should a spouse change their name after marriage?

Great Debates
61

You want confusing? I know a couple with three children. The oldest was born to them prior to their marriage, when they were in their late teens and she was still living with her parents. The latter two were born in wedlock, no problem. When they married, she took his last name. So far so good.

Here’s the kicker: Her mother-in-law has always been a meddler, so while she’s still groggy from delivery of child #1, mommie dearest takes on herself to fill in the attending whoever about the child’s name. Mommie did use the given name the new mother had selected, but then gave the maiden name for a last name. So we have husband, wife, and two kids with one last name, and daughter with another, the legitimated child of both parents. It turns out they had several opportunities to have had her name changed but were not made aware of them, and will cost substantial money to change it legally at this point.

62

CatInHat said:

Well, I think that’s rather appropriate given your alias here! :slight_smile:

63

My wife kept her last name. I have to tell you that it keeps the telemarketers at bay!

Wife: Hello?
TM: Yes, is Mrs. ConMan there?
Wife: No. No one here by that name.

or

Me: Hello?
TM: Yes, Mr. A?
Me: Nope. You’ve got the wrong number.

My wife has said that if we ever have children, they would take my last name.

“Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’”
E A Poe

64

If I ever get married, and if I can talk the dear man in to it, I’d be tickled pink if he’d take my name. It’s an odd spelling of a not-uncommon name, and I may be the only one of my father’s offspring who can pass the name on. The brothers just don’t seem real interested in having kids, so someone’s got to hand it off to the next generation. Might as well be me. And if that poor guy out there can stand it, I’d like a little consistency for the family.

But, other than that . . . whatever butters your biscuit, man.

Will work for sig line.

65

My fiancee is keeping her surname when we get married. Her explanation is that she worked for 10 years to get a name for herself in the business she is in, and I agree with her decision.

IF we have kids (God forbid) we agreed that she would hyphenate her last name (ie Michelle Smith-Jones- not my real name by the way) so that the whole family would share the same last name (Jones).
http://pwbts.com

http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/parliament/1685/

66

By the way, if it makes it easier for certain social situations, we will both use my last name, even though legally she is keeping her last.

67

From Jill:

I have a hyphenated name (and have since birth) and very rarely encounter this problem. I would not consider it an annoyance in my life at all. Growing up, most of my friends had hyphenated names, so I never considered it to be unusual. The only even slightly irritating thing I associate with my last name is the very strange looks people give me when I tell them, trying to figure out my nationality. (Well, that and the people who think a “hyphen” is an apostrophe.) But it only takes five seconds to explain that it’s hyphenated, that it’s half Irish and half Russian Jewish. You can talk about how annoying that would be, etc., etc., but I don’t give it a second thought, and I am proud to carry both names. Both of my parents have only sisters, and my dad had only daughters (and no one else chose to keep their names) so this was a way to keep it going.

FTR, my mother tacked my dad’s name on to hers. He left his alone.

~Kyla

“You couldn’t fool your mother on the foolingest day of your life if you had an electrified fooling machine.”

68

:::: :Drawing in a deep breath:::::

As you all know there is but one solution to any problem, this is a fundmental law that has it’s roots in simple mathematic formulae. 2+2=4 No other in the base ten system of math is correct.

As you all further know, I am NEVER worng, hence, ALL women should keep keep their MAIDEN name until they’re betrothal is sanctified by God in the presence of kith and ken, hence, you may kith the bride.

At such time the woman is required to take her husbands name as part of her submitting to his authority and becoming part of his property, for as long as they both shall live.

This is the ONLY correct answer to your query, anything other that that makes the woman a harlot and she falls out of the grace and protection of God.
No need to thank me, just doing my yob, mang.
::::::::Phaedrus adjusts his cape and flies off to other fires to put out::::::

Hark, what dost I hearest? A damsel in distress…One moment, fair maiden, I shall save thee…

Phaedrus

69

Um, I hope that last post was tounge-in-cheek…

~Kyla

“You couldn’t fool your mother on the foolingest day of your life if you had an electrified fooling machine.”

70

Yes, Kyla, it was.

Just trying to be funny.

