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
Categories: Ask Meg, Gender & Feminism, Manifestos, Marriage, Meg's Thoughts, Personal Thoughts
Tags: Changing Your Name
For what it’s worth (and the rare person who will read the 557th comment), I grew up in which everyone in my nuclear family had a different last name-my brother had his father’s last name, I had mine, and my mom had her maiden name. It never affected our interactions with anyone.
Like a previous poster, I am also Chinese and agree that the idea of an unexpected identity-that of an asian women marrying a white man doesn’t sit right with me. Not only that, but his last name can EAT my name-it has the same # of letters as my first, middle and last combined. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
About changing the discussion though, I think to make it an EVEN playing field, we shouldn’t just be saying, oh the man isn’t changing his last name TOO. We should give even MORE of a scrutinizing examination of the men’s choices as we women have given to ours, since society in general will generally focus on the women anyway. I think saying, oh it’s important to him, is a good start, but shouldn’t be be allowed to end the conversation. WHY is it important not to change his name, or to have his children have HIS last name? What traditions, social dogmas/stigmas, professional implications does this have for him, AND do they represent values that he also holds? If in fact, his values and traditions are diametrically opposed, shouldn’t he give some more thought about its importance?
Likewise, to the women who don’t place as much importance to changing their name or having her kids share her name as her husband, ask, why not? I love that this community has so many thoughtful feminists, no matter what they choose, but I feel like the status quo, the expectation of having the children be named after the father can be so pervasive that it may not be as important to the women to consider the alternative. Because of this, I think no matter which option you choose, we should consider both why we made that decision, and why we didn’t choose the alternatives. Because it could still be just a name to you, or you can be just as awesome of a feminist–but the conversation, the consideration–that is the change in the world I want to see.
September 29, 2011 10:52 am
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I am planning to keep my name and also have no ‘heartache’ about it — at least now … but time will tell.
The Icelandic systems is interesting — mostly, kids’ surnames are the name of the immediate father, e.g.”Jónsson” (Jón’s son) or Jónsdóttir (Jón’s daughter), although it’s perfectly acceptable for the immediate mother’s same to be used instead, e.g. Sigurðardóttir (Sigurðar’s daughter). This can mean, too, that siblings have different last names! And they formally address each other by first name.
I learned about this when I visited and was talking to an Icelandic family … they said the phone book can be tricky when you’re looking someone up if you’re unsure about the last name …! I think it’s pretty neat.
September 29, 2011 1:28 pm
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I’m (probably) the last of my line with my pretty unique German last name. (Dad was the only boy of five, etc.)
N is perfectly happy with my decision to keep my name as is. Both of our names sound silly with the other’s surname. And they don’t combine well for hyphens or new nameness.
The funny thing to me is that N is N_\ L_ Momslast \DadsLast with his mom’s maiden name as his second middle, and his mom kept her last name when she married so N is already used to the “that person does not live here” line with telemarketers. :D
Though I would really like to pass my name on to our future kids.. I’d hate for a unique name to die, but that’s still to be discussed and a long way off.
September 29, 2011 1:49 pm
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When I got engaged, I tossed around the idea of changing my name. I wrote it out a bunch of times like I was in middle school again, I tried signing various combinations of my names (my legal name is Julie Momslast Dadslast, so I have a last name as a middle name already), saying them, etc. I didn’t want to drop my mom’s name and bump my dad’s to a middle name, because my mom is very special to me, but if I kept both and took my husband’s I thought I sounded like a phonebook. I never considered hyphenating because my dad’s name and husband’s name are both German and sound like some sort of mustard when mashed together. My mother kept her full name when my parents got married, actually at my father’s suggestion. She worried a lot when I was a child that people would assume she wasn’t my mother, but I never felt that was a problem. The more I thought of it, the more I realized that I didn’t want to change my name, not because I’m particularly attached to the name itself but because it is mine. My husband was perfectly accepting of this, and even said that he knows me by the name I have and it would be a bit odd to call me differently. Also, he is rather fond of his signature and assumes that I would not want to change mine, either. What was most puzzling to me was the number of people who asked me if he minded that I wasn’t changing my name to his. It seems many women and men believe that it is a slight of some sort to not accept the new name automatically, which saddens me. I have nothing against women who change their names, but it’s a practice that is not for me. Besides, I never said to any of my married friends who took their husband’s name (all of them so far) that they were betraying their families/giving up their identity/etc. I think it’s important for everyone to remember that a name is a very significant aspect of someone’s identity and the choice, whatever it is, should always be respected. Except for Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116.
