked shocked, and repeated what I’d just said. Most of my artist friends kept their last names, so I didn’t expect people to be so surprised.
And YES, there should be fewer assumptions. I’m also taking the “write my last name on correspondance” approach.
September 28, 2011 6:56 am
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We have been inviting to three weddings since our own. Two of them were for my husband’s cousins. Both of those invitations came addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. Husband Name”. Despite correcting the bride and groom in both cases that I was not Mrs. Husband Name when we received save-the-dates. A good friend got married this summer and it was the first time I received a wedding invitation actually adressed to ME. I was so happy I kept my place card.
September 28, 2011 8:08 am
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What a timely post! Just the other day, the Man asked if I was going to be taking his name. I said “maybe” and he was all confused. I explained that it is tough for me to give up my name and I’m still mulling it over. I then asked if he would take my name or make up a new one, and his answer was “No. I want my name”. And *then* I think he got why I’m still deciding whether to switch.
I like the idea of using my maiden name as a middle name for me and the kids. I’ll probably end up taking his name and working in mylast as my new middle name, but I will probably also be in the “cry in the car” group regardless. I’m also NOT looking forward to the paperwork changes. Just changing your address on everything when you move is a huge headache, let alone changing your name.
September 28, 2011 6:48 am
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I had a similar issue to QueerBird in that my lady and I had all kinds of discussions about names. She wanted us both to legally change our names to add an air of legitimacy to our marriage and then later for the kids (Thank you, Dan Savage, for pointing that out!). For the purposes of this discussion, let’s say my last name is McPantsPants and hers is Mollywog. My half serious suggestion was changing our names to Mollypants, but that got vetoed. So, instead we’re doing McPantsPants-Mollywog, with the kidlets to be named Mollywog (since she’s an only child and I’ve got two brothers to make moer McPantsPants) – that way we share a name and the kids’ last names have one of those in common with us.
The problem is that Christina McPantsPants-Mollywog is a mouthful and a half. I decided to keep just my last name professionally (if for no other reason than I didn’t want cemcpantspants-mollywog@theplace-iwork.org for an email address) and legally for the time being (because after the wedding I never wanted to deal with gov’t paperwork again). But it’s a fraught issue.
September 28, 2011 6:50 am
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Totally superficial, but … I feel you on the not-wanting-a-work-email. The husband and I both have first initals that, combined with our last name, created actual words. (And his is offensive, at that.) Stuff like this actually MATTERS when thinking about names. =)
September 28, 2011 7:30 am
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I’ve thought doing the Mollypants (combined last name) thing too — but in our situation, the new name sounds just like a cheap winery name — or a new development of giant McMansions… vetoed too.
On a side note: Mollypants is what I call my friend’s daughter. I renamed her that as soon as I met her. Though she does not yet wear pants, I intend to buy her cool ones when she does, as an honorary aunt should.
September 28, 2011 8:05 am
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Kept my name. Husband kept his. Baby girl will be mylast hislast. Done.
September 28, 2011 6:58 am
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RAD.
September 28, 2011 11:34 am
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And that baby girl is on her way soon, yes? Like any day??
September 28, 2011 9:08 pm
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I remember when my best lady got married in 08, she broke down a few weeks before the wedding about how sad she was to be changing her name (but like Alyssa, never considered not changing it). At the time I didn’t really get it, I had never thought about NOT changing my name.
Then when I got engaged I suddenly understood how strange it was to one day be Sarah Mylast and the next day it’s like you are someone else. I also struggled with the fact that Hislast was actually his step father’s name, a name he took when he was 18 years old. A stepfather that he doesn’t really get along with now.
BUT! In the end I decided it didn’t matter where he got the name, it was his name and I wanted to be a part of that. My family name will carry on because I have two brothers and it will still be a part of me always. And we’ll probably use it as a middle name for one of our future children.
I think it’s up to us to TALK ABOUT IT, not just here in a place where obviously everyone wants to talk about it, but with our families and the men in our lives and with our friends who are engaged and maybe panicking about name changes. The more we talk about it, the more people realize it’s OK to do whatever is right for them.
September 28, 2011 6:59 am
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YES. Talk about it everywhere. Talk about it with people that don’t agree. Tell them why it’s hard.
