Many thanks to the many readers who responded to my query about why women who marry still change their last names. Note also that MetaFilter had a thread about this.
Now the obvious follow-up: If you're a woman who married and didn't change your last name, why did you do that (not why you got married, but why you didn't change), and how well do you think that worked out? Please post comments only if you are a woman, and you did not change your name when you married.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Many Thanks
- More on Women and Last Names:
- Women and Last Names:
Plus, I can never remember any of the last names of the few friends I have who have changed their last names. I've even met a few parents who forget what their own daughter's last name is after she changes it! It' actually a bit disturbing when someone changes their name, I'm very attached to permanence. I was also surprised to find how happy it made my father when he found out I was keeping my (and his) last name.
Most men I know seem to think that keeping my last name is admirable. However, my husband's family does not approve. They are too intimidated to say anything to me about it though, and its a good thing, because they don't want to get into an argument with me about a tradition based on women as property!!
Also, when we have a child, it will have my last name. Both parents are generally equal, but I'm the one that has to carry the dang kid in my body for 9 months, so the balance is shifted in my favor. My husband agrees with that logic.
My mother (married in 1969 and a feminist) took Dad's name, and she said it was easier to change her name and it was a man's name anyways. For me, it's not about it being a man's name, it's about the name I was born with, got used to, practice under and associate myself with. And it also seems a little unfair that the default is that the woman changes her name. If both change to a new name, that seems much more equitable.
Unlike some women who kept their names, I have no qualms about being called by my husband's last name, and I occasionally offer that name in social settings for convenience purposes. We get mail with all sorts of combinations of our last names. I do not care what other people call me, I am not bothered in the least to be called by his name -- I simply did not want to change my name professionally or with my friends and family.
Children pose a problem. There is a family unity issue there (of course, I am no less my husband's wife if I do not share his name, so I am no less my child's mother if I do not share her name), but there's also a convenience issue - you'll have to take extra steps to prove that you're the spouse or mother if your name isn't the same. Therefore, if we have children, we'll review my decision, and perhaps even choose a new last name for all of us.
FWIW, my name is English and my husband's name is hard to pronounce when read, hard to spell when heard, and is ethnic (and I am not that ethnicity). He uses my name when we order pizza.
was just too much for me.
Even my husband makes restaurant reservations in my name. He started doing that even before he proposed.
There was also the thought of all the hassle of changing my name on all my cards, accounts, email addresses, etc. And the feminist part of me that said "no one is suggesting that he change his name".
Practically it's worked out fine. I've never had any problems convincing people that we're married, including when we've travelled overseas. His family and a few of my friends write letters to me addressed with his last name, and I keep meaning to get around to telling them that I haven't changed it. Occasionally people comment, but never negatively.
We haven't had kids. If we do I think I'll give them both names, with my surname as a middle name. I will also make sure their first names don't have any alternative spellings. They can use whatever name they like to make restaurant bookings.
As to why their surname first - my husband's surname is unusual and I quite like maintaining diversity.
My husband never asked, and it never really occurred to me to change my name. It's also the case that I've published a couple papers, but I don't really respect those publications enough to care. Mostly, I didn't want to be someone else, I wanted to be myself, and I thought that changing my name would make me sad.
Sometimes I wonder sometimes if it wasn't silly of me to keep it. I feel a bit guilty that people refer to my husband as Mr. Mylastname--I'm the one most involved in our community, the one who signs the bills, and many times people here just assume we have the same name.
I haven't thought about the kids' name problem yet.
re: practicality: it's never been an issue for me, but then again, no one misnames me; they misname my husband. Never had any issues with bills or paperwork.
I've encountered a small amount of confusion by not having changed my name, but nothing monumental. Our children have my husband's name because that's convention and I really don't care one way or the other.
No children as of yet, but they will have my husband's name, I suppose. Socially, I don't think I'll mind being addressed as Mrs. Husbandslastname, particularly if it reduces confusion with the children.
2. I couldn't be bothered to go through all of the bureaucratic hassle on SSN, credit cards, 401K, etc.
Interestingly, I never thought of it as an identity thing one way or the other, nothing philosophical.