September 29, 2011 3:26 pm
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The option of man changes his name and children have the woman’s name or neither party changes their name and the children have the woman’s name flat out isn’t mentioned in the post. Why is that? Until this is an equal accepted option that’s listed and given equal consideration we are still holding a thumb on the scales. In some states (my state WA) there is no difference legally / cost wise – but we should fight so that in all states/countries there should be no legal difference – that is gender discrimination! As someone who did this – at least in our part of the country/culture the expectation of negative social pressure is much bigger than the actuality – my husband gets a lot of positive recognition for doing it. I realize that this makes me the flaming feminist to some people – but I like that – that is me.
I do get weary of hearing only women talking about how awful their names are and how much more they like their partners names and no men *ever* saying anything like that (ok I do know of maybe 1 case where that happened – compared to many many women). I do think men in general are taking advantage of their privilege in pressuring women or even preferring that women change their names or insisting that their children have their names only or most prominently – why shouldn’t his last name be the extra middle name?
September 29, 2011 5:17 pm
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This! Yes!!
I get that “my name has a bad legacy for me because of X” or “it’s awkward/hard to spell/a dirty word” are valid reasons for a woman to change her name.
BUT.
What about all those men who have bad associations with their names? Surely it’s not just women who are saddled with such names. Why aren’t these men embracing marriage as a reason to shed their own name?
Maybe I’m a big flaming feminist too (actually, I proudly am), but this sits profoundly uneasily with me.
September 30, 2011 4:35 pm
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also, am i the only one who *forgets* that she changed her name? it’s kind of embarrassing (“oops, i mean _____. i totally got married – forgot about that little thing!”)
September 30, 2011 10:52 am
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There is a related issue of marriage and identity, albeit with titles rather than names. On NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday, there was an interesting story that reminded me of this APW conversation about name-changing, marriage, and identity (which is an important ongoing issue, especially given the 500+ comments!). French women have been demonstrating for the right to be identified by a title that does not indicate their marital status. Currently on all of France’s legal forms, and socially, they can only be identified by the married title of “madame” or the unmarried title of “mademoiselle,” whereas men are only identified by one title–”monsieur”–regardless of their marital status. Here’s a link to the article:
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/29/140931817/french-feminists-say-non-to-mademoiselle
September 30, 2011 11:20 am
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I love this article. So good to hear that the Scandinavians, German and Spanish have already done away with the archaic tradition of titles that identify women by marital status. France next, then the world. :)
October 2, 2011 6:03 am
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This is what we did: a blend of his last-my last. My last name was two morphemes, so we split it on that boundary, and his split easily enough (Rhodes + Lemieux = Rhomieux). We both took the name, and will give kids that name. Here’s what we considered along the way: no one changing anything, him taking my name, us both hyphenating, us both taking the other’s last name as our middle name. We talked, discussed, fought, and worked hard on this up until the moment we signed the marriage license (we’re in CA, so any of these options are free and legal as long as we do them when we get the license).