It’s like with LGBTQ issues. You’re far more likely to be pro-gay rights if you know an out gay person. Well, you’re far more likely to be pro-multiple name choices if you know someone who’s told you how heartbroken they were over the process. (NOT that this is as important as gay rights, but it’s an easy if wildly imperfect parallel.)
September 28, 2011 11:36 am
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I will not be changing my name & neither will my fiance. I love my last name & he is completely against me changing it. His mom never changed her name & he thinks it’s strange that I would be the only Mrs. HisLastName in his family, plus how possessive. I love that my fiance & his family are so supportive of this. However, my family is not. I told my parents of our decision & they refuse to accept it, surely we’ll change our mind.
I’m not sure how to handle announcements at the wedding. Usually it’s “presenting Mr. & Mrs. HisFirst HisLast” – now is it HisFirst HisLast & HerFirst HerLast? I don’t want to ever be Mrs HisLastName, but how have others handled that?
I know we’ll get cards/checks addressed to Mr & Mrs HisFirst HisLast, but I’d like to make it clear at the wedding (as if we haven’t already) that I will remain MyFirst MyLast.
September 28, 2011 7:04 am
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At the end of the ceremony, our officiant just said, “And now I present to you, for the first time as husband and wife, Hisfirst Hislast, Herfirst Herlast!” We included the new titles of husband/wife to emphasize that, yes, we were married, but also felt it important to include our full names to indicate that they were the same as before the ceremony.
We also included an at-home announcement on the back of our programs that had both of our full names, and our full names are on the back of our thank you cards. We will probably also get stationery made soon with both of our names so that we can continue to reinforce it.
Of course, the DJ, who wasn’t supposed to announce us at all as we arrived, did say something about us being Mr. and Mrs. Hislast, but hopefully it didn’t undermine the messaging we’d been working on all evening. So far, we haven’t gotten anything from family or friends (aside from a few checks from extended family) with the names assumed. I feel like we were prepared to be flexible and patient because we weren’t doing what everyone else was doing.
September 28, 2011 7:19 am
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I had a similar experience – husband’s family couldn’t care less (his mom didn’t change her name, either), but MY family did. I didn’t expect that at all! My dad and brothers felt really uncomfortable with me not changing it and joked about it a lot. I didn’t see that coming.
September 28, 2011 7:48 am
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You can also just skip the last names in the DJ’s announcement altogether (unless you specifically work with her/him to promote your choice). In most weddings I’ve been to recently, the announcement’s been a simple, “And now presenting, for the first time as husband and wife (or other iterations), E and J!” Easy :)
September 28, 2011 7:54 am
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At a wedding I recently attended, the officiant ended the ceremony by saying “Now join me in congratulating Meg & Kris on their new commitment” or something like that, and everyone clapped, and nothing seemed strange. It doesn’t seem necessary to have an introduction of the names of the new couple if their names are staying the same. I think that at the end of the wedding, people are looking more for a definitive ending/sendoff to signal that the wedding is over, rather than any particular phrase.
September 28, 2011 7:57 am
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My brother recently got married and his wife did not change her name. At the end of the ceremony (her father actually married them, he’s a minister) he just said “And now I present for the first time as a married couple, BrothersFirst Brothers Last and WifesFirst WifesLast.
During the rehearsal though, it took her dad like 4 tries to get it right.
September 28, 2011 8:08 am
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Yes, I went to a friend’s wedding where the announcement was “I present Mr. And Mrs.,” followed by each of their original names. It was very useful actually, as it let those who didn’t know what the married name situation was going to be in on the loop in a graceful way.
September 28, 2011 8:58 am
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That’s exactly what we had our officiant do. “Please join me in celebrating the marriage of Claire MyLast and Him HisLast.”
September 28, 2011 12:32 pm
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We just didn’t have an announcement. But if you want to make it clear, you can say, ” I present the newly married couple Her Herlast and His Hislast!”
September 28, 2011 11:38 am
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Our announcement used first names only as I was still feeling too emotionally conflicted over the whole thing. Wasn’t a big deal.
September 28, 2011 12:37 pm
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This is what we did. I had a lot of people come up to me at the reception and ask “Did your officiant make a mistake?” or say “I’m so sorry he forgot to use your new name!” And I found that absolutely hilarious at the time. The champagne helped with that.
