Over at The Dish, Andrew Sullivan’s readers have been discussing an article by Jill Filipovic on the traditions surrounding marital name change.* One might think that, after a few decades of feminism, more women would choose to keep their surnames when they marry. Yet, only about 10 percent of American women choose to do so, and that number is decreasing over time. Moreover, some 50 percent of Americans believe women should be required by law to take their husband’s last name.** Cultural resistance to women keeping their names remains strong.
These statistics amaze Filipovic. She argues that women should not reflexively take their husbands’ names when they marry. For her, one’s name is one’s identity:
The term for you is what situates you in the world. The cultural assumption that women will change their names upon marriage – the assumption that we’ll even think about it, and be in a position where we make a “choice” of whether to keep our names or take our husbands’ – cannot be without consequence … When women see our names as temporary or not really ours, and when we understand that part of being a woman is subsuming our own identity into our husband’s, that impacts our perception of ourselves and our role in the world. It lessens the belief that our existence is valuable unto itself, and that as individuals we are already whole. It disassociates us from ourselves, and feeds into a female understanding of self as relational – we are not simply who we are, we are defined by our role as someone’s wife or mother or daughter or sister.
Historically, a woman surrendered both her identity and several basic rights the moment she became a wife:
Under coverture laws, a woman’s legal existence was merged with her husband’s: “husband and wife are one,” and the one was the husband. Married women had no right to own property or enter into legal contracts. It’s only very recently that married women could get their own credit cards. Marital rape remained legal in many states through the 1980s. The idea that a woman retains her own separate identity from her husband, and that a husband doesn’t have virtually unlimited power over a woman he marries, is a very new one.
To counter “centuries of servitude and inequality,” Filipovic suggests that, at the very least, any kids be given the woman’s surname. If it’s important to the couple that their family share a last name, it should be hers; or the couple can make up a new one. Filipovic acknowledges that asking men to take their wives’ names might seem unfair to men but, since they suffer from neither women’s sense of “psychological impermanence,” nor “the shadow of several thousand years of gender-based discrimination, ” the sacrifice is theirs to make.
Not surprisingly, most Dish readers thought that the decision on whose name to take, or not take, should be left to the couple. Several described their own choices. Some questioned Filipovic’s connection of surname to identity, noting that there was little difference between a woman keeping her father’s surname or taking her husband’s–both defined her by her relationship to a man. A couple of women felt that taking their husband’s name enabled them to forge a new identity separate from an abusive birth family. On The Dish’s Facebook page, a couple of commenters reiterated the standard argument that a woman’s failure to take her husband’s name indicated that she wasn’t serious about the marriage and was hedging her bets should it fail.
For the record, I kept my name when I got married. It was pretty much of a no-brainer for me. I was 40 at the time, have an unusual last name, and belong to two communities–academic types and liberal Jews–where it’s common for women to retain their names. Plus, my husband’s ex-wife gladly took his name when they married and birthed him a son to carry the name on. Her taking his name hardly saved their marriage. For me, a good part of my identity was tied up in my name and I was changing enough things when I married my husband–leaving my job, moving to a new city, acquiring a stepson–that I wanted to hang on to it.
The most surprising opponent of my decision to keep my surname was my father. I thought he’d be happy that I was keeping the family name. It’s not like there’s a multitude of Toguts out there. But no, he wanted me to shed it. For years after The Russian and I first got married, he addressed anything he sent to us to Mr. and Mrs. Russian. Thirteen years after the fact, he still can’t understand why The Russian didn’t insist that I take his last name. The Russian could care less.
The other place I’ve encountered resistance is among my fellow second wives. I belong to a couple of online stepmother support groups, and whenever the topic of surnames comes up, it engenders a lot of heated discussion. Many of the women passionately decry the ex-wife’s refusal to surrender the husband’s name and revert to her maiden name. They’re incensed about having to share a name with “her” and insist that she give it back. These women treat their husband’s last name like a possession, something that should belong to them and not the ex. This attitude surprised me. In my case, the ex’s decision to keep my husband’s last name, which is also the last name of her child, was one of the few post-divorce things she did that actually made sense. She’s welcome to call herself whatever she wants (I have my own names for her anyway).
So, is Filipovic right? Is your name your identity? If you’re a woman, did you or will you keep your own name upon marriage? And, if you’re a man, would you even consider taking your wife’s last name? Why do you think that, of all the changes feminism has brought, this particular tradition remains largely intact?
* See Dish readers’ responses to Filipovic’s essay here, here, here, and here. Also on the Dish’s Facebook page.
** Apparently, the 50 percent figure is highly questionable. HT: dragonfrog
A lot of name keeping or changing is cultural, unrelated to how one views women. In Muslim countries, people do not change their names when they get married. Not because of feminism or anything like that, but because it’s convention. My mom didn’t change her name until after they moved to the US and realized that it made things easier when signing me up for school an the like.Report
I think my indifference to whether or not my wife changed her name* made her more willing to take my name. It wasn’t something that I was imposing on her, rather it was something she was choosing to do. We also discussed making up a third name.