Now, three months later, it’s still hard, and still worth it. Almost everyone who has asked me about it has been supportive, but there was the one coworker who asked if I was going to change my login name every time I got married (hello?! I didn’t even change my login, also, WTF, HOW RUDE). I still forget to call myself by the new name sometimes, and it doesn’t help that, let’s be honest, it’s a made up name (whereas my original last name was two french words stuck together). I love seeing my husband’s name with the new last name though, and knowing that he wanted for us to share that change together. And I love knowing that we will both get to pass on our names to our kids.
As for genealogy as the straw man, maybe it’s because my family has always been really into it, but it never struck me as a reason to not change to something created. I mean, hello, women’s names have been changing for CENTURIES, and as long as you write the name down somewhere, you can trace history. I mean, really, in a world as technologically advanced as ours, we don’t need to worry about losing that history. If I know the name of my 16 times great-grandmother, which I do, who lived when pen and ink and velum where how you kept records, my 16 time great-granddaughter will be able to find out what name I was born with.
Unless, you know, the apocalypse. And then I doubt names will matter a whit.
September 30, 2011 11:48 am
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Hi, i’ve not commented on a post before, but this subject is taking up alot of my thinking time at the moment!
When we got engaged (jan) we got cards adressed to ‘him’ and ‘me (not for long!)’ which made me so annoyed, just because of the expectation of others that I would of course be changing my name to his. NO ONE ASKED ME! He didnt either, I guess because he didnt want me to think he was asking me to change my name. In my mind, deciding to get married didnt mean i’d decided to change my name.
But are the expectations of others a good enough reason to do /not do something?
So when we talked about it, he was of course very open and un-pressuring ‘I dont expect you to change your name’ ‘It’s up to you’ etc. It really suprised me that I became so upset about the whole thing because I’ve never been overly attached to my name or my family history. And also its only my family name because my mum changed her name when she got married.
Then I realised that I was so upset about it because of that ‘its up to you’. Why does it all have to sit on my shoulders?! So I asked him to really think about what it would mean for him to change his name, so that the decision felt more equal. Talking about it alot has really helped me, I’ve got opinoins of all my friends and family, and at the moment we thinking about not changing any names when we get married (so I can have my moment of doing the unexpected?!) but I may change my name to his when we have children.
So yes I agree, we need to ask each other (boys and girls) what happening with names, and assume nothing! and celebrate each others decisions!
October 1, 2011 7:02 am
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Another potential solution that will probably not help anybody to make a decision about what is right for them right now, but could help future daughters/sons to decide what they will do about their names, is this:
My last name is Stone, and my parents decided (for various reasons) to make my middle name Petra. Peter is Greek (I think?) for rock or stone, and Petra is the feminised version. So my name is Firstname Petra Stone. I really really like my last name, but at the same time have never questioned that one day I would take my husbands last name, because Stone will always be there, in the (already established, sneakily and cleverly hidden, and “feeling totally like my name”) form of Petra. I love the fact that I have my last name twice, and if(/when?) I choose to totally drop my last name rather than hyphenate or anything with my husband, I will still have my last name as an intrinsic part of my name. Obviously this doesn’t work with some last names, and obviously if this is not already a part of your name it doesn’t help you decide what name to go by after marriage, but it could be something cool to think about when naming children.
October 1, 2011 8:49 pm
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Hey guys,
I haven’t read all the comments, but I thought I’d chip in because I read this interesting (right/wrong/who knows) article:
http://bigthink.com/ideas/40387?page=1
This is the part that got me:
“Despite the fact that other than their name choice the women were identical, the participants overwhelmingly described the woman who had taken her husband’s name as being more caring, more dependent, less intelligent, more emotional and (somewhat) less competent.”
I’m not sure what to think about it. Thoughts?
October 2, 2011 12:24 pm
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I’m sorry if this has been brought up already, but I’m not going to read through 600 comments (yeesh). I fussed and fretted about the decision to change my name, made the decision to change it, and have still fretted about whether I really want to (I’m getting married in 6 weeks). But I wonder what it is I’m really holding on to. Isn’t “my” name just my father’s name, and how important is it really for me to maintain identity with my father’s family? For some people, I’m sure it’s very important. But after I started thinking about it that way, my whole feminist “I’m not giving up my name to take a man’s name” outlook sort of shifted. I still think the social norms are inherently unfair, but as a personal decision, what am I clinging to? Meh. I’ll probably keep my last name as a middle name.
