The surname changing thing has loooooong fascinated me as a feminist and the conversation is back, again, and it’s as lively as ever.
From Jill Filipovic in The Guardian with “Why should married women change their names? Let men change theirs” :
That is fundamentally why I oppose changing your name (and why I look forward to the wider legalization of same-sex marriage, which in addition to just being good and right, will challenge the idea that there are naturally different roles for men and women within the marital unit). Identities matter, and the words we put on things are part of how we make them real. There’s a power in naming that feminists and social justice activists have long highlighted. Putting a word to the most obvious social dynamics is the first step toward ending inequality. Words like “sexism” and “racism” make clear that different treatment based on sex or race is something other than the natural state of things; the invention of the term “Ms” shed light on the fact that men simply existed in the world while women were identified based on their marital status.
Your name is your identity. The term for you is what situates you in the world. The cultural assumption that women will change their names upon marriage – the assumption that we’ll even think about it, and be in a position where we make a “choice” of whether to keep our names or take our husbands’ – cannot be without consequence. Part of how our brains function and make sense of a vast and confusing universe is by naming and categorizing. When women see our names as temporary or not really ours, and when we understand that part of being a woman is subsuming your own identity into our husband’s, that impacts our perception of ourselves and our role in the world. It lessens the belief that our existence is valuable unto itself, and that as individuals we are already whole. It disassociates us from ourselves, and feeds into a female understanding of self as relational – we are not simply who we are, we are defined by our role as someone’s wife or mother or daughter or sister.
And from Kate Harding with “Why I lose my mind every time we have the name conversation”:
Oh, I know, I know, Jill’s piece was judgey and shamey and insensitive ill-conceived, and it’s really important that we maintain our focus on that, until we all get sick of talking about it again.
Nope. In addition to the fact that I disagree with all of that, I submit that it doesn’t matter one bit what Jill said, specifically, the other day. Because this conversation happens, in exactly this way, every time. No matter who starts it or how they frame it, the people who want to examine the persistence of this fucking canonical anti-feminist tradition are shouted down by women who took their husband’s names and thus don’t think this conversation is fair to them.
Melissa at Shakesville’s got enough thoughts on this for two posts in response to Jill’s article: On Naming, Identity, and Choice: Part I and Part II.
I end up mostly agreeing with Kate Harding on this, but I think Melissa makes some very good points as well.
Thanks tigtog, I missed those posts at Shakesville. Excellent addition to the conversation.
Yes, those were excellent posts!
I think this is one of those situations where it’s possible for two opposing side to both be right, because there are so many factors involved. At the macro level of course it’s patriarchy-propping for a woman to change her name to her husband’s; at a micro level, of course it’s none of anyone’s damn business if or why she did.
I really like her take on the issue. At one time in my life I didn’t want to change my name. Then I changed my mind, for various reasons, and did change it to my spouse’s when I got married.
I got so much flack, first for not getting married, then for our son having my surname (from MY family, good lord. His dad’s family could care less) and then, when we finally did get married, for not changing my name then.
It’s insane. I mean, I get that people who decide (always for Very Good Reasons and never just “because I know i’d get a ton of shit for not doing it”) feel judged. But I would love to hear the very first story from someone who was cornered over her beloved grandmother’s deathbed about her choice of taking her husband’s name, the way I was about my son’s name.
Oh poor you! That sounds horrible.
I have never received any flack at all, for not getting married, for not changing my name, for giving my kids different names, nothing at all. I have also never found it a particular administrative problem (which I’ve seen sighted many times as a reason to change names). The only thing that happens occasionally is that people will send a letter to or call and ask for Mrs Partner’s Name – I just say no, no-one of that name here!
Thanks, Nat.
I haven’t had any administrative problems (the dreaded “The school will be confused” has definitely not been an issue – the schools deal with more complex situations than this every day). The people I’ve known with administrative issues are the ones who did change their names – especially Americans who traveled overseas for their honeymoons, because it takes so long to get a passport changed. But even the process of getting a name-based email address changed is ridiculous, in some companies. Somehow that effort is always considered negligable, though.
This is a subject which fascinates me too, and one that I have been thinking about a bit just this week. A few years ago we moved back to the area where my partner grew up, and I run into a lot of people that he went to school with, especially now our kids are at school. The conversations I have with the women almost always include something along the lines of “oh I was blah blah back then” when I say I will say hello to him for them. And it is like the person they were before they changed their name has this shadowy presence that has to be substantiated somehow. And this does not happen with the men I meet.
I know many people do not feel the same way as I do about this (least of all the women I am talking about!), but I just get this feeling that if they had not changed their names that their identity would somehow be more solid.
I still, ten years into the relationship, heading up to the seven years married, STILL have this conversation, this argument. It is really important to me that as a family we share a name. Not important enough for me to become one if his family. Not our family, HIS. Because that’s why he won’t change his name, because of the relational aspect of it being shared with his siblings (esp. his brother). I’m not expected to have that emotional attachment, and I don’t, but I’m also expected to then shunt that emotional attachment to him and his family.
So we go around on it, every few months. I want a common last name for the three of us. So does he. But neither of us will budge on our emotional outposts; he wants to remain part of his wider family and I resist that with increasing ferocity.