* Which was because I knew tons of women back in Egypt that never had, so I didn’t careReport
As some of you know I just got married last July for the first time at forty..mumble mumble years old. I really had a hard time deciding what to do. I really wanted to keep my name because…well damn it its mine! Also I am known professionally by my name and have publications and everyone knows me that way. It was very important to my husband that I take his name for various reasons. He has four children and wanted all of us to be one family and to him part of that is sharing a name. My solution was to keep my name professionally I changed my surname on the marriage licence to my middle name and took his last name. I have yet to actually go through the hassle of changing SSN and credit cards and everything else. People who have known me for a long time still call me by my surname and when we meet new people I am introduced by his surname. So I guess I am still on the fence sort of but it works for us.Report
My wife kept her last name. She went back and forth on it, but decided to keep it. I didn’t really care. (My son — technically step-son, he was about five when we got married — has the same last name as her).
I am routinely referred to as Mister [Wife’s Last Name], since a giant chunk of the bills, accounts, and whatnot happen to be in her name. (The vet, for instance, has us down under her name).
The assumption we should have the same last name is a bit trying at time, but nobody in either of our families really cared. Her sister thought it was odd, but that’s it.
Another couple I know kept their last names upon marriage, but replaced their middle name’s with their spouse’s last name.
The woman was able to do so quickly at the DPS/DMV. The man, on the other hand, was refused and told he had to have a judge do it. When he pointed out his wife had just done that thing they were told that was “different”.
It had a happy ending. He lived in Austin at the time, his state senator happened to be in, and the DMV was kept open 45 minutes past closing on a Friday specifically so that his name would get changed.
His state senator took 20 minutes to check the law, concluded it was perfectly legal — Texas had replaced ‘wife’ with ‘spouse’ in pretty much all marriage laws specifically for that sort of reason in the 90s, which was strangely progressive of us. 🙂 Then the head of the DMV (or DPS, I can’t ever remember which we have) called the office in question and informed them they would stay open until my friend got there, process his name change, and inform their coworkers as to the actual law.
The Senator had my friend’s vote from then on. 🙂Report
Constituent service at its finest.Report
daamn. looking up the actual law? rofl. I am impressed.Report
It helped that my friend had:
1) First posted to a message board filled with, well, geeks.
2) Who then looked up Texas law.
3) Then cited it chapter and verse to him.
4) Who cited it to the Senator’s office.
5) Who said “Thanks. We’ll double check that and, if correct, contact first the office in question and escalate if necessary. Can you give us a few minutes?”
6) Who called back and said “Well, you are correct on the law. We contacted the office, when they were uncooperative we contacted the man who runs the DPS, and can you get there now? They will hold the office open for you”
The internet is a wonderful place, and sometimes it’s useful. 🙂Report
A name certainly is a part of one’s identity, but the really relevant question is how much of one’s identity is bound up in the name. My wife and I discussed this issue when we got married two decades ago, considering her keeping her own name, me taking her name, creating a new name we would share separately from our families, and we finally agreed that she’d take my last name because it would be easier to deal with our relatively old-fashioned parents–purely path of least resistance for us. Which means, I think, that her identity encapsulated a whole lot more than just her name. And yet I’m sure to a considerable extent she does still consider herself a de Boer. But also a van Dien, her mother’s maiden name. Just as while part of my identity is obviously Hanley, I also think of myself as a Wulliman, and a Rohrer, and even in part a Sprunger because I’m descended from that family that emigrated to American 140 or so years ago. But one of my names also is the number I was assigned as a bike messenger, because that time of my life was so important in shaping my identity today, that I still think of myself as that number, with pride.
The difficulty for all of us is understanding how others can so wildly different from us. I struggle to imagine what it must be like to have a particular name be such an overwhelmingly important part of one’s identity, but I have no doubt there are countless others who can’t fathom how I could see my surname as such a miniscule part of my own identity.Report
I wonder what it means to have almost no emotional connection to one’s name. First wife adopted my surname, though I offered to adopt hers. Second wife didn’t (we lived together 18 years before becoming official, so it obviously didn’t mean much). “Rexknobus” is a childhood nickname; I use my birth name day-to-day without much thought. But when I write a book, I use a pseudonym. That pseudonym actually takes on a bit of his own identity in web sites and publicity material. No lies, but a different slant on the same bio.
So why did I grow up completely unattached to my own name? No idea. It drives my wife crazy when she gets mail addressed to “Femrex Rexknobus” as opposed to her own surname. And it doesn’t register to at all to me when I’m addressed as “Mr. Femrex.”Report
For those who care about genealogy, and I do, the names of our ancestors mean as much as our own own. But it’s not always our own family names: my own middle name is taken from the last name of my grandfather’s first sergeant in WW1, a great hero and friend of the family.