October 3, 2011 10:27 am
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If you want to stop “judging” name choices, you can start by not referring to a man who offered to take his wife’s last name, as a “dream husband.” That of course is judging someone’s value or appeal on the basis of hiw willingness to take his spouses name. I’m pretty sure you don’t women by the same standard. Does all it take to be a dream spouse is to take your partner’s name? Would your husband have been better off if he had sought a “dream wife” who he could have identified as “dreamy” simply by her willingness to take his last name?
No more judging? Yeah, right.
October 3, 2011 10:38 pm
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[...] Name Changing, APW community style. It’s a great and important conversation. [...]
October 4, 2011 11:01 am
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I’m a couple days late on this, but wanted to chime in because this has been one of the hardest issues for my fiance and I. We’ve been deliberating over this issue for longer than we’ve been technically engaged. It’s not that we’re arguing with each other; we actually agree 100% on the issues, we just can’t decide how to resolve them.
We both want to have the same last name as each other, and we want to have the same last name as our future children. We both have nice names that would be perfectly suitable for the other person, and for our children, but neither of us want the other person take our own last name. He really really doesn’t want me to take his last name because it turns out he’s even more of a feminist than I am. And neither of us want him to take my last name because it sort of feels like two wrongs trying to make a right. Hyphenating is not a great option for us, because my name is awesome by itself but ridiculous and begging for ridicule when part of a hyphenated name, especially when the other name is multiple syllables, which his is. We both really like the concept of taking parts of our names and combining them to create a new name, but that left us with some pretty ridiculous options as well. (The best option was Nepliss…. totally unacceptable).
So we brainstormed some more and tried to come up with an entirely new option, and we did come up with a name using the letters of all of our grandparents’ last names (well, one letter from each name) that is a beautiful word that we both like a lot. So we settled on that earlier this year and thought we had solved our problem. But then we got engaged and moved to a new town and months went by during which we thought it over some more, and we’ve both found ourselves questioning the decision again.
Personally, I’m having a really hard time giving up my last name, which is very unique and earns me a lot of compliments, which I guilt-fully love. I feel like I automatically make a great first impression on people with it, and that’s hard to give up. I finally worked up the courage to tell my FH that I was questioning the agreement we had settled on many months ago and he admitted that he was having second thoughts too. He doesn’t mind changing his name in concept, but the idea of having a different last name from his brother, who he is incredibly close to, breaks his heart a little. I can relate to that, because I love the sense of community that common last names create, and while it’s important to us to build a new community with the family that we are just starting, it’s hard for us to accept the idea of breaking that tie with the familial communities we both grew up with.
So we’re back to wondering what to do now. We feel like our only options are this new, made-up name from our grandparents’ names, or having us both keep our original last names, and then figuring out what to do with the kids when we cross that bridge. In short, we’ve tried to come up with every possible option, and we just don’t like any of them. I can totally relate to everyone else on here who is expressing frustration with this, and I’m glad we all have this outlet to discuss it with each other! (Thanks APW!!)
October 4, 2011 7:29 pm
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I actually couldn’t wait to change my last name to my wife’s when we got married. Her name is awesome, and mine is common. My biggest fear, however, was that other people would judge me for changing it. Being queer and liberal, and being surrounded by a lot of feminists, I did get a lot of questions about why I was changing my name and she wasn’t. But the answer is because I wanted to and it made sense for us.
This is the last name we want our children to have, and for two women, any extra thing that reinforces the shared parenthood of both partners is kind of necessary (at least I think so). We know it will be hard enough to be considered a family at times.