Notice I said, “trying”! :wink:

Phaedrus

71

I think it is odd when people write aboutthat the custom of changing names when they are married indicates thinking of women as property. I live in Korea and women do NOT change their names here. Is that an indication of the progressiveness of Koreans? Absolutely not. They do not change their names because they are not considered a real part of her husband’s family. She keeps her name becasue she is not worthy to have her husband’s name. However, her children are good enough for that. Marriage and last names all depend on culture, as the person from Iceland could tell you. I think that in America if a woman feels like she wants to keep her name then there should be no problem. Just don’t get offended if people don’t think you’re married. What people do with their names is their business, but there are cultural consequences for them. When they are encountered don’t blame society for being unenlightened, just bear the responsibility of the action. If people think your kids are not of the same parents because they have different last names then you must deal with it. I’m glad at least there is a choice on this matter, but I feel that if you really want to break a tradition then you should have a good reason and so far no one has shown me any good reason for breaking the current tradition of last names in America.

72

As Carlon said, what is considered radical in one society can be completely normal in another, and vice versa. Given that names are really just arbitrarily assigned markers anyway, I thought it was kind of silly to protest the patriarchal system by keeping my fathers name when I got marrried.
Since the usual system in our culture is for everyone to take the mans name, my husband and I decided to make things easier for everybody and simply go with that. Note, that had I decided to keep my own name, he would have been perfectly okay with it, and I don’t feel that having his name in anyway makes me “property”. I just didn’t see any real point in making life any more difficult than it has to be.

73

Gee, Carlon, I’m a Korean-American (when are we gonna get rid of these hypenated cultural labels?), and I didn’t even know that.

I knew that women didn’t take their husband’s name in Korea. But I thought it was to respect her family.

I’ve posted to soc.culture.korean to get the straight dope on this. I’ll be back.

There’s always another beer.

74

I changed my last name legally to Wayne about a year before I met my husband and told him when we planned on getting married that I didn’t want to be bothered with all the name change stuff again, and he was cool about it.
The only problem is proving you’re married, like if I have his credit card at the store. If I say we’re married, they want to see my driver’s license, which doesn’t correlate, so they don’t want to let me use it. If we were going to have kids, I’d probably have changed to his name, just so we’d all have the same name. I have a daughter from a previous marriage, and she has her father’s name. With my daughter, sometimes I’m called Mrs. “daugher’s last name” and sometimes she’s called by her first name and my last name.

My advice would be if you’re going to have kids, to all use the same name. If no kids, it’s not a big deal. Just a little more convenient to have the same name, since that’s kinda the social “norm” and what people expect to see.

Bye!

SW

75

My wife kept her last name because she is very proud of her familyu and identifies strongly with them.

This has cause the problems mentioned before. No one knows if we are married, we can’t use each other’s credit cards, I can’t make phone calls for her, etc.

The hard part is the kids. I plan to give them her name because I have severed ties with my fathers family. But you can imagine how my father side of the family is going to feel when their name dies. And the hyphenation is way too cumbersome.

Personally, you should choose a single last name and stick with it. I wanted to make up a new last name, but my wife wouldn’t go for it.

76

[soapbox]

Personally I think we should all go back to the Roman system of each person having three names: A given name, a clan name, and family name, i.e. Gaius Julius Caesar.

[IIRC] A girl was given a female form of her father’s given name at birth. When she married, she would keep her clan name, but take her husband’s family name.

For the Romans, the family was a subset or small branch of the larger extended family. Generally the clan or extended family name that was used was the family name of the most famous ancestor of the family – Julius Caesar’s most famous ancestor being the goddess Venus (although how they got ‘julius’ out of ‘venus’ or even ‘aphrodite’ I’ll never know…). If a more famous person came about in the family, the old clan name would be dropped in favor of the now more famous name. [/IIRC]

The point of this is that a name is all about recognition. When you choose a name for yourself, you have to consider how you want people to see you. When I meet a married woman who hasn’t changed her name, I have a very difficult time thinking of her as a married woman. I inevitably, admittedly as a knee-jerk reaction, think of her as single or unattached or maybe just androgynous. I think a lot of men have the same reaction.

On the flip side, when I meet a woman who has changed her name with marriage, I see her as, well, more adult. As part of my upbringing in Western society, that’s what I believe grown-up, mature adults do: They get married. An unmarried woman (or man, for that matter) is somehow less mature.

Think about it: We are taught to defer to our elders (well, some of us are. I can’t say I see it in practice very much these days.). Who are the elders? The older, more mature people who spawned us. They are also married couples, and most of us (I think) think of them as married couples.