My son has two middle names. One of them is the name of the family who took in my orphaned grandfather.Report
I can certainly see the genealogy thing — I’m a mutt from a passle of mutts, so it didn’t take hold. I don’t mean to disparage my ancestry — as far as I know most were good folk, just not well-bred. It probably would have helped if somebody could have pointed out a spectacularly illustrious ancestor to me, but then again, maybe not. Go back ten generations and we all have over a thousand blood relations. Lots of possibilities for kings/philosophers/thugs in a group that large. I like the story of your grandfather’s name. Cool. Given a choice, my mom probably would have named me after Errol Flynn. She had some serious hots for Errol Flynn. Dad wouldn’t have permitted it — whew — I’m glad I didn’t have to spend my life trying to live up to that one!Report
My MIL is real into genealogy apparently one of my husband’s ancestors was killed by William WallaceReport
I’ve heard that some progressive couples hyphenate. I know hyphenating is not a long term solution (after n generations of hyphenating you can have up to 2n hyphens in your surname)
Also agree with Mo about the lack of strict connection between surname changing mores and feminism. Traditional Muslim families are not necessarily the most the gender equal of institutions. Neither are traditional indian families for that matter.
What weirds me out is the way in which it is simply assumed that everyone keeps surnames instead of patronyms.Report
you should see russia! It’s why russian novels are so damn hard to follow (or at least one reason). The main character has so, many, valid names.Report
It always seemed to me like patronyms gave an extended family less of a sense of “family” in the way a surname does. But the practice of changing a woman’s name when she marries essentially wipes out public recognition of her lineage too. As long as we only use a personal name and a single family name, there isn’t a good answer here.
To me, it’s interesting that Filipovic sees taking a husband’s name as wiping away her identity, but she doesn’t think twice about the origin of the surname she’s clinging to. At some point in her lineage, some male decided to convert his patronym into a family name, labeling them all as sons of Filip. That could be looked at as anti-feminist as well.Report
the obvious solution is to take a new name, based on both of your current professions.Report
Good lord, what a thought. My wife’s an administrative assistant, I’m an associate professor, so I guess my daughter would be….Margaret Adminiprof?Report
Clineacher.
Sounds like a form of VD.Report
Proffassist sounds pretty cool, actually.Report
always seemed to me like patronyms gave an extended family less of a sense of “family” in the way a surname does
Except, that AFAICT, in my culture where we use patronyms extended family systems are stronger than in others which use surnames.
The problem with surnames is that when surnames become too common, it ceases to be a familial identifier. Part of what keeps extended families connected is naming traditions. For example, if the eldest son is always named after the paternal grandfather and the second after the maternal one, there becomes a strong tendency for names to follow a particular pattern. So, at least traditionally, in Paalgat Brahmin families, you will see lots of Subramaniam-s and Venkataraman-sReport
The solution here is clearly a combination of the last names that doesn’t add length. Letter-by-letter addition modulo 26 would do it.
A worked example
In the Michaels-Prokopchuk marriage we have:
Convert “Michaels” to numbers -> 13 9 3 8 1 5 12 19
Convert “Prokopchuk” to numbers -> 16 18 15 11 15 16 3 8 21 11
Add each corresponding number -> 29 26 18 19 16 21 15 27 21 11
Take the remainder modulo 26 -> 3 26 18 19 16 21 15 1 21 11
Convert back to letters, and the couple shall be known henceforth as the “Czospuoauk” family.Report
And if it comes out totally unpronounceable, you can always rot13 it. In this case, to “Pmbfchbnhx”.Report
Perhaps we could give each family a globally unique identifier that maintains family information.
So if Jamie 4AQlP4lP0xGaDAMF6CwzAQ goes to college and meets a nice Harper 4AQlP4lP0xGaDAMF6Cwtt9, they’ll know that, hey, maybe they shouldn’t be dating… but it’d be fine for Danny to date a Shannon 3F2504E04F8911D39A0C.Report
Do like the Swedes, who issue a personnummer at birth. Details below link. Elegant solution.Report
Yeah, but that doesn’t allow for jokes like “everybody in Kentucky is a 6c5ff0ed608e75724df94a52b05###!”Report
Yeah, but you could insult someone by saying their personnummer fails a checksum.Report
Great, even in Sweden men and women are gender identified with their personnummer. Don’t know why that jumped out at me but it did. And what’s up with Sweden’s first name laws?Report
(correction – “Caospuoauk”Report
“I know hyphenating is not a long term solution”
The best line I’ve ever heard on this observation is from my friend Andrew, who said “if everybody did it, given enough generations eventually everyone would have the same last name, but in a different order.”Report
I think you mean 2^n, the progression would be 2,4,8 …Report
I was going to share my own story and got about halfway through the combox writing of it and realized how INTIMATE this subject of names and identities can be. Not sexually, but personally. Hell, yes, a name is tied up with one’s identity. Inextricably so.
Hats off to Michelle for finding the courage to share her story publicly. And to everyone else who does too.
Which reinforces my prejudice that if something is this intimate, it really needs to be a personal decision and individual autonomy is of the essence with it. I can’t decide this for you and I can’t pass judgment on whether you made a good choice with it or not.Report
You know what, I am going to agree with every bit of this comment.
