After the divorce, why did you keep his name?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Just had a conversation with a long time customer that wanted me to change the name on her account to her maiden name since she is now divorced from her husband. She explained ( I didn’t ask ) that she no longer wanted to have anything to do with him, including being called his surname.

As a guy, I always assumed that divorced women keep their husband’s name so as to not having to go through all the hassle of name changing on her various legal accounts. Changing school age children’s names, might be rather traumatic to the kids as well although she does have a young daughter.

Why did you (not) change your name back to your maiden after your divorce?

2

[QUOTE=Mangosteen]
Changing school age children’s names, might be rather traumatic to the kids as well although she does have a young daughter.
[/QUOTE]

Without some sort of agreement between both parents, the kids names can’t be changed until they are adults.

3

Because changing names is a giant pain in the neck. Also it would mean getting a new passport, and I like the one I’ve got.

4

After the kids become adults, their names can’t be changed without their own permissions.

Name changes upon reaching adulthood are surprisingly common in my family. People grow up, decide that the person whose last name they have is a jerk, and switch over to the name that they decide they always wanted to have.

5

I got married the week after graduating from medical school. In a bit of spite towards my abusive father, I decided to graduate using my married name. When I got my divorce 24 years later, I was too set in my ways to change my name again. And I wanted the name connection with my children.

6

But the same logic should apply equally to changing your name at marriage.

7

My sister kept her second husband’s name, even though they weren’t married all that long. I guess having changed from her birth name, to her first husband’s name, back to her birth name and then to her second husband’s name was enough.

On the other hand, my first wife has been married (and divorced) four times. Each time she married, she took her husband’s name, and each time she divorced, she took back her birth name. I can Google any one of her five names and find something under it. Record keeping for her must be a nightmare.

On the third hand, however, some women who have achieved a professional reputation with their husband’s name want to keep it so they don’t have to keep explaining, “I published that paper as Dr. Smith, but now I’m Dr. Weisberg.”

8

There are as many reasons for (not) doing it as there are couples who get divorced. He’s the father of my children, this name is easier to spell and pronounce, too much hassle to go through a name change, etc.

I’ve also met several women who, after her second marriage ended, changed back to her first husband’s name because he was the father of her children, although in at least one case, she had been widowed, not divorced.

9

One ex girlfriend told me “I’m not keeping my ex husband’s name, I’m keeping my children’s names”.

10

Not quite the same thing, but my mother still uses my father’s name even though she was widowed 17 years ago, and remarried 14 years ago. She did not take her second husband’s name, because, having married my father at 24, she had used his name for almost literally her whole adult life. More importantly, she had a fairly distinguished career under that name, with lots of publications, and even though she is officially retired, still occasionally publishes. She didn’t wish to be one name socially and another professionally, and she had the title “Dr.” as a Ph.D, so the question of Miss/Ms./Mrs. didn’t come up (although, she does occasionally get mail as Mrs. Stepfather’s Name).

I think a lot of professional women who are established under their married names, and especially those who have published under that name make similar decisions.

I can think of at least one woman who kept her ex’s name in order to have the same name as her children, and when they were in high school (10 years after the divorce), started a business with that name. The business was 20 years old when she remarried, and she remained “Jane Ex’sName,” because she didn’t want to change the name of a well-established business, nor have a different name than the one associated with the business-- you know, Jane Smith didn’t want to run Jane Jones’ Catering business, because it sounded odd. She thought it was better that if it was Jane Jones’ Catering, she should be Jane Jones.

I know another woman who didn’t particularly like her father, and happily took her husband’s name upon marriage, without hyphenation, or anything. A lot of her friends questioned her feminism, because she was deep in the feminist community, and her response was, “I have some man’s name either way; it can be my father’s name, an asshole I don’t love, or my husband, a man I love, who loves me, and whom I freely choose to be with.”

I took my husband’s name because he had a cool name. I used to think I wouldn’t (back when I thought of marriage in the abstract, and not to a particular person), because, feminism, but his name was too cool to resist. I don’t plan to divorce him, but if I did, I think I would keep the name because I would want to have the same name as my son, and for the coolness factor.

11

Pretty much this.

My daughter was 4 when I divorced, which is a really rough age to have your parents split. She was old enough to have opinions, but not really old enough to have perspective. Changing my name, which I considered doing and the judge wrote in our divorce agreement as an option for me, felt like she might take it as a separation or rejection of her, and I wasn’t willing to do that to her. So I kept her last name. I hated it, but I kept it, for her.

I legally married again when she was almost 10, and at that point she was old enough for me to have a meaningful conversation about it. She thanked me for keeping her name when she was little, but assured me she understands how it works now and she thought I should take my second husband’s name if I liked it. So I did.

12

Did your daughter also take your second husband’s name or would that turn into some kind of legal issue?

13

Which one were you, if you don’t mind my asking?

14

I have a very unusual and very cool last name. Seriously. Many many times I have had hotel clerks or others who learn my last time say, “that is the coolest name I have ever heard.” When I was a college radio DJ, people assumed that it was fake.

Anyway, when I was engaged back in 1993, my ex and I didn’t have a single discussion about the name change thing. I assumed that she would keep her name because that’s what modern people do. I literally found out that she was taking my name when we were filling out the marriage license. She had a short, unoffensive relatively common last name but she loved the uniqueness of mine.

In 2005 we began our very friendly divorce. Again, we didn’t discuss that name change thing and I assumed that she’d go back to her old name. Again, I found out that she was keeping mine when we were filling out the paperwork. I told her that I was surprised and she said, “I love the name. I love you. Why would I change it?”

15

Dorothy Parker remained “Parker” after her divorce from her first husband, whose last name was Parker, partly because she was beginning to become known as a writer under that name, but also because she wanted a gentile name. She wasn’t Jewish, but her father was. She had been raised first in her step-mother’s Protestant religion, then sent to a Catholic girls’ school, and disliked having her father’s very distinctly Jewish name. He biological mother was not Jewish, and in her time, Judaism did not allow children of mixed heritage to be raised Jewish with the intent of their making a decision on their own later-- they had to be converted as babies, but mostly they were simply not raised Jewish.

I know of at least one person who went sort of the other way. She was a convert to Judaism who had a very non-Jewish sounding name (think of being named something like “Parson”), and was happy to have her husband’s Jewish name. When they divorced, she kept his name because it was Jewish.

16

First.

17

No. Her father is still very involved in her life, so it’s appropriate for her to keep his name. She’s never indicated a wish to change it. If she wants to, we’ll do whatever legal hoop jumping we need to. I’m sure, as a minor, she’d either need his permission or a really good story for the judge.

18

I had a female acquaintance that kept her ex’s name that was harder to spell and pronounce because her maiden name was very easy to ridicule. She had heard it all growing up and wasn’t going back to it.

19

My cousin was born Shirley Wilson*. She married Wesley Thompson and took his last name. When they divorced, she legally changed her name - to Sylvia Thompson. Ex’s last name, new first name. All of her friends had been calling her that for several years, as she had been going by Sylvia. She and Wesley did have a grown son, but I don’t know if that played any part in the final configuration.

She said they throw in a free name change with a divorce, so why not?

*All names changed.

20

I’m gonna start thinking of you as Haj Fukyeah.