Our two kids have both our last names, which I think makes it easier for future geneologists. (Besides, my husband insisted they have his last name, too ;-) )I don't buy the argument that we can't signal family unity unless we all share the same name. I think it's pretty clear by our names that we are all from the same family unit.
I think this has worked out well, and I certainly have no regrets about my or my kids' names. Sometimes I have to take a little extra time to explain to people that we all have different but related last names (like when we make airline reservations), but the only time it bothers me is when I have to have the discussion (over and over)with my own friends, especially those who've known me long before I got married.
Incidentally, I'm surprised at how few women have commented on this compared to the number of commenters on your previous post for those who changed their names. Are we really that much in the minority??
Best as I can tell, this has posed a problem once in four years of marriage, and then only a minor one: when checking in at an airport in a small city in the South (and plausible marriage or honeymoon destination), we had this conversation:
Me: We're both checking in, please. Two bags.
Agent: Which bag is whose?
Me: Oh, it doesn't matter, we're married.
Agent: Oh...the reservations are in different names. [starts consulting policy manual] Do you have your marriage license?
Me: What do we need that for? The tickets match our IDs.
Agent: Aha! How exciting. Congratulations!
Me: [confused]
Agent: How long have you been married?
Me: Uh, a bit over two years.
Agent: [confused]
We got our boarding passes and made a speedy getaway.
I see the appeal in the one-name, one-family thing, but it's just not important-seeming enough to be worth the hassle and the inequity. I suspect that if we have two kids, one will get each name--fairer that way, and I think it can actually be really advantageous for younger siblings not to be automatically lumped with their older siblings.
But I have no objection to going by Mr. [wife's name], either, and I often use her name for reservations (it's easier to spell).
When I was in high school, we had an exchange student from Chile: Adolfo Henriquez y Chacon (a man who has gone on to become a brilliant petroleum engineer). He spent much of his year in that little small town in Indiana explaining his last name to some rather unworldly Hoosier kids. His explanation seemed obvious to me, and it's the pattern I chose to adopt for my children.
There is an advantage to having kept my own name that I never anticipated: It turns out that my Polish DP husband has done quite well in his area of the law. With my own name, I can "fly under the radar." And, when I opt to let people know the connection, I just add "Mrs. Husband's Name" after my name.
Having kept my own name was easier (no name-change forms to file) and has meant that I did not vanish behind a new name.
These links may be of interest:
Dunn v. Palermo, 522 S.W. 2d 679 (Tenn 1975);
a 1925 magazine article titled "Do You Use Your Husband's Name?" ;
a piece by Hofstra law professor Joanna Grossman, "What's in a name?";
a newspaper article by me from 1974, "Legal issues of married woman who keep their own names."
Frankly, I never would have considered marrying a man who was not bright enough to understand WHY a woman might opt to keep her own name.
Different last names are fairly common in our social circle (we live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in New York City) and the convention we used for our son's name (Firstname Middlename Mylastname Hislastname, with no hyphen) is also fairly common. Between the different last names and the mutually agreed upon hyphenations, I think that couples in which she took his name might even be in the minority.
I am entirely in agreement with Eugene's reaction to the idea of name changing: my answer to 'why did you keep your name?' would probably have to be 'why on earth would I change it?' The minor inconvenience of having to introduce myself these days as "Iris Engelson, xxxx yyyy's Mom" when calling schools, pediatricians or parents of my son's friends hardly seems a compelling reason to jettison the name I have used all my life.
On the other hand, I never had a problem with my son's having my husband's last name. I did want my last name to be included as a middle name, though, and I am careful to include all four names on all official documents, lest I ever have any problems when we are traveling.
1) I had publications under my maiden name;
2) The paperwork would be a nightmare (including what was then the INS);
3) I am a very different ethicity from my husband, and calling myself by his last name seemed utterly incongrous.
Our child has my husband's last name, and I don't care if I'm addressed socially as Mrs. (Husband's Last Name), or in reference to our child.
That said, I don't mind being called Mrs. Husband's Name (and I'm super-traditional. I would prefer to be addressed Mrs. [Husband's first name] [Husband's last name] to Mrs. [my first name] [Husband's last name]... because I like being difficult.) I will introduce myself as Mrs. So-and-so to people who have to deal with our kids. Most people know my last name, though, and so I'm not called Mrs. So-and-so that often. Perhaps when the kids are older.
