9 thoughts on “What’s In a Name?”

  1. I have always thought this was an odd place to draw the line between who is a feminist and who isn’t. I chose to leave my father’s name, for a more melodic name; my husband’s. I was young when we married, hadn’t built a career or a reputation, so the change wasn’t dramatic. I may have thought differently at a different point in my life. I have a friend who changed from her father’s name to her mother’s name. Even that however takes a nod to patriarchy, after all it was her mother’s father’s name.

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  2. I kept my maiden name. I had pragmatic reasons, like having just gotten into graduate school under my maiden name, not wanting to go through the hassle of changing my name for bank accounts, credit cards, etc. It’s been my name all my life and it’s a rather unusual name, whereas my husband has a very common last name (and 5 brothers and two cousins, between the 7 of them, the name will carry on). To me it did feel like self-effacement to suddenly start using a different name. I even tried signing a few things with my husband’s last name and it felt so odd. Really like I didn’t exist even though “it’s just a name.” To which I say, if it is, then why do so many men clearly want their wives to take their names?
    When we had children we decided to give them my last name. That has worked out wonderfully because I’m the one who does all the paperwork for them (school, doctor, etc.). How traditional, no? In our family the last name doesn’t symbolize unity so that hasn’t been an issue. My older daughter knows her father’s last name but doesn’t make any symbolic association whatsoever. As my husband pointed out, for most of his childhood his last name was different from his mother’s since when she remarried after divorcing his father, she took her new husband’s last name.
    As for addressing envelopes, I put down our return address as the X and Y Family and most of our friends have adopted that when sending holiday cards and the like. It looks very nice in calligraphy on wedding invites.
    One commenter mentions the arbitrary nature of determining surnames. It isn’t though. The very fact that different last names cast doubt on the legitimacy of a marriage demonstrates that the name matters. When my first daughter was born my husband was asked by his HR department to bring in our marriage certificate before they’d put her on his health insurance. In my state, if we hadn’t been married, my husband’s name would not have been recorded as our daughter’s father on her birth certificate. This came up because as we filled out forms it was clear we had different last names so the hospital staff double-checked with us, even though we checked off “married” in all the relevant boxes.
    What’s in a name? Rather a lot apparently!

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  3. The absence of a husband’s interest in taking his wife’s last name should be the issue, not the hyphen (which for heaven’s sake we can be clever enough to accomodate!) For most women, taking a husband’s last name may be much more a show of commitment to one’s new family than it is a badge of subordination. But that this show of commitment doesn’t occur to many of their husbands is a too apt symbol of men’s general lack of initiative about family — and, even less happily, a ringing symbol of their greater exit power in divorce.

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  4. I took my husband’s name. I like my husband a lot more than I like my father, for one thing. My husband also has a lovely Italian last name that worked well with my first name.
    I also married fairly young (4 years out of college) so I didn’t have a super-established professional reputation to worry about or, as so many of my journalist friends, a collection of writings published under a byline.
    Another issue is that my parents divorced when I was young, and my mother remarried. So I always had a different last name than my mother growing up. My last name as a child was not some symbol of family unity, so I didn’t have any problems changing it. In fact, I think the family angst may have made me more willing to actively leave behind a name associated with the many unhappy experiences of my childhood for a name that symbolized something that I was actively choosing…to create a new shared life with a man I loved.

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  5. I found it interesting that many of the women commenting didn’t like their long, difficult to pronounce maiden names. I quite like mine. Maybe I’m just a more obstreperous sort, but I like the distinctly non-bland uniqueness of my last name, and wouldn’t trade it for a more common name, at least not for that reason. If people have a difficult time spelling it or pronouncing it, that just makes me like it all the more. Why should I blend in, name-wise?
    For some bizarre reason, perhaps because of a friend I had that had a difficult last name that couldn’t wait to change it, and also hated having larger breasts, I associate the two in my mind. Why get rid of what you’re given? It’s a part of the wondrous history and particularity of you that you have the history/genetic characteristics you do, and I appreciate that history, and wouldn’t want to erase its presence to please others or blend in. That’s one reason I would never get breast reduction surgery, myself. (I am currently reading Genome, by Matt Ridley, and am stunned by the reality of what they are discovering. You can’t erase your connections to the past with a name change, that’s for sure).
    BTW, my husband’s name is shorter, but also difficult for people to pronounce/spell; I did hyphenate for home, but kept my name for work; and I suppose I might have changed my name if my husband’s name were unique, but more beautiful, like my college boyfriend’s Armenian name. Also, plastic surgery/self-reformation is quite understandable in people with serious reasons for it–but my point is, why change just to become more bland and less unique?
    Another issue here that interests me: sometimes rejection of one’s maiden name is provoked by a dislike of one’s family. My husband actually dislikes many of his relatives two generations and before–constant talk of how this one beat his wife, etc. He doesn’t want their pictures up. If he was a woman he probably would be eager to change his name; but he’s not, because the pressures on men to carry on the name are still quite strong. It bothered his family that I didn’t take his name, at the time; and that was enough reason for me, obstreperous as I am, to not take it.

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  6. Actually my maiden name was short,4 letters, easy to pronounce, and I love my family. My family name actually has a ton of heritage that I am proud of, and it’s well known in this area.
    My husband’s name is 9 letters, I must spell it for people constantly, but it’s more melodic and I like it better, plain and simple. It’s the name I chose, and that’s the lovely thing, I had a choice and I made it. That is was feminism is about.

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  7. “I had a choice and I made it. That is was feminism is about.”
    No, that’s not what it’s about.
    Men do not change their names. Are they oppressed because they do not? No, of course not. So why would you think having the ability to change *your* name is a sign of some great “feminist” accomplishment?

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  8. Feminism is about women making their own choices. There were years when women had no choice in anything. Our decisions were dictated for us, including taking or not taking the name of our spouse. And yes, feminism is about a lot more than keeping your maiden name or taking a new one. That’s why I said in my first post that I always thought it was an odd place to draw a line. My point is that there are feminists on both sides of the fence of name choice.

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  9. Feminism is about choice, but it is also about collective action. Whatever choices women make, there is room to encourage men to think about name change as an affirmation of committment to family and to equality of investment in marriage. However, in fairness to people on both sides of the issue, it is _largely_ symbolic, with little actual cost to the individuals either way. But a fair comparison is with to men’s similar lack of thought when it comes to balancing work and family: women make the more active choices here and face both greater economic risk and greater stigma for making them.

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