But it is amazing how even the decision to change my name, willingly, was still kind of fraught with some distress because so many couples I know had both spouses change their names (straight couples too).
October 4, 2011 8:15 pm
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I’m totally late on this (sorry – in law school), and I’ve never posted on APW before (although APW is my lodestar in the wedding-planning briar patch), but reading all the comments and thinking about this issue really affected me. I’m getting married in a year. I don’t plan to change my name, but many friends have and I think whatever works for a particular couple is what matters. That said, it’s worth thinking critically about in the abstract without criticizing specific individually-or-dyad-made choices. Like, how much does what works for a couple get dictated by what’s easiest, like what’s expected by friends, family, the DMV, vendors (my makeup artist’s contract had an entry for my new name). My fiancé’s best friend kept referring to me as Mrs. _ when he was congratulating us. He’s very progressive; I thought he must have been joking and just laughed. It’s not offensive to me. But I realized he really did expect that I would change my name as a matter of course.
My father’s name is Hungarian, but his family came from what is now Slovakia (and what was the Austro-Hungarian empire). There aren’t very many people with my name. There are fewer than 50 of us in the United States. My name is not hard to pronounce and doesn’t have a surfeit of consonants and too few vowels, but safe to say it’s rare. This makes me proud. But you know what else makes me proud? Being the descendant of Slavs who came to America to work in coal mines for a better life. Being from an area of Eastern Europe carved into slivers by war. I don’t mean that my link is with Slovakia or Hungary; I’m American. This link is with my family and who we are. My heritage isn’t any more noteworthy or important than anyone else’s, but it is mine. You can see Eastern Europe in my father’s face. You can see less of it in mine. I will not let my name go. It is my birthright.
October 6, 2011 11:37 am
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[...] deal to everyone that he even thought about it. I know it’s tradition and yada yada yada, but who says it has to be this way? (Tangential-yet-related-note: Why should the bride have “maids” and [...]
October 18, 2011 6:12 pm
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While I fully understand the confliction here, I don’t feel like a part of it. There is an overwhelming feeling in the article that it is the ‘proper modern’ thing to simply go agaisnt tradition. While that isnt the message, that – to me – appears as the tone. I’m not married yet and not techniquely engaged yet(he proposed and i said yes, but in the long run we’re both not ready yet, so we dis-engaged ourselves). However I look forward to taking his last name. I love my last name, even if no one can pronounce it, or spell it, or remember it. Its been a part of my identity for many years. But every time I have to sign my name on a piece of paper, I pause, because I want so badly to be signing Niomie Fischer. I’m proud of my future husband and I will gladly wear his name, any day
But if it’s stressing you out to change your name. Don’t.
If you wanna keep both. Do
Maybe you can combine the two. After all you’re creating a new family so why not create a new name in memory.
Just don’t let that be the factor that ruins your day
<3
October 21, 2011 9:57 pm
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While reading an article about what last name to give your child a stumbled upon something beautiful. There was a couple who simply threw out all the standards and made up their own last name for the baby that was a combination of their own respective last names. ie. Emma ftzgerald and John Thomas had little Betty Fizthomas. Which I thought was perfect and if you could do it for your baby you must be able to do it for your selves. I would go that route if I thought my name was condusive to it but unfortunately my name evokes thoughts of carnival rides and automobile decoration. As such I will be a Ms Hislastname but think this is a wonderful option others may want to consider.
November 2, 2011 7:15 am
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My situation is a bit unique – my maiden name already is hyphenated!
I have my mother’s maiden name hyphenated with my father’s last name. My parents wanted me to have both, and this was 30 years ago. My mom has the same last name as me, but my dad has just his surname. This wasn’t common when I was growing up; people would often comment that I looked so much like my stepfather….because why esle would I have a hyphenated name, right? Ugh, I still remember their confused faces when I told them I didnt have a stepfather, that he was my biological father – ha!
