Photo: Here we are, officially naming the baby. He insisted I use a photo without him in it, he doesn’t want to appear on the internet in a suit.
This is an interesting article, Reader we bet on it by Bridget Appleby because the retaining versus the changing of your surname when you get married is a little point of interest for me when I meet other feminists. I’m always curious to know what a woman decided and how she came to that decision. I have to be careful asking because a little piece of me possibly draws some teensy little wild conclusions about women changing their surnames. I know, I know, some of you feminists are very empowered, very sure about your feminism, and have very supportive, equal partners and, you still changed your name when you got married. I don’t get it, I try to but I don’t. I’m not saying I don’t also do my own little buy-in to the patriarchy in other aspects of my life.
Even if you side-step marriage like we did, it comes up again if you have children. When I had my baby lots of people from my work sphere asked what my child’s surname was going to be. It was almost as interesting to them as what her first name was going to be, not that you can describe people from my work sphere as exactly fascinated with all this stuff but I did start to realise that this surname business is getting very symbolic for everyone, and not just me.
In case you’re wondering, we went the double-barrelled name for our kid. There are lots of problems with the double-barrelled I’ve been told. What will happen when all these double-barrelled kids get together with other double barrelled kids and have kids themselves? Gosh, I don’t know, the world will go crazy and fall apart without the steadying influence of the patriarchy.
I was sad to get rid of my maiden name because my new last name is very Mennonite and I live in a VERY Mennonite city…and I’m not a Mennonite. I wanted to take my hubbies name though, it’s pretty convenient to have the same last name. I understand why people wouldn’t though.
I kept my own name and we double-barreled the kids as well. We’ve also pointed it out to them that once they’re 18 they can legally change both forename and surname to whatever they like best if it’s important to them, and we won’t mind (especially surnames – we’re kinda attached to the forenames, but we’ll survive if they choose something different).
I kept my name when we married. Our kids have my last name as a second middle, and their dad’s last name as their surname. I definitely feel like I punted on that one. I just didn’t want to deal with arguing with the in-laws.
The Patriarchy lives on, dammit.
Outside of the western world I think there are many varied approaches to naming – I came across many in India who had VERY long names and then they’d say ‘you can call me Raj’ which would be some random name out of the middle of the long list of ancestors they presented with.
From a computer programming perspective, the world would be simpler if names were just a list of words rather than small variations on the Title / First / Middle / Last thing. It should just be long name: the name that my crazy parents came up with for my birth certificate and short name: the name my friends call me (hopefully one word not hyphenated).
My eldest has a new surname (just a name she likes with no family connection)picked out ready for her eighteenth birthday. The middle child renamed himself at age 2. The youngest has my great grandmothers maiden name (given to my grandmother as a middle name)as her middle name… I figured if the first and last names are so subject to change I’d anchor the one I want to pass on right in the middle so she can look at it on official occasions and reflect on her origins….
we’re not married so changing surnames hasn’t been an issue, not that I think I would. Although I have often thought that my surname is patrilinial and that the feminist argument for keeping it has some potential problems. When it came to naming our daughter I had very strong feelings about her first name which is my mothers, her grandmothers and so on back through every second generation of women. She has my partners surname with my surname as a non-hypenated middle name.
I’m pretty happy with that although it stuns me when people ask why we have different surnames, inwardly I’m thinking; der, it’s the 21st century, we’re not married, I’m not a chattel, it’s a partnership, she’s our love child, get a grip!
This surname thing is just not a big deal to me. I also have my father’s name, which became mine because my mother allowed it to. I kept it even though I can’t stand the guy. My son and husband are going to be adding it to their names, too, even though I can’t stand the guy. At what point does a man’s name become mine? Isn’t that when I decide that it will be so? I am not passively accepting anything. I am actively deciding something. Again, to me, this is not an essential feminist issue. If it were, we should all take the last name of X, ala Malcolm, because any name we do keep is the name of a patriarch. Besides, saying that the taking of a husband or father’s surname makes one a lesser feminist (I understand that you are not saying that, but others do) is like saying that there is no such thing as a feminist who wears a hijab, or undergoes circumcision or an arranged marriage. There is, and they are just as vital to the feminist movement as a woman who rejects all things patriarchal, or deludes herself into believing she entirely has.