I look at it from a purely practical point of view, and don't see why my socially used name(s) must be the same as my legal name.
In my family: after my father died, my mother remarried. But she didn't change her name upon remarriage. So she's Mrs. Dead-husband's-name. Legally and socially. Only a few people have remarked on it, but most people just accept it. She was married to my Dad before she graduated college, so perhaps she had come to identify it as her own. Or perhaps she didn't want to go through the crap of changing all the paperwork. Or perhaps she wanted to have the same last name as her kids. Or perhaps just pure sentimental reasons. I don't know.
My middle sister has done as I have -- socially, she goes by husband's name, hasn't changed her legal name. My youngest sister does not go by her husband's name at all. All of us got married in our 20s, after we graduated college (and gotten masters degrees).
Oh, and none of us have done the hyphenated-name thing to the kids. They have their fathers' last names.
I also wasn't likely to take his name because I always thought that was really silly, particularly in the context of a traditional wedding. The bride shows up wearing a hat that makes her look like an alien landed on her head with a veil covering her face (and therefore masking her identity). Carol Springer marries David Anderson, and at the end the officiator introduces "Mr. and Mrs. David Anderson." Where did Carol Springer go? The whole ceremony seems designed to strip the bride of her entire identity through the costumes and the name change -- clearly a reflection of the historical view of women as property. Not my style.
I do resent when people call my by my husband's name. I find it irksome that they are so presumptuous as to assume that I am subservient to him, and so 1950s that they still apply this default. I recently checked my info on Lexis and found that although the title to our home, and the mortgage for it, are both listed in both of our names, the Lexis database shows me with his last name. Who on earth thought it was their business to give me an entirely new name? Makes me crazy.
Our daughter has my last name. We never considered any other option. It would have been the same if she'd been a son. My husband's parents would have been apoplectic over this if they hadn't been so relieved to finally have a grandchild. Given how unlikely this was to happen at all, they would have been delighted if we'd named her Baby Doe.
My husband thought about taking my last name, but ultimately I didn't want him to because no one would have believed that he had taken my name rather than that I had taken his. I wanted the names to be different so that my identity was never subsumed under his.
We've never had problems being treated as a family, even though we have different last names, and no one has ever assumed (out loud anyway) that our daughter is not legitimate. This may come from us being older parents (late 30s when she was born) and having been married for many years before her arrival. But who knows what people are really thinking (and frankly, who cares).
If I should marry again, I'm not planning to take my husband's name, unless he happens to have my maternal grandmother's rare surname. I'll be happy for both of us to hyphenate our names together or to change to a different surname; he can even take my surname if he really wants to.
Names are fundamental to identity for me. I've used the same online name for years and would have a huge problem changing it, never mind the one I was born with.
For the life of me I can't see what issues are involved with family members having different last names. Legal or bureaucratically, I've never spent 5 seconds extra because my son has his dad's name and I don't.
The "family unity" argument has never made any sense to me, either. It's supposed to convince outsiders that the spouses really do love each other, or what?
I don't really care whether women change their name or not, but for some reason I go absolutely nuts at women who say "Oh, I couldn't wait to change my name! I've always hated it!" Smackdown time.
My wife changed her name to mine. Having a non-Japanese name presents some hassles for her, but having a name different from her husband would present another set of hassles. The Japanese wife of a UK friend of mine stuck with her maiden name for a few years, but gave in when they had children. The Japanese wife of a US friend uses her maiden name as a sort of professional name, but her legal name is her husband's.
She on the other hand couldn't wait to change hers. Family issues.
We agreed before we had kids that girls would have my name and boys his. (My husband got the idea from reading about a tribe somewhere that took this approach.) As it happened, we had two girls. My husband doesn't mind -- his family and its name are very widespread, so he didn't feel the need to beget more Hagers.
When our first daughter was born, the hospital made him sign a form saying something to the effect of "I know it'll be a hassle if we change our minds later about the baby's last name". He was outraged that they would treat the use of the mother's name so differently from the more usual use of the father's name.
Any children we have will bear his name. Not so much because he's the male, but because he's the only son of an only son, whereas I have a brother who's children will likely carry my family name. Besides, his name is much rarer than mine to begin with and it'd be a shame for it to disappear.