And yes, hats off to Michelle!Report
Traditionally, Korean women don’t change their names when they marry. And from what I know of traditional Korean culture (which is completely male-dominated), I’d hypothesize that it’s to remind them that even though they’ve joined their husband’s family, it’s as an outsider.Report
ayiyiyi. Traditional Korean culture is one of the most egalitarian on earth. I see it in their manga, I see it in how people treat each other.
Very ageist, but it’s hard to find Asian countries that aren’t.Report
I’m reading a great book on Korea right now, but if it’s to be beleived, it’s not even slightly egalitarian.Report
What’s the book? I’m getting my sources from someone with many business contacts over there. (also a bit of hasty googling uncovers: Cheondoism) — he mentioned that “farmers” are given equal priority (and higher than non-farmers) regardless of sex. Rather than giving the man the priority, and having his wife get it “because of him”… (the way we do pensions, for example).Report
Korea: The Impossible Country, http://tinyurl.com/b9npodu (link to Amazon page).
I’m almost done, it’s a very good book. I’ve been to Seoul about a dozen times and this filled in a lot of gaps for me.Report
The TV show Lost suggested it was not very egalitarian, and that show was credible.Report
Bookmarking this comment as the only one on the internet to ever use the words “Lost” and “credible” in the same sentence, in case I ever need to show it to anyone.Report
My wife (who spent the first 20 years of her life there) says the same.Report
I recall after my marriage, my wife informed me that she was taking a day of vacation to go to the SS office and get all her name changed stuff worked out. I was rather surprised. We had never discussed her changing her name.Report
When I was younger, I hoped my wife would take my name. I married someone who didn’t. It turned out to be a lot less of an issue than I had feared. Perhaps due to her profession, it’s frequently assumed that she kept her name (there is more that goes into a doctor changing her name than others). We have run into no resistance whatsoever.
This is the very short version of the story. I might make a NaPP post out of the longer version.Report
I prefer the Spanish custom of name change at marriage. At birth, a boy is given a name, say Juan. This is his nombre. His surname, his apellidos(plural) are the composite of his father’s and mother’s first surname apellidos, say Méndez and Mora. Thus he becomes Juan Méndez Mora. He grows to be a man, Señor Juan Méndez Mora, often you will see it abbreviated for correspondence as Sr. Juan Méndez M.
Elsewhere, a girl is born, María, who takes her parent’s surnames, becoming María Gonzales Zapatero.
Juan and María marry. He becomes Juan Méndez Gonzales. Her name does not change. However, when referring to María as the wife of Juan, she becomes Maria Gonzales Zapatero de Méndez
Much more sensible, for the man to take his wife’s first apellido.Report
If I’ve understood rightly, in the long run, it’s all the fathers’ names that stick around through the generations, and all the mothers’ names that disappear…Report
Increasingly, the order is reversed in modern marriages, precisely for this reason. Often, as a gift of courtesy to a family of daughters, a groom will reverse the order of his apellidos to carry his wife’s family name forward.Report
This Spanish convention, while elegant, makes life exceedingly difficult for American divorce attorneys.Report
I’ve seen what happens in such cases. The ex-wife’s name remains unchanged, as I have said. The ex-husband reverts to his former name. Knowing Americans are kinda stupid about all this, Spanish people will take on the American form, but in practical terms, it’s no big deal.Report
I always said I did not want any woman to take my surname and thought I might be interested in taking her name, depending on if it went well the the first. It’s short and sharp and doesn’t go well with a lot of first names, it rhymes with a major curse word and having such a last name I would not wish on any child.
So, when I married Mrs. P., she kept her last name – she was never enthused about changing it. Hers is one of those last names that’s also a common male given name, so I decided to keep mine. Having “two first names” is always a little weird.
Living in super exurb of Atlanta, Georgia, it’s kind of annoying that having different last names arouses constant suspicions that we’re fibbing when we say we’re married. I nearly threw the records employee out of the hospital room when she demanded proof of marriage to fill out baby girl’s birth certificate before she’d check that we were married only because we did not share a last name. It’s a freaking public state record, making me drive home and dig it out first remains one of those things I’m always gonna have a chip on my shoulder about.
Of course, baby girl has my surname. I’d get pretty angry with anyone that suggested it should be otherwise. I get cranky when people assume she has her mom’s name. It’s a little irrational, I know. If we were to be blessed with a son someday, we’d like him to have her surname, but not sure if we want to make siblings endure the questioning of why they have different last names.Report
The only place we’ve gotten any flack is from credit card companies and bills in her name. They become a lot more cooperative if I introduce myself as Will Himmelreich than if I say my name is Will Truman (even if I introduce myself as her husband).
But I haven’t lived is the south since I was married.
I actually offered my wife the surname of our second if it’s another girl. She declined for the reason you allude to. If I were drawing a system from scratch, it would be songs taking dad’s name and daughters mom’s. I don’t want to be the only Truman in the real world family though for concern that people will think I’m the stepdad which I don’t want on an emotional level but also has logistical implications.Report
[H]aving such a last name I would not wish on any child….Of course, baby girl has my surname. I’d get pretty angry with anyone that suggested it should be otherwise.