That’s my take on it.
I kept my own surname when I married, however it is a double barrelled one. So our three children have my partner’s surname, as a triple barrelled surname would be kind of ridiculous.
I think it’s kind of sad that they don’t get my family name in there somewhere though … it’s a tricky one, this.
PS. I’m like you. I TRY to get why thinking women take on their husband’s surname when they marry, but I just DON’T GET IT.
Thank you for all your stories – reeeally interesting. I found it very interesting to read the choices people had made and what their choices meant to them. I’m glad to see that my daughter will have plenty of double-barrelled company at school.
I also liked tig tog’s and djfoobarmatt’s take on this issue – this is the (crazy) name my parents gave me and this is what I choose to call myself.
Bianca Bean – I really liked your point cautioning me/feminists against deeming a woman a lesser feminist for changing her surname when she marries – it reminded me of the recent post on Feministe – http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/06/28/a-few-little-things/#comments
where the guest blogger argues that “sometimes these women have to pick their battles”. These women being women living in much more oppressive environments than does the average, middle-class, white, educated feminist, like myself. If you’re fighting the big stuff you might not have the energy or the interest in fighting the smaller stuff like the surname right now. I still think the personal is very much political and changing a surname is very symbolic but you’re right, there’s a big world out there.
Hola,
I am not directly dealing with those extreme situations, either, but I did want to point out my issue with this line of thinking. Am I really doing anything of societal importance by having my father’s last name added to Huz’s? To me, it is a simple preference that I am fortunate to be able to act upon. I just don’t believe that others are necessarily compromising themselves by not doing the same thing. Like I said, real revolution would start with me using “X” (or better, XX). I am in the position where I could do so without retribution, as most of us reading and writing here are. So if we are really serious about this issue of patriarchal naming, why don’t we? Just some food for thought.
Thanks for the link!
My mother changed her name because she caved when people changed it for her. She got worn down trying to explain that she hadn’t. Her name is that of the murderous aristocrats who ‘owned’ the land our ancestors lived on.
My father’s name is an Anglo-colonial version of an Irish name. It’s mine, and I planning to stick with it. I can’t imagine being called anything else. For practical purposes, changing my name would mean losing my career history & publication record (such as it is), in an industry where networking is everything and you need people to remember you.
My son has my partner’s (Scottish) surname. For the good and simple reason that I like it better than mine (although I don’t dislike mine enough to change it, I don’t love it enough to pass it on) and they are rather long when double-barrelled. It wouldn’t have been terrible, for the kid, but it seemed unnecessary. The kid does have typically Irish first and middle names, and his middle name is the male version of my maternal grandmother’s name. It’s not an obvious connection, but it’s enough of an acknowledgement of me, and my partner’s mother’s family, for us.
People have started calling me Mrs M, rather than Ms C (we’re not married, so it’s not like not changing has been a choice really) and unlike my mother, I intend to keep picking them up on it.
[...] great name debate There is some great dialogue going on here at blue milk (I do lurve her) about women choosing surnames for themselves and their children. Actually, I [...]
my given name is just my father’s name, feminized. – thats first, middle and last. I always felt it labelled me as ‘female offspring of this father.’ Always hated it, but never felt inclined to embrace ‘female partner of this man’ either. So i’ve stuck with the nickname my mother gave and the surname I’ve always known.
I wanted to avoid family names with my first two children. They got their father’s surname because I didnt feel very strongly about passing mine on – it wasnt an issue until their father and I separated, and my eldest wanted to use my name – Father played a stupid game with her about saying ‘yes’ if she could tell him ‘the right reason’ – she got sick of it in the end and asked her primary school teachers to use my surname with ever bei9ng given ‘permission’. Strangely enough, they accepted this far more readily than my son changing his first name. I think both my older kids took took on my ambivalence about who ‘owns’ a name… hence the desire to alter their names to suit their own ideas about who they want to be.
