That’s funny. Even though my parents were aware, and supportive of, my decision to keep my name, as an engagement present my father got me a beautifully crafted brass doorplate engraved with “The [Husband’s Surname]s.” To this day I have no idea what drugs he was taking. In my family, parents don’t get questioned, so I never asked.
As for the doorplate itself, we kept it displayed in the house out of respect for a couple of years, then donated it to my in-laws.
Well, in one of your previous posts, you said this:
The implication being that taking your spouses name today has the same effect, unless your usage of “harks back” differs from mine. If that’s not what you meant, my apologies.
Of course I don’t think your option (b) is ridiculous. It’s just an explanation of your reasons for keeping the name you were born with, which is completely subjective.
I didn’t mean this to become an exercise in hair splitting. What aggravated me about your original post is the condescending “what are these poor unenlightened ladies doing” tone. Not everyone who chooses to change their name does it lightly, or ignorantly, or out of a blind adherence to tradition. Women who change their names aren’t turning their back on feminism or hearkening back to the days of slavery. Their are practical and symbolic reasons for doing it, just as there are practical and symbolic reasons for not doing it.
Because “maiden” in that context was historically a synonym for “virgin” and carries with it a host of connotations about the importance of female virginity and how it is a gift to the man she’s marrying.
Kathmandu, I can’t argue with your sentiments in post #53. In particular, I have no beef with women who change their names for practical reasons.
Once it becomes a purely symbolic matter, however, I am at a loss to come up with an explanation for why the MAN’s name is the default choice without resorting to historical trends that were indeed sexist.
The symbolism of “one family, one name” is sweet. But if no other considerations are involved, why don’t couples routinely choose between her name, his name, or a mutually selected third option? The only answer I can think of is “because we like tradition, and it is tradition to choose the man’s name, and we do get that once upon a time this tradition grew out of a sexist view of females, but we don’t care, because it isn’t true today.”
Perhaps I am putting words into people’s mouths in my misguided attempt to understand what motivates them. But if I’m correct – well, arguably, that’s encouragingly post-feminist.
I did this when I got married the first time. I wanted to just add my new married name, and keep my maiden name on official stuff. I wasn’t hyphenating, I wanted it to be Firstname Middlename Maidenname Lastname.
It was the DMV that screwed me up - I had too many letters in all my names and one had to go, so I dropped my middle name, moved my maiden name up, basically into middle name status, and it’s been that way since. Social Security never had a problem with me dropping my middle name. Legally my name is now Firstname Maidenname Lastname.
My wife and I are traditionalists in some ways but not in others. Both of us have sisters who kept their maiden names after marriage, and with some regularity they have to explain that yes, they are married to their respective husbands. My sister-in-law hyphenated her name and her husband’s and, as she’s told me, it’s proven somewhat cumbersome over the years.
When Elendil’s Heiress and I got engaged, I told her that I would be honored and pleased if she would take my last name, but that it was entirely her choice. She decided to do it, and has never expressed any regret since (and I assure you, she’s not a woman who would keep that kind of thing to herself 
). It also gave her the opportunity to drop her original middle name, which she never liked, and use her family name as her new middle name. For us, it was win-win. I understand that not everyone sees it our way, and of course everyone in the U.S. has the freedom to do otherwise.
As a history buff and student of genealogy, though, I have to say that all of these different naming conventions may complicate things for future generations when they try to trace their family trees…
I always disliked my given last name, both for its associations of “ownership” with my father and because it’s just a common, unattractive (to me) name. When I married my first husband, I let my father walk me down the aisle (because my mother said it would have broken his heart not to) but I did NOT allow the veil thing to happen, nor was there “who gives this woman” bit or the “honor and obey bit.” I did not take my husband’s name because I didn’t like it - it was also short, common and unattractive. (I have a nice, long, ethnic first and middle names which I go by, and the little anglo-saxon coughs that my father and first husband had for first names sounded dreadful with the names I identified as “mine.”)