Eh?Report
Relative weighting of issues may change after one has a child.Report
Moreover, some 50 percent of Americans believe women should be required by law to take their husband’s last name.
That… that broke my brain.
I cannot believe that this is accurate, it seems wildly out of proportion. I realize that as a California boy I’m exposed to all sorts of things the rest of the country thinks makes us freaks and oddballs, but this is a huge number.
20% I can see. 20% believe all sorts of nutty things. 50%? Really?Report
Yeah, that one through me for a loop too. I’m wondering about these numbers.Report
The statistics behind it are indeed very dodgy. See http://boingboing.net/2013/03/08/sloppy-statistics-do-50-of-a.htmlReport
Thanks for the link, much appreciated.Report
Thanks for the link. I kind of scratched my head about that statistic, then forgot about it.Report
The lesson for next time–when you see a dubious fact or statistic, check it.Report
Thanks, dragonfrog. That was a good find, a good read, and a good reminder of my own axiom that if you hear of a political claim that’s so outrageous you find yourself declaring “Wow, that’s unbelievable!,” chances are it actually is.Report
Have you heard of the 50,000 phenomenon?Report
No – say more?Report
If you do a google search for “50,000” you will find a gob of references that go something like, “Authorities estimate that at least 50,000 children are abducted by aliens each year!” It’s always something alarming like that.
The problem is that if you try to trace back the numbers they never have a primary source; it’s just made up. So it turns out that 50,000 is just a magic number when you need something that’s large enough to be alarming but not so large as to be preposterous.Report
I wonder how many stats like that there are.Report
49,999Report
So close.Report
Phew, I was afraid it was serious.Report
IDK, but 65% of all stats are made up on the spot.Report
“The trouble with quotes on the Internet is that you can never know if they are genuine.” –Abraham LincolnReport
Relevant.Report
Moi aussi.Report
To counter “centuries of servitude and inequality,” Filipovic suggests that, at the very least, any kids be given the woman’s surname. If it’s important to the couple that their family share a last name, it should be hers; or the couple can make up a new one. Filipovic acknowledges that asking men to take their wives’ names might seem unfair to men but, since they suffer from neither women’s sense of “psychological impermanence,” nor “the shadow of several thousand years of gender-based discrimination, ” the sacrifice is theirs to make.
I am obviously just not a feminist. Statements like this just make me bang my head on my keyboard. Once again I must just not be the right kind of woman to understand that I suffer from a woman’s sense of psychological impermanence and the shadow of several thousand years of gender-based discrimination. I guess growing up I had too many strong female role models, that must be why I don’t suffer so.
I think I fall in the path of least resistance on this one. I have no problem taking my husband’s last name, in fact I probably would prefer it. I don’t think I would feel that I was giving up part of myself, my name is not my identity. But that’s just me.Report
I thought you weren’t married?Report
I’m not….doesn’t mean I can’t have a husband someday. Thanks for pointing that out…jk!Report
“Moreover, some 50 percent of Americans believe women should be required by law to take their husband’s last name.”
I find this shocking. Completely, utterly shocking. I mean, I get someone hearing the arguments for keeping your surname and saying, “I’m not buying it.” But to go the extra step and think you need to keep other people from doing it by force of law? And HALF of Americans thinking that??? Good lord, I find that bizarre.
As to my own situation, it was an active discussion in my house – both when we were married and when our first boy was on his way. My wife is one of three sisters with no brothers. One of her sisters is gay and she wasn’t sure if that sister would ever choose to adopt; the other sister is very much a traditionalist and there was no doubt if married would take the husband’s name. (Indeed,when sending packages and card to my wife the traditional sister address them to Mrs. Kelly.) Because of this, my wife felt a strong urge to carry on her last name on behalf of her family, and as such we have different last names.
When our first child was due, I very much wanted him or to be a Kelly, but had just assumed that the kid would take her last name by default. However, my wife made an unexpected pitch.
“We have different last names, and so over the years people who don’t know us well might not know our history. There will never be any doubt to casual observers that our kid will be mine, but the last name might make people assume it’s not yours. So I say whatever sex it is, its’s a Kelly.”
So now we have two boys, each a Kelly. And each shares the same middle name: my wife’s surname.Report
I find this shocking. Completely, utterly shocking. I mean, I get someone hearing the arguments for keeping your surname and saying, “I’m not buying it.” But to go the extra step and think you need to keep other people from doing it by force of law? And HALF of Americans thinking that??? Goo lord, I find that bizarre.
Thanks, Obama!Report
Rereading what I wrote, I should probably note that when I say we had “active discussions” around the time of marriage and our first born, I do not in any way mean heated, hostile or snarky. I remember them being very positive and upbeat.