But I found with my last child, (and maybe being older) I wanted to give her a link to my Grandmother, the most important adult in my life after my mother died. It also passes on the scottish heritage that meant so much to my grandmother as well…
I think though,that we now value our personal identity so much more than our family identity. Names either reflect our view of who we are – or we alter them.
Wow. Good question. We are married and we both changed our name. We have a non-hyphenated double barreled last name. Mine first. His second. The order wasn’t an issue. It just sounded better in that order. The kids have the same non-hyphenated double barreled last name. Sometimes for simplicity we use just his, other times just mine. When we went to the social security office to change our names with all the wedding paperwork in hand, I was sure they were going to give us a hard time. They didn’t care at all. The woman said, “Honey, there are people with four last names.” I think with the marriage certificate we could have changed our names to anything for free. That’s what all the double barreled lovers of the future could do, change their names to anything–Love, Punk, Poem.
I love these stories and subarcticmama I liked your suggestion for the future.
i double-barreled my surname, and our 3 kids have the same, much to the continuing horror of my inlaws, who still send mail to all of us as “his surnmae”. i now return the mail unopened.
with the recent birth of our third baby, my husband has decided to add my surname so we are all the same. we also gave our kid great middle names, so they can drop the surnames and be their own person.
zose – how cute is that children’s clothing that you design?!
My last name is Sioux – you just can’t name a boy Sioux – Johnny Cash wrote a whole song about it. Besides, back then I tried to pick battles I could win – I won my own name, but didn’t think I would win the kids. Men care too much about it though it’s totally rediculous – who pushes the kid out of there crotch? Oh, right that was me. We should definately name the kid after you though.
Tracee Sioux
So Sioux Me
Empower Your Self
Empower Your Daughter
http://www.sosiouxme.com
[...] 5th, 2007 at 9:24 pm (Uncategorized) This post by blue milk on a baby’s surname has had me thinking all day, as much for her perspective as for her [...]
[...] on that surname bizzo As I’ve said before I’m a little bit fascinated with what feminist couples decide to do with their own surnames [...]
Oh my God I am SO relieved to see that there are other feminists out there who don’t get the name change thing. I always have an awkward moment when I meet a young recently-married woman, i.e. someone my age, and I discover they changed their name. It’s awkward because I usually have to try not to blurt out, ‘But how COULD you???’ How could you not have thought about the implications of this – even if you like his last name and hate your own? (This is the only reason I come anywhere near to understanding.)
I couldn’t do the double-barrelled thing if I had kids because my last name is Italian and long, and doesn’t go with anything else, not even Smith. I do like the idea of making a new surname out of each partner’s last name for kids. Or alternating their last names.
Can’t imagine being called by any other name ever, myself, though. Maybe that’s why I don’t understand – I’m really attached to my last name. I’ve never felt like it was my father’s name. I don’t buy into the ‘all women’s names are their father’s, so there are no non-patriarchal names.’ Nup. The system of naming might be patriarchal, but my name is *my* name, damn it.
Old-school feminist story tangent: My mum has been married for 28 years and says she wishes that she had never changed her surname, and doesn’t understand why young women these days are still changing their names at marriage. She has also made me promise to put her maiden name on her gravestone when her number’s up…
In Spain they are taken aback by the idea of a woman changing her name to her husband’s. How sexist!, they say. But the children get their father’s surname, followed by their mother’s, which isn’t used that much these days. So everyone has two surnames, but your mother’s will disappear after a generation.
Back in Aus, my sister and my aunt changed their surnames to their husbands’. I think I must have looked shocked, because they both said that back in Zimbabwe/Turkey everyone does. They live in Australia, mind you, and have no intention of living in Zimbabwe or Turkey.
I don’t like to ask about the surnames of my friends’ kids, for fear I will make the wrong faces and they will feel that they have to explain it all and defend their decision. I just put their first names on the envelope when I write to them.
