Answered for Mrs. SMV. She was in her late thirties when we married, and all her diplomas and licences were under her name, as she had an established professional career. So we both go by our original surnames. Hasn’t caused a problem so far.
I had always fantasized about hyphenating my name, as I think that’s a nice symbol of marriage - neither person loses their identity, but instead gains a larger one - but Mrs. SMV didn’t want the hassle, and, frankly, her surname and mine together sounds ugly.
There is also an (admittedly less pressing) long-term problem with hyphenation - what happens when two people with hyphenated names get married? Smith-Jones marries Wells-Ross to become Smith-Jones-Wells-Ross? Sounds like a law firm.
Really, it’s up to people who are joining hyphenated names to work it out themselves. Personally, I’ve never known anyone who saddled their kids with more than NAME-NAME but I suppose there could be exceptions. And let’s face it, the offspring of any marriage can change their name to whatever the hell they want at 18 in the US.
Prior to marriage, my spouse and I decided that any resulting children would have the man’s surname. As it happened, no children, but we did work it out beforehand.
In Hispanic tradition, you get double-barreled “last names” based on your parents’ names. So, if Maria Rodriguez Herrera marries Jose Garcia Jiminez, their kid will be Sergio Garcia Rodriguez; Sergio Garcia for short. A woman does not change her name at marriage. In the USA, Hispanic couples sometimes follow that traditions–often not.
I imagine that any hyphenated names could be “mixed” using a similar system.
While this solves the problem of multiple hyphenations, it leaves the problem of gender inequality on generational transmission - because one has to “drop” either the maternal or paternal name, down the line. According to wiki, traditionally it was the maternal names that got “dropped”, though now legally one can do it either way.
In short, having two names defers the ultimate decision of which line to honour down a generation - unless you are one of those exceptions they mention, who keeps a whole list of names (“José María Álvarez del Manzano y López del Hierro”).
There isn’t any way really to avoid the problem of choice without continually adding to the length of the name …
We got married after 25 years together so it made no sense to change my name at that point. Even if we had gotten married young I probably wouldn’t have changed it. His is even harder to spell than mine! Plus I thought I was honouring my father in some way as he had all girls…the name I was born with and all. Ironically the only mail I receive addressed to my “married” name, is from my father :-/
The logic to ‘Mrs John Smith’ is that ‘Mrs’ means ‘the wife of’. So if Mary Brown marries John Smith and takes his surname, she’s Mary Smith or Mrs John Smith. She’s not Mrs Mary Smith because that would mean she’s the wife of Mary Smith.
If you’re a lesbian couple, then in theory, Mary Brown could marry Joan Smith and become Mrs Joan Smith while Joan becomes Mrs Mary Brown.
When we went for a marriage license 20 years ago we were told our choices were: keep maiden name; take husband’s name; hyphenate. Being a wise ass I asked if my fiancé could take my name - much consternation ensued! “It’s just not done!” Keep in mind that this is New York City, presumably a progressive place.
OK, decided to hyphenate names.
I work for the city, and was told my new name would be too long for payroll (16 letters), so I had to go with taking my husband’s name. Paychecks now came in husband’s name, but I kept everything else in my maiden name - bank accounts, credit cards, driver’s license, etc. Yes, it is legal, as long as you’re not trying to defraud anyone.
Enter HSBC, aka the bank from hell. More times than I can count I’ve actually been shamed by bank managers, who insist that I must change account names to reflect my husband’s name. I have brought in my marriage license umpteen times to prove that yes, FirstNameMaidenName IS the same person as FirstNameHusband’sName. One POS manager even told me I was “disrespecting” my spouse by still trying to use my maiden name.
TL/DR: It’s legal to call myself any damn thing I want, as long as I’m not defrauding anyone!
It certainly is a bit surprising when you encounter a nugget of conservative thought/action in an allegedly liberal setting.
I once had a clerk in a bookstore start berating me for my name when he caught sight of it on the plastic I was using to pay. When I finally yelled “Let get this straight - you won’t sell me a book because you don’t like my name?” it got a manager’s attention. After the manager found out what was going on I got an apology and a discount off the price, while the clerk was told to mind his own business.
My wife decided to take my name, because it is slightly easier for her students to pronounce (middle school).
But she merely uses it. It’s never been official; about a month after we got married she went to get it changed, got contradictory information from the DMV and SSN about what order she was supposed to do things, got frustrated and went home. Ten years later she still hasn’t gone back. Only really matters when we file our taxes (our return got rejected one year when I called her by my name when SSN has her maiden name) and applying for jobs (background checks).
Not sure what this question means. I’m merely saying there is no avoiding making a choice.
Presumably, the whole reason for hyphenation is so that everyone in the family can enjoy the same name, and avoid having to choose “his” or “her” last names: just take them both, and put a hyphen between 'em.
However, if one goes with the Spanish naming convention, that choice is merely deferred - as the next generation has to choose which names to drop. Traditionally, that was the maternal surnames (but nowadays, the choice is open).
There is nothing either wrong or right about this; it merely is.
Naturally, everyone can choose “what suits them”. That’s a given.
I am answering for my niece, because when she got married her husband took HER surname. This is in the U.S. The youngest generation of our family are all femaie and my niece didn’t want her surname to “die out”. Her husband had brothers to carry on his surname, so he agreed.
I had never heard of anyone doing this before! They are in their 20s and have been married three years.
For some reason the poll keeps locking up the SD, so I’ll just answer here.
I kept my family name. I was 40 when we got married and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of changing everything.
If it makes a difference, this was in Queens at the court house. It was so long ago, but I think the clerk just told us the options, and he filled out the paperwork we then signed.
I forgot to mention my crankiest moment - when the payroll clerk at my school found out that my hyphenated name would be too long for payroll, she just decided on her own to submit a change in payroll giving my husband’s last name. Why didn’t she ask me first?! I would’ve said to leave it the way it was, with my maiden name on the paychecks.
Clerk gave us the papers and we filled them out and gave them back. Clerk didn’t give any input as to name options (that I can remember) but based on the available options on the form we could have taken my wife’s name.
I’m the opposite. My maiden name is very common, and I was always identified by my first name, rarely with both. My husband’s last name is also common, and easy to pronounce. I’m pretty feminist, but I found I just didn’t feel strongly about my last name. And my mother said that children should share a name with their father, because everyone knows who the mother is, you don’t have do anything extra to assert that. And it seemed simpler to share a name with my then-hypothetical children.
So I changed my last name. My husband wanted to change his first name, so we did both changes the same legal document, and he also took maiden name a second middle name. (I kept all my names, and now have two middle names on my passport, and use the maiden name professionally as my middle name.)
No complaints.
I still get mail addressed to my childhood pet, Fluffy C. MaidenName, where the “c” stands for “cat”. I think we signed him up for “psychology today”.