Both events were, after all, pretty damn joyous ones.Report
My bet is that it’s the conservadems and the Republicans. Take the ethnics (by which I mean minorities), add on the union vote, and then add on the people who are against anything that even smells liberal.Report
I wonder if it’s accurate. I mean, it’s just way too bizarre.Report
See Dragonfrog’s invaluable link above. It’s junk.Report
I agree. I find this shocking. For one thing, there is a pretty obvious First Amendment challenge to just about all forms of compelled speech.
I also just now realize — what does this say about gay marriages? That they face some kind of insuperable name-requirement obstacle? How silly.
For the record, my husband and I were both published authors before we got married, so we found it professionally a bad idea for either of us to change our names. Our daughter received the simpler last name, if only to make her life a little easier.Report
“I also just now realize — what does this say about gay marriages? ”
I’m going to go out on a limb and say for the people that want to make women keeping their surnames against the law, the “what will gay people do” question has a pretty obvious solution.Report
The simpler of Kuznicki and Boegiboe. Lucky girl!Report
Kuzniboe.Report
Beats Boegibnicki.Report
*gets paddle*
*looks confused, then disappointed*
I thought I heard “weeaboo.”Report
About once a year or so I will go back and read every single PBF co…ZOMG there are two new comics since I last looked! They’re writing again?!?Report
is this some sort of hatespeech, or is it a different meaning?
Honestly, I am curious.Report
The comic predates, and is unrelated to, the term’s use on 4chan, according to this:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/weeabooReport
LOVE that stuff…Report
Oh, I LIKE that one! Just flutters off the tongue, that does.Report
But it’s pronounced “Throat Warbler Mangrove”Report
Always remember half the population has below average intelligence.Report
My wife and I are both pretty ‘traditional’ when it comes to the name change. Trying to be a modern man I didn’t just assume and after we got engaged I asked her if she planned to change her name. I think she liked that I didn’t make that assumption but I was relieved when she said that she would be changing it. I will also admit that I didn’t feel like we were really married until her name change was official. We’re never going to have kids together so this was the next best thing to us for representing our life together.
The women in all of the couples we know changed their names and we often joke about which ones upgraded from their maiden names and which ones downgraded. My wife will tell you that Dwyer was an improvement for her.
My mom kept her last name after my parents divorced because she thought it would be easier for us at school. In the early 80s it was probably a good call, however my stepmother hated her for it.Report
See, as a stepmom, that’s one thing I never got. Why should you care what name the ex goes by? She’s no less the ex just because she still shares your husband’s last name. You still got the guy.Report
If the name is seen as identity, then it’s seen as the ex still sharing “wife of the guy” identity? Or perhaps seen as hope of getting back together with the guy, and so representing a continuing threat?Report
Both are plausible explanations. As I mentioned above, I was surprised by the ferocity with which some second wives insist the first should drop his name, even in cases where there are kids involved. Some of it had to do with resentment of the first wife and discomfort with the fact that they weren’t first. But there was a real “how dare she” element to it.Report
Also, in a lot of cases, the first wife made things hell on the stepmom and was constantly demanding the ex’s time, money, and attention. Or she used the stepkids as pawns in an ongoing battle with the ex. So having to share a name with crazy ex grated.Report
My wife was surprisingly eager to take my name. She tells me that there was an “upgrade” aspect to ditching a last name that she shared with something like 40% of Vietnam, but now she’s stuck with a US top-10 surname. Not sure how much of a win that was.Report
I think I want that topper for my cake, except the bride will also be holding a beer and there should be one more kitty and a dog.Report
I gave Zazzy the choice but articulated that I would like us to share a name. Hyphenating the two-names would just overly cumbersome, as my last name is long enough as it is. I would have considered taking her name had she insisted, but she ultimately opted to take mine. I know there was some regret, as she really liked her last name (she took pride in having a last name that started with Z), but she enjoys saying, “Zazzy Kazzy” because of what is signifies.
Had there been no tradition of the woman adopting the man’s last name, I don’t know if we would have gone down that route necessarily. Had she opted not to take my last name, it wouldn’t have been much of an issue outside of the practical inconvenience that arises from members of the same nuclear family having different last names.Report
“Why do you think that, of all the changes feminism has brought, this particular tradition remains largely intact?”
To answer this question specifically, I think because a name change is largely a symbolic gesture, so the real world costs of what might have been an anti-feminist tradition aren’t felt strongly enough to urge change in the same way that, say, keeping women out of the workplace did.Report
Plus one.
Speaking of plus one, why don’t we have like buttons on this site? And why does the email notification system garble the shit out of punctuation?Report
When I was married, my husband took my last name, just as Mr. Noonan did with his new bride. With my current boyfriend, we joke that he would take my last name. I have always been confident in keeping my last name. My ex husband decided to switch because he wanted our family to all be under one name and knew that I would never change mine. I proclaimed that my children would have my last name and would never budge on that either.
All that being said, as I get older I become less attached to my last name. It is unique and my only brother with the last name will be taking his wife’s name next month, but I do find the idea of taking a man’s last name to be romantic. So maybe… one day… if I ever get married again… I *might consider* the idea.Report
There were several other roles that I assumed in my marriage that were more “traditionally masculine”. I didn’t want them all, it was just the nature of the relationship, I think.Report
You really shouldn’t feed my prejudices about men who take their wives’ names.Report
Why choose just one?