September 28, 2011 12:59 pm
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Huh, maybe no one asked us this because we also had a Power Point projected of it too (for translation reasons, we used Power Point in the bilingual ceremony) so it must have been super clear to anyone confused and wondering if there was a mistake, haha!
September 28, 2011 8:43 pm
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Thanks so much! I love all the ideas :)
September 28, 2011 12:56 pm
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I did not change my name upon marriage and did not want to be introduced as Mrs. Hislastname at the wedding. I told our minister that wouldn’t feel honest to me and he agreed. At our wedding, our minister introduced us by our first names saying “I present, for the first time as husband and wife, Jared and Suzanne!” I made sure to remind our minister of this right before our ceremony. At our reception, upon my instructions, the DJ introduced us as “Here are the newlyweds, Jared and Suzanne!” I also made sure to put our full names on our favor gift tags, thank you notes, and address labels. That was my way of quietly and stylishly emphasizing that I did not change my name. I’ve still had to speak up and correct people when they refer to me as Suzanne Hislastname. I’ve tried to be kind and direct about it saying: “I have not changed my last name and I am not going to do so. So, if you could please not refer to me as Suzanne Hislastname I’d greatly appreciate it.” I like to keep it simple and to the point. For our future kids, we plan to give them my last name as a middle name and his last name as a last name. The compromise is that we will raise our children as Florida Gator fans (my team) rather than Tennessee Vol fans (his team). That might seem silly, but football is hugely important to me and my family identity. I feel satisfied with this compromise. I also like the idea that our future children potentially could use both our last names names if they wanted, but they are not forced to deal with the complications of hyphenated names. At the same time, I can see great benefits in hyphenating your children’s names. I love the idea of continuing to talk about this issue that we face as women. We must continually “politely set things on fire” about this topic!
October 1, 2011 8:20 am
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I totally should have done this – let people know what my name was, or that it was staying the same for that matter. To me, it wasn’t a big deal everyone (or so I thought) knew my name wasn’t changing and it wasn’t a big deal. Now, I’ve slowly realized that I should have said something because I have family members who are confused and frankly unsure what my name situation is. I also think that by not announcing anything his family just assumed that I changed my name. (Although I am almost certain that his dad doesn’t know my first name or is just generally confused by it). Now, 2 1/2 years in, I’m not sure how to let everyone know that nothing changed.
October 29, 2011 2:22 pm
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I was so appreciative when I told my soon to be fiance that I wouldn’t take his name (out of the blue) and he said “of course not!” We’ve joked about combining our names, because who wouldn’t want to be a SandBar? I’m perfectly happy having my name and him having his, but I want our kids to have some visible connection to me, and have my Jewish heritage, which they’ll be raised in, as a part of their names. For this reason, I think we’re going to talk about both of us hyphenating.
I think the name thing, overall, is so strange. My mother is no longer married to my father, but she still has his name. I like that it clearly ties us together to the outside world (whose thoughts, for some reason, I care deeply about) but think it isn’t fair to her that it ties her to him after she has severed any legal ties.
September 28, 2011 7:06 am
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My husband didn’t want to change his name. He didn’t think I should change my name. I didn’t end up changing my name. Kevin (because he has nephews galore to carry on his name and I am the last of my line) has offered to give our kid (if we have one) my name.
Awesome right? It will shake up everyone’s assumptions. We’ll be a cutting edge family! But here is the thing – he has a better name! Not so much better that is was an incentive for me to get off my lazy butt and change it (because in all honesty the paperwork involved was a pretty big factor in keeping my name as is), but enough so that I would feel guilty not giving my kid the better name. The easier to pronounce, the ethnically identifiable (Irish), sweet name that goes so well with so many first names.
I realize there may be a bigger fight involved – gender equality and traditional assumptions. However, there will also be a child involved. My child. Who I won’t be having to create an extension of myself. Who I’ll be having because I have an overabundance of love in my heart and want him/her to have the best start in life possible. Shouldn’t I be giving him/her the easier/better name?
September 28, 2011 7:07 am
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Haha, that reminds me of my mom’s reaction to my current plan to pass on my name as a middle name to the kids: “You would CURSE them with that?!” (She even changed her name to that!)
September 28, 2011 8:55 am
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