And now that I am engaged, some have asked about my plan for my last name. And no, I don’t want to hyphenate twice (can you even do that?). I love my last name and the story behind it. Plus it flows together so well that it is often mistaken for one name. And like many previous posters, I feel my maiden name is…well, me.
November 3, 2011 3:11 pm
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I’m brand new here, referred here by a friend who’s trying to help me through post-wedding withdrawal.
I changed my name without a moment’s hesitation, but my story may be somewhat different from others (I too haven’t read all the preceding comments). I was married once before, about 22 years ago. The marriage was extremely short, so after going through all the trouble to change my name after we got married (this was before the Internet), I couldn’t face going through it again to change my name back. Besides, I had never thought of myself as “Mrs. M,” but just “Linda M.”
But when my current husband and I got engaged and my first marriage was annulled by the Church, I couldn’t wait to get rid of that name. I didn’t want that person (my first husband) to be a part of my life in any way. I hadn’t been Linda S (my maiden name) in a long, long time, so I didn’t particularly want to go back to that name. So I was MORE than happy to change my name, and so far it hasn’t been nearly as hard as I thought…though it does sound kind of odd when I speak it!
I’m a psychologist, and folks at work are just getting used to the new name (it’s only been a month), which does feel kind of weird, but I know I’ll get used to it.
November 14, 2011 6:16 pm
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There is never any question that I will take my fiances name. Even though my nickname amongst friends is an abbreviation of my current (maiden) last name, I still haven’t hesitated on this choice. For me, I feel I have grown as a person with him, and I feel like our wedding is a chance for me to put the ‘old’ me (with all her insecurities, self doubt and self destructive behaviors) behind us and officially become the new woman that I feel my man has helped me become; and taking his last name is a beautiful symbolic way for me to do that for myself and for him. Any tears will be of joy; I can’t WAIT to finally have my new last name :)
November 25, 2011 7:29 pm
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[...] and more from various voices on the name-changing conundrum at A Practical Wedding. I’m so excited to participate in the APW book buy next week! (There’s a slight chance [...]
December 3, 2011 10:04 am
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I am in my 9th year of marriage. When Ben & I got engaged, there was no question in my mind that I would be keeping my name. It was an instinctual decision–not necessarily based on any one particular reason–just the simple fact that I’d had my name my whole life, and felt the urge to keep it. The reaction of course was that I was being a “feminist.” This always cracks me up– since every last name known to humankind has been passed and passed and passed down by men. My last name came from my father, which came from his father and on and on down the family tree. “Maiden name” feels a bit like a joke to me. So i kept my name and life continued with only the occasional piece of mail from a grandparent-in-law addressed incorrectly. Then we had our daughter. What to do?! I’m not into hyphenation. For me it feels stuffy, though i see the appeal. We decided to give her my maiden name as her middle name, and she’d have her father’s last name. But something started to change as she grew. I went through a phase of feeling like we weren’t a real family since we didn’t have the same name. how fucking ridiculous is that? My husband never cared about my not taking his name, but it was like this force field emanating from the universe or something. Our five year anniversary was approaching, and this light bulb went on–I’ll change my name! I’ll surprise them both with this awesome gift!!! Yet the date came and went and i hadn’t managed to get my ass in gear to do it…. I revealed my plan, and the 2 stared at me with a pretty anti-climactic expression. I thought they’d be pumped. And in that moment of non-pumpedness, I realized it truly didn’t matter, the name had no weight on who we are.
December 7, 2011 10:10 am
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I’m just starting to wade through the complication of what family name our future children will have after I marry my fiancee this year, but one thing is certain neither of us will be changing our family name or our title, I will remain Ms X and he Mr Y.