All my children have two first names and two last names. As for what goes on various documents, etc., we might as well flip a coin. And who really cares about all that anyways?Report
Joe Bob and Ella Mae?Report
No, Zolten Moonunit and Prince Michael Fifi Trixiebelle.Report
In theory, I like this one. In practice, I work with voter files a lot and hate you with a fiery burning passion.Report
Know that I do it to spite you.Report
I have no idea of this is actually true, but I heard a friend of a friend story about a couple who wanted to have the same name, but wanted it to be fair and knew hypenating was no long-term solution. So they flipped a coin.Report
I actually have a friend whose last name is Clark. As it so happened, she married someone else named Clark, which would seem to solve the dilemma above.
However, she has decided to hyphenate her last name, and it is now Clark-Clark.Report
So which Clark comes first? Is it Clark-Clark or is it Clark-Clark? Because, you know… the order sort of makes a difference.
And does she by any chance keep chickens?Report
I just emailed her. I’ll let you know as soon as I get a response.
No chickens.Report
I had a professor who gave one of her daughter’s her surname. The other daughter got the husband’s surname.
That is all I have to say on this issue.Report
My wife’s maiden name is Finnish in origin and everybody pronounced it incorrectly.
Everyone, of course, pronounces my name “Kal-ah-han” and not “Ka-hay-lan” or “Ka-hal-an” (either of which is acceptable), because people are familiar with the name “Callahan” and their brain swaps the “l” and the “h” for them to fit their expectation. I got used to it 30 years ago and stopped getting annoyed about it about 25 years ago.
It never occurred to me to presume to have an opinion about whether or not my wife was going to change her name (she did, moving her maiden name to her middle name). She got a PhD under her maiden name, and she likely would have kept the maiden name if she continued in academia, but I think she was generally in favor of having one name for the whole family unit, by default. It possibly didn’t occur to her to ask me to change my name.
She went to a very liberal women’s college (one of the seven sisters) and I’m given to understand that the whole name thing is a subject of occasional heated discussion on message boards and Facebook and whatnot.
For the record, this is one of those decisions that I think is the business of precisely two people: the two people getting married.Report
(Death stare.) “I am NOT a fishing Spider Robinson character!”Report
As long as you aren’t Spider Jerusalem….Report
HOLY SHIT I NEVER NOTICED YOUR LAST NAME WASN’T CALAHAN!Report
I was getting it wrong until I heard him say it himself at last year’s Leaguefest.Report
It took me forever to notice too. I think it was like two months ago.Report
Yea, I’m bad at this stuff. I still think Greg is Gregniak, not Greg in Ak.Report
Greh-jin-ack.Report
For a while there, Greg spelled his name “Greg-ian-k” which I thought was his first name, his middle name, and his last initial. I took extra care to spell it that way instead of “Greginak”, the way that I wanted to spell it.Report
Me, too! I’m sure that I’ve gotten it wrong referring to him in a comment.
Sheesh. Mea Culpa, Pat.Report
I am in the same boat, I think our eyes read what they want to read.Report
Have you ever read the jumbled paragraph? Like all the letters in the words are swapped, but you can totally read it because your mind compensates with words it recognizes.Report
I was thinking of that, too. The key is to not change the first and last letters, but you can swap them around in the middle all you want.
Something that just occurred to me… I wonder how that affects dyslexics?Report
our eyes read what they want to read
and disregard the rest, la-la-la-la-la-laReport
It reflects our brains’ ability to utilize efficient heuristic shortcuts. You sacrifice an occasional lack of accuracy for a huge boost in speed.
It’s been interesting watching my daughter (third grade this year) as she’s developed her reading skills over the years. Not to brag (okay, just a little) but she’s a really good, fast, and efficient reader and two or three grade levels advanced. She still likes to have stories read to her sometimes but mostly the bed-time ritual has shifted to her reading to us. Awesome. And I notice her making interesting mistakes, like what she reads aloud isn’t exactly what’s printed on the page but it means the same thing, like she read the whole sentence in a block and is relaying the meaning instead of the actual words.
Really, if our brains weren’t wired that way reading would be a real chore.Report
Yeah, this, basically.
It’s kinda bent to get bent about human facilities that have huge upsides. I mean, how big of a dick do you gotta be?
It only took me five years.Report
My wife changed her name…except that she didn’t. I don’t know how it works in the rest of the world, but in Ontario you can assume any name you want, just so long as you’re not trying to defraud anyone. So, my wife is Mrs Ruddell on pretty much everything official (including her passport), but legally, she retains her maiden name. I think she would have been okay with a legal name change, except if you do that they issue a new birth certificate. We both found that creepy. Talking to a lot of female friends, I’ve discovered that most who have ‘changed’ their names actually have only assumed the new last name. The re-issued birth certificate is often given as a reason for not legally changing.
Of course, in Québec you’re forbidden from changing your name at marriage, but that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish…Report
I had the following conversation with a good friend at her wedding.