Women: Changing your name to your husband’s when you get married does not make you his ‘property’ or some such nonsense. It does mean a change of identity, but if you don’t want that then you shouldn’t get married in the first place. (And there is a change of identity for the men, too, even though they don’t change their names. The kind of permanency that comes with marriage is scary to some of us :slight_smile: )

One other thing: My grandmothers, my mother, and my two married sisters all changed their names immediatly upon marriage, and all are very happy they did (One sister, married 6 months ago, said, “It was so exciting signing the first check with his name. It was like being a new me.” Okay, so she’s a little sappy…)

Okay, I don’t know if any of that made sense. Flame away.

[/soapbox]

77

Anybody know the last name of the Prime Minister of Great Britain during WWII?

His full name was (Sir) Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. The last two words constituted his surname, though he was generally called by the latter half (as anyone.

This dates from his ancestor, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, who left only a daughter, who married a Spencer. By a special royal warrant (out of respect for the first duke), the couple adopted the surname of Churchill, after their Spencer name, without a hyphen, and inherited the duchy. Every Churchill descendent has been X. Y. Spencer Churchill, with the Spencer treated as though a spare middle name as far as polited address or alphabetization goes, but actually the first half of the surname.

Then you get into the Hispanic usage, which nobody seems to get right.

78

Sixseatport:

Although it is no longer true, a woman’s changing her name to her husband’s did once represent her “belonging” to him. It still carries those connotations, which is one reason many women choose not to do it. The other is that they have already established themselves in business and in life. These women tend to be more mature, not less.

Your reaction is based on tradition and traditions change over time. We happen to be in a transitional time right now, which is why this discussion can go on so long.

As for women’s identity change with marriage, I would think they can accomplish that perfectly well without changing their names, just as you suggest men do.

79

Cher3, you’re right, a lot of it is based on ‘tradition.’

Does that make it wrong?

It seems to me that certain practices become ‘traditions’ in the first place for a reason – usually because it is a better way of doing things.

Why is everyone in such a hurry to throw out tradition?

Like I said, if a women wants to be thought of as a married woman, she had better consider changing her name when she gets married. Part of marital status is being thought of as a couple; identification as a couple is facilitated by having the same name. If you don’t want that, don’t get married. It’s very simple.

[sorry, this a turning into a rant]

(Before you object that hyphenating or the man taking the woman’s name achieves the same thing, let me say this: I think the name taken should be whosever is the head of the household. The only men I know who would not make themselves the head of the household, by being the main breadwinner (and checksigner), are so spineless and worthless that no woman wants to talk with them, much less marry them.
I’m not married yet, but when I am I fully intend to support my wife. If she wants to work and have a career, that’s fine and I’ll support her, but I intend to be the provider – and have the authority that comes with it. Call me old fashioned if you want, call me proud, call me a caveman, but I feel the need to protect and care for someone, the best way I can, and that is by supporting and providing. But I can’t do it if I’m not in charge (you know, fragile male ego and all that…))

[okay, I think I’m done now. /rant]

80

Ahh - family names!!

Okay - firstly I’m not married, and I’d have no hassle about my wife keeping her name when I do get married. I might even be happy to change my “family” name to her’s depending on what it was.

Now my reasons for doing this are related to my family name… When my parent’s married, my mother took my father’s name. The two children from that marriage - myself & my sister also were given that name. Then my father died - my mother remarried - and took her new husband’s name. My new father waanted us all to have the same name and so adopted me & my sister - changing our surname to his. Now I have no problems with my new father, but I don’t care about his family name… I prefer my original family name. My parents were of the opinion that I could always change my name back when I got older if that was what I wanted to do.
Actually, I have consider changing my name… but if I’m going to go to the trouble of changing it at all, then I’d prefer to take my mother’s madien name - it sounds good to me, and is more reflective of the culture and country that my ancestors come from. (It’s Scottish, both other family names are distictly English)

I think names are important, but I also think that you should be happy with your name. I do think it much simply and easier if a family all has the same name. (I do not support anyone who suggests hypenated names.)
My wife gets to choose - if its her desire (or her cultures way) to keep her family name, she’s welcome to it. I won’t ask her to change her name.

Dami

“This is me. This is the shape that lets others recognise me as myself. It is my symbol for myself…”
– Neon Genesis Evangelion.