I don’t judge women who choose to change their name, I have been surprised how many of my friends in recent years have taken their husbands family name. Actually, I probably do judge a little from a feminist perspective, but that same sense of equality and democracy means I’ll defend their right to change it to the death providing they’ve changes it because they want to. I’m sure I will many times think it would have been easier than the endless explaining I’m bound to have to do, I accept but don’t understand their choice. In this day and age the patriarcal laws that gave rise to women being totally dependent on their husbands, and hence the tradition of taking his familial identity, are just completely redundant. Two female friend who took their husbands family name within the last 3 years are the breadwinners in those relationships with stay at home, child-rearing husbands – the roles have reversed but not the naming traditions, and nor should they.
In our modern, equality based society we shouldn’t really be expecting either party to change their name should we? So what is the answer for naming the next generation? Probably an unwieldy hyphenation, and our kids will probably curse us for that when (if) they decide to marry as they won’t have the same option we had with teir own children, but for the sake of equality I feel obliged to start somewhere. Fortunately I have a man who agrees and wouldn’t have it any other way because he believes, as I do, that we’re a partnership of equals. And that makes it all so much easier. :-)
January 5, 2012 7:56 am
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Darlings, I’m ready to crown myself with laurels for my solution to this problem. I think that women should keep their names at marriage and men keep their names at marriage. Then all girl children from the union take their mother’s name and all boy children take their father’s name. As it stands today, a father of girls doesn’t expect his name to “carry on” anyway so most dads won’t mind having their daughters named after their mother. This also avoids the what-happens-with-the-next-generation problems (not to mention inconveniences) of hyphenation or the Latin American double last name. My solution would work across the generations.
If you ever look at your own family tree or work on genealogy projects it’s amazing how the women just seem to come out of nowhere and get absorbed into their husband’s family line – it’s patrilineal in the literal sense of the word. It’s easy enough to know where your mom and Grandma and Great-grandma come from – not so when you’re wondering about the origins of the woman that married your Great-great-great-great grandfather in the late 1700s. You see her on the family tree – you’re lucky if you even have her maiden name – and then you see her children, all named for her husband. How can you trace her lineage? Who is her father and mother? The story is incomplete. It is true that in marriage we become one family, but never forget that in changing your name and in naming your children only for your husband you are adding yourself as a dotted line in someone else’s family tree. And while I think (I hope) we’re all proud to be joining our husband’s family it’s important to recognize that we are also falling off our own from the point of view of posterity.
January 16, 2012 3:50 pm
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I am so happy to read these discussions. We have more than a year before our wedding but I have already told C that I will be changing my last name to his. It took a lot of thought to come to that decision for all the reasons above. I will definitely keep my current name professionally – both in my “day job” and in (what I think of as) my real job as an opera singer. I’m lucky that my current name is unique and google-able, but I want us to have a family name.
I was conflicted about changing the name though, as I know that my last name will not be passed down to any further generations. I suppose I may have distant cousins since it is a common name, but my first cousin changed his last name to his father’s last name when his mom & dad got married and my sibling that I grew up with as my brother has long since transitioned to be my (much much happier!!) sister. I feel like I am somehow letting my parents down by changing my name even though I know that I cannot be held personally responsible for carrying on the family name. What if we can’t have kids & don’t have the resources to go through the adoption process (which I don’t think we do)? It wouldn’t matter what name I had then!
Add to all of this that I am the registrar for a non-profit children’s choir and manage the names/addresses/donor acknowledgments/etc. for thousands of people who interact with us – most of whom are children and their parents. I support everyone’s choices in keeping their names/hyphenating/changing names, but I have to say that keeping track of families in which everyone has the same last name is much much easier than keeping track of those in which the last names vary. Before I took this job (which was also before I met C) I did not think I was ever going to change my last name. I still do think about whether I have made the right decision and I am comforted by the post about Brenna changing her name back after having changed it. It is nice to have a reminder that our options are ALWAYS open.
Thank you all for speaking so openly about this!
(P.S. – I am only posting anonymously so as not to out my sister, I want to be sure to respect her privacy)
April 15, 2012 9:51 pm
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