Me: Congratulations Mrs M-
Her: No it’s still Doctor B-, the PhD was a lot more work than he isReport
space awesomeReport
My first wife said she would switch if her husband’s name was simpler than her birth name. Mine was so she switched. My current (and last) wife uses her birth name or the hyphenated name depending on situation (we don’t and won’t have kids so the growth problem is moot). She plans on changing to the hyphenated name full-time soon.
All her decision only.Report
Simpler than yours? Wowsers. By the way, were your parents’ names “No” and “Last-Name” or “No-Last” and “Name”?Report
This may explain why Mrs Kook has been so pissed at me all these years.Report
Well, I don’t know what the current norm is amongst the marrying ‘mo set, but the Better Half and I will be keeping our original names.
As for the kids, they have my last name (his side of the family has lots of kids with that name, whereas my side only has our two with mine), but have his last name as a second middle name.Report
That reminds me… Zazzy took her last name as her new middle name and dropped the original name… something she had been longing to do due to a VERY unfortunate set of initials.Report
What… WIZ? Oh…. I bet it was JIZ!Report
Shhhhhh….Report
Well, thirty years ago out on the conservative Great Plains it wasn’t even really discussed, just assumed, so my wife changed her name. It wasn’t even a discussion. If we were just getting together and thinking of marrying now, I’m sure it would at least be discussed. My guess is she would keep it since she shared a family name with a dead president, though not one of great distinction.
If I was in the position to pull a Napoleon*, I would decree it to go something like the Spanish convention that Blaise described, only with a twist. Kids get a chosen first name and an inherited surname. Then upon marriage Andy Bright and Cathy Doe would choose/devise a name for their family unit, hopefully something meaningful to them, that would become their middle name. So if they chose, for example, Emris, for a family name, they would become Andy Emris Bright and Cathy Emris Doe and their kids would get names like Frank Emris and Geraldine Emris.
This scheme has some nice features I think. It’s totally egalitarian and works just as well for same-sex couples as heteros. There’s a name element that unites the members of nuclear family units. Professionals don’t need to worry about name confusion issues that arise from altering a last name at marriage. Genealogical tracing works for BOTH* sexes. If you really wanted to preserve a distinguished family name you could do so I suppose, by officially going with something like Andy Bright B. and Cathy Bright Doe.
* I have in my possession family genealogy books for both my father’s and mother’s family and my wife’s father’s side. And in each case it basically just traces the Y-chromosome back through the ages and the mothers are just names from nowhere, like their contribution to who I am is a negligible afterthought. Yuck.
Also, my father’s family book goes back to Holland in 1745 but hits a brick wall because prior to Napoleon decreeing elsewise (at least I think he was the one), Dutch names followed a convention similar to the Scandinavians where your name consisted of a chosen first name combined with your father’s first name. That and spotty records due to burnt-down churches, being the main repository for what we would now call vital records, make further research very difficult.Report
Sons get their fathers’ names, daughters’ their mother’s, and household names are hyphenated. That’s my solution.Report
Like Y-chromosomes and mitochondria? And what exactly is a household name? Are you suggesting that, per my example, Andy Bright and Cathy Doe would become Andy Doe-Bright and Cathy Bright-Doe? And then the kids would be Frank Bright and Geraldine Doe? Or something else? If I’m reading you right (and I’m probably not) it looks like you could have a nuclear family of four and everyone has a different last name.
Ultimately I think people should just feel free to do what makes them happy this way, but since I have a problem-solving, engineering bent to my personality I felt like sharing my weird ideas.Report
I prefer sons with mother’s names and daughters with the father’s name, myself.Report
Remember upthread when I said this was the business of the two people involved?
Still that.Report
Oh, sure, absolutely. It’s just that the inherited convention is one of those things that’s evolutionary and path-dependent and steeped in tradition. It’s also explicitly patriarchal and is based on certain assumptions about family structures (exclusively hetero) that are falling by the wayside before our eyes.
With women rightfully asserting their equality with men and same-sex marriages set to become a normal sort of thing, it’s apparent that the existing basic naming structure doesn’t really work all that well. It forces people to make arbitrary choices (wife changes or not; husband changes or not; kids get hers or kids get his; hyphenation, munging, etc.) all of which have upsides and downsides.
Since the problem really is in the basic structure (given name; arbitrary and optional middle name; surname), I put on my sci-fi hat and thought, How might you do this if you were starting from scratch with modern assumptions of spousal equality? What do you want names to do? What do you want them to mean? What information should the system seek to convey?
While it’s all fine and dandy to take a libertarianish attitude about all this–and I don’t particularly disagree in principle–the fact is that conventions of this sort have a certain power of social inertia. The Western patriarchal convention has held sway, depending on country, for several hundred years now. I mean, it’s imbedded in the structure of about a million databases for instance. Absent the dictatorial powers of a Napoleon, I don’t know if it’s possible to actually design the new paradigm but it seems worth talking about. Besides, this kind of speculation makes me happy. It’s interesting.Report