I know this is an old thread now, but I just can’t resist adding my own note.
I really struggled with this issue when I decided to get married (like that decision wasn’t a struggle enough in itself!). My partner was totally, 100% fine with whatever my choice was on the name front. I expected that, given he’s a great feminist himself. I suppose the difficulty came from me wanting to have a family name that I could eventually share with my children that was linked to me, my family, my heritage and our new family unit. My partner felt the same. I didn’t want to give up my name for the sake of having the same name as my children, and I didn’t want to force my partner to do that either.
I suppose we could have selected a new last name but it seemed pointless to select something that had no heritage for either of us. Instead, my partner and I both took each other’s names. No hyphen, mine first, his last (sounds better). They aren’t long names, but they aren’t short – it takes a bit of effort. Our children will have both names and I’m prepared to call myself a combination of mine/his/both until I get used to and comfortable with the difference (I keep accidently calling him my boyfriend still).
When I asked my partner if he would consider changing his name, I was totally stoked when he agreed – it meant so much to me. I felt like this was the option that allowed for a recognition of both our pasts, and gave us a new identity for our future that respected both of us. We’ve lost nothing, but gained something from each other (which is a symbol that I like in relation to our marriage as a whole)
His family are a bit confused that he’s taking on my name, but mostly they politely ignore it. People only ask me if it’s hyphenated. If my children marry other double named children I hope they find a solution that makes them feel similarly comfortable with their new identity, that’s all that matters to me.
My parents saddled me with a (long!) hyphenated name, and in the time that I’ve mulled it over (and the subject occurs to me pretty much every time I have to sign something and my name runs off the page), I’ve come up with a solution: separate surnames for men and women. It’s simple, and while I suppose arguments could be made that it is a sexist idea in that it does segregate the sexes, it doesn’t share the very obvious patriarchy of our current system.
So, I’ve decided to change my surname to my mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s maiden name. If I have a daughter, this will be her surname as well, unless she chooses differently upon reaching her majority. And if I have a son, he can take his father’s name. It just makes more sense to me then giving children the burden of names like Rosencrantz-Antonelli-Jones.
Emma, I loved reading an opinion from one of the children of hyphenated surnames. Thanks for adding a comment.
Just to let you know, there are women out there who do not have a choice but to take their husband’s last name. It is sad that in this day and age there are places in the world where women are forced to change their last names when they get married. My country of birth is one of them.
I was born in a country in Southern Africa and I married a citizen from there too. I relocated to the US a few years ago because of work and I decided not to change my last name immediately because the whole process is a hassle. [The process involves waiting in two separate lines which are each at least two or so days long to first change your identity card and then your passport. The only way to avoid this long process is to bribe someone but the service is still very bad.] At that point, it was just easy for me to get my visa in my old name because it matched the name in my passport. Now sadly, my passport will be expiring soon and I will be forced to take on my married name. A number of my friends had to go through this after they got married and from what I hear, the passport officers (who are mostly male) did not allow them to get hyphenated last names.
When I got married, I did not feel strongly about holding on to my father’s last name. I only held on to it because I did not want to go through the trouble of trying to get a new passport. Years later, I am saddened and angered by the fact that I have to give up my name. It is my professional name and it is also the name I have on all my documents. I don’t understand why I do not have a right to keep this name. I envy the fact that you are citizens of a country that gives you a choice as to whether or not you retain your name. A country that gives women their rights. I love my country but I am willing to fight to keep my name. The name was passed on to me by a man who never really cared for me but I worked hard to turn it into something and it means a lot to me. Why should someone take this away from me? It’s not fair.
Tampa Tees – thanks for your perspective, it is good to be reminded that some things can easily be taken for granted as feminists.
We’re not married either (and don’t want to be). I’m in favour of creating an entirely new surname for our (potential) children out of our two surnames, but my partner thinks it sounds horrible.
Waller + Toms = Waltom
What does everyone think? Ridiculous?