Having recently remarried, I took my husband’s last name. Not because I think he owns me or because I want to submit to him in ways that I didn’t to my (abusive and misogynistic) first husband, but simply because I like his name. It’s euphonious and “ethnic” (though a different ethnicity than my Italian first & middle) and I think it sounds good. Also, it amuses me that no one can pronounce either of my names now, and to hear what the telemarketers and cold-callers come up with when they try and pronounce it.
It’s a matter of aesthetics to me. YMMV. My SIL didn’t take my brother’s last name because she’s her parents’ only child and wanted to carry on their name. I have no idea what they will do about their children, nor is it really my business (but oddly, I sometimes refer to as Mrs. (My Maiden Name) because it’s so much easier to remember and spell than Her Maiden Name, which is again, long and ethnic
I actually returned a Christmas card “return to sender, no such addressee” when she addressed it to “Mrs. & Mrs. My Husband’s First and Last” after I married my first husband. I did NOT take my first husband’s name. And even better, this was my dad’s mother, so she and I SHARED a name, she knew darn well what it was. She was just “being traditional” but it pissed me right off.
Of course, most of my local family is my dad’s family, and can’t pronounce (seriously, after 30+ years) my first name anyway, they’re having GREAT DIFFICULTY remembering how to pronounce my new husband’s name, which I did take.
Interesting one, this. My mum never married, and I’ve never met my father, so when I got married in July, my mum gave me away, and I specifically asked for the “who brings this woman to be given in marriage to this man” bit to be included, because I thought it was a nice way to acknowledge my mum’s role in my life.
But what really annoyed me (still does) was that on the marriage certificate, you can only include the father’s name and details, or nothing. My mum raised me single-handedly, and I can’t include her, my only parent, on my marriage certificate? That’s patriarchy in action for you.
My wife had no particular attachment to her maiden name… her relationship with her dad isn’t great so she didn’t want to be associated with him or his family, she was happy to take my name but it wouldn’t have been a problem if she hadn’t.
Thanks for replies.
But that’s ridiculous for the same reason that people don’t look at a woman taking a man’s name as becoming his property anymore. Maiden today means “initial” as in maiden voyage. It has no connection to sex whatsoever and the only time it’s used outside of the phrases maiden voyage or maiden name is in children’s stories describing a princess’ servants. And unless you’re a perv, there’s no sex connotations in a six year old’s picture book.
Try this: type “define: maiden” into Google.
When I do that, the FIRST words produced are:
Frankly, if the word “maiden” doesn’t have any “purity” connotations for you, that’s great. Language changes, and if the vast majority of people say that “maiden” has nothing to do with virginity, then by definition, it doesn’t have anything to do with virginity.
In the past, it did.
So? What does that have to do with the current usage of maiden? If you polled a 1,000 people on the street, I can’t imagine that anyone under the age of 90 would even bring up the word virgin.
I’m sorry, I just find it completely trying that some feminists (and other groups as well) decide to wage war on certain words because they meant something different 100 years ago.
With divorce, and blended and interracial families being as common as they are, I’m surprised at how many people are commenting on being asked to verify their relationships to partners and kids just because of different names.
I have always refused to change my given name, for feminist and practical reasons. Why should I, known my entire life as Chicken Fingers, suddenly only be identified as Mrs. Club Sauce? On paper, you can’t even tell who I really am. I might as well be Popcorn Shrimp.
I followed patrilineal tradition in giving my kids their fathers’ surnames. I have nothing against people who change their names for whatever reasons. I chose never to take a husband’s name because of the historical attitudes and lack of women’s rights associated with it, even if it’s now just a custom. Also, I like that old friends can track me down.
Years ago, I do remember it was more of a hassle. My own family never could get my name right. People who knew you through your kids or partner would assume and call you by their last names. Random paperwork drones would get confused. These days, here in Urban Diversityville, the worst I’ve gotten was “Is that YOUR baby?” because of racial differences.
Yea, with all those women changing their given names when they marry, then changing them again after they divorce and in each subsequent marriage! What a hassle!
Please don’t kill me. It is a joke… Remember I was raised differently, and no problem came through genealogy because of women retaining their names. And remember that last names are useful to a degree anyways, since out of wedlock and not-parentally-recognized kids had different last names. 
And every family has those.
It would be my first response. I have a huge connotation between the word “maiden” and the word “virgin.”
(Though, card carrying feminist here, the term “maiden name” doesn’t bug me at all and as far as I am aware, waging war on it is not a platform of NOW nor any other feminist organization I’ve ever belonged to. I’m sure Mary Daly would wage war on it - but she is a nutcase.)
Well, I did provide a cite that suggests that there could be people under 90 who associate “virgin” and “maiden.” I await your cite to support the assertion that a poll of 1000 people would show that no one under 90 would think of “virgin” in connection with “maiden.”
In any case, a more general meaning for “maiden” is “untried.” Hence, a “maiden voyage” - that is, the voyage of a ship that has never sailed before.
If you don’t think about sex when you think of “untried” and a young girl, I guess I just have a more salacious imagination that you do. Even if I’m doubtless closer to 90
I don’t really care much about this.
I kept my name when I got married. I had always planned that I would; I love my hard-to-pronounce, hard-to-spell name. My mom claims the only reason she married my father was for the name. She’s kidding… I think, but she was happy with my decision. The name has a lot of history, and my family, particularly my father (who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s when I was born and who raised me), is incredibly important to me. I love my in-laws, but it’s not the same. My husband also has an extremely common name, and I have an extremely common first name… a combination I wasn’t used to. And the fact that I’m in academia allows me an excuse for most people. I do keep a copy of our marriage license in my wallet for those times when people don’t believe me. We’re not planning on having kids anytime soon, so we haven’t discussed the whole name thing, but it always surprises me when women keep their original name but give their kids the husband’s name. And when I get mail for Mrs. HisFirstName HisLastName (mostly from our grandmother’s), my husband, without fail, opens it.
I always thought that most women put their original name as their middle name when they adopt their husband’s name. That’s how all the women in my family did it, including my mom, sister, aunt, sister-in-law… Not until I met my brother-in-law’s wife did it occur to me that some women keep their original middle name.
By the way, maiden=virgin for me. I blame Shakespeare for that. That and no one says it outside of a few phrases like “maiden name” or “maiden voyage.” But don’t mind me, I’m just a feminist.
For my first marriage, I changed my last name to my husband’s. After the divorce I did not change it back - mostly out of convenience. All of my accounts were in that name, and all of my professional contacts knew me by that name. I was at a point in my career where I was just becoming established and I did not want to disrupt “word of mouth” advertising with confusion.
Many years later, I’m married again and a little more established in my career. I chose to revert back to my maiden name, but append my husband’s last name after mine with no hyphen. So, my identification now reads: First Middle Maiden Lastname. Hey, if he can have four names, I can, too!
I decided I liked this approach because it retains my former family identity but incorporates my new family as well.
I have a sincere question for those women who are married but have kept their own name. How should I address the envelope for a Christmas card to you and your spouse? If your last name is Smith and his is Jones, would it be:
Mr. [Firstname] Jones
Mrs. [Firstname] Smith?
Mr. [Firstname] Jones
Ms. [Firstname] Smith?
Mr. & Mrs. Jones/Smith?
Mr. & Ms. Jones/Smith?
Something else? My wife and I know a grand total of one family where the wife has kept her birth (I won’t say maiden) name, and every year we puzzle over how to address their envelope. Their Christmas card to us has the return address “Smith”. no title, and their address. But they both celebrate the holiday so we feel it would be rude to address their card just to her. Also, we don’t know what title to use.
Also, when people are speaking to you directly, do you prefer Mrs. [yourlastname] or Ms., or Miss?
A little help here?