It’s funny, in a deeply upsetting way, how angry other people get. My own father was horrified that I didn’t. Various people told me (and tell me!) that it’s just easier for me to take his name. Not that it’s easier to share a name (because, after the last run trying to sort out our daughter’s waitlist for kindy, it would be much easier to not choose from six names to create havoc), but that me, the woman, going through the process of changing my name, would be easier for me. His family cannot understand that I don’t want to change my name, that I don’t want to be folded into their bosom, so to speak. But I don’t. I did not go from my family to his family, we created our own. Shouldn’t it have its own identity marker too?
Oh my jeez, you too?! When my partner and I got married – it’ll be five years soonabouts – we didn’t change our names, with the understanding that we’d eventually pick a family name for all of us and just hyphenate the kids’ names in the meanwhile.
And yet somehow, every time it comes up, it’s not the right time.
I understand it, I do. I get it because I get him, and I know the type of baggage he’s coming with. And yet …
I did not go from my family to his family, we created our own. Shouldn’t it have its own identity marker too?
THIS FOREVER.
YES!
My family with my partner is about both of us coming from our own families and making our own. I want our names to reflect that, since our names are strong symbols of identity.
I took my husband’s name. I regret it. I did it knowing that it was an anti-feminist choice but didn’t really know much about feminism then anyway. I do now and then entertain the notion of re-assuming my former name because I miss it. I pretty much agree with Harding’s piece entirely. But I will now go read the Shakesville’s post, too.
I took my husband’s name, and I don’t regret it. I thought feminism was about women having the choice to do what works for them, so I don’t believe taking your husband’s name is anti-feminist. (I didn’t have any published papers at the time, so no professional reputation attached to my original name.) Yes, I do consider myself a feminist, but like Loup, it was (and is) important for me to share a name with my husband and children. And it IS easier for females to change their names (in the US at least), a simple form and you’re done. Men have to pay to get their names changed after marriage. Is this right? No. It should be simple and free for men, too. But it’s reality, and I’m satisfied with my choice. The woman who married us joined their surnames into one upon marriage. It’s a wonderful compromise. They are lucky they were both short names, I can see that getting unwieldy after a few generations.
I took my husband’s name, and I don’t regret it. But my identity has always been tied more to my first name than to my last name.
I took my husband’s surname purely because I would have copped crap from both sides if I didn’t and it was the easy and expected way out. But I’m okay with that because not every little thing I do is feminist anyway.
I took my husband’s surname, recognising both then and now that it was an anti-feminist choice. I took it in an environment which made it easier for me to take it than not. It was, without doubt, the easy way out. While I don’t feel my identity is compromised, I do still think about changing it back.
I took my husband’s name when I got married at 21 without much thought or discussion knowing full well that it was not the feminist thing to do. I very much doubt I’d have been given any flack from anyone on either side of our family had I not done so and I certainly didn’t feel any pressure to do it. I didn’t then, and still don’t 21 years later, feel my identity has much to do with my last name and, like Mindy, I’m ok with acknowledging that not every choice I make is feminist.
Every time this discussion comes back I sort of want to change my name legally to just mimbles, because that is something that feels like my identity, but the thought of all that paperwork and a lifetime of explanations and form filling-in nightmares is enough to put paid to that idea.
I do sometimes think about legally changing my first name to Mindy – anyone looking for Mindy Lastname will find me just as easily as OfficialFirstname Lastname, in fact if you use the latter with my family it might take them a moment to realise who you mean (that goes for my Mum too). She always says my official name in an amused tone when I answer the phone at work and it’s her. She’s cool like that.
But I sort of feel that it would be disrespectful to my parents who did give a fair bit of thought to my name (as evidenced by the other options in my babybook) even though I got my nickname from them as well in a few days of being born.
I took my husband’s name because his sister hates me and wanted to piss her off.
I just realized that I have contributed nothing to this debate by my comment and I apologise. But I would like to point out that Beyonce and Jay-Z both now go by Knowles-Carter. Here’s hoping they inspire many others.
I think your reason is as good as any Claire. 🙂
Haha my mom took my dad’s name because she was 17 and sick of her own family! I look forward to when we don’t label it pro- or non-feminist and just see it in terms of individual circumstances.
I didn’t change my name for what I consider feminist reasons. Our son has his father’s family name but a portion of my family name for his English given name. I didn’t get any pushback from his family but that’s because in his culture women don’t change their names. But the reasoning behind it isn’t feminist. It shows that the wife will always be a perpetual outsider in her husband’s family. I know several women in the opposite of our situation who took their Canadian or American spouse’s name because they liked the idea of being integrated in that way with their husband’s family. They hoped to be treated more like a daughter than the dreaded stereotypical daughter-in-law experience.
This is something that troubled me for some time both before and after our (eventual) marriage, partly because there were no really good solutions. We felt that turning our names into a double barrel was impractical, mostly because we both had unusual surnames which people had to ask how to spell, or frequently misspelled and/or mispronounced. We also felt that turning names into double barrels is not a long term option – what does the next few generations do with their double-double-double barrel names? (This is absolutely not a criticism of anyone who does choose this in our real world with no perfect solutions.) Sadly, our names were not really compatible with the “merge them and make a new name” approach, although this was the option I favoured, particularly as such combinations as “Ocock” were apparent – and what kind of name is that to saddle a child with?! In the end, I chose the easy, but poorer (I felt) option of talking his name.
At our not-very-traditional wedding we asked the groom’s father (amongst others) to make a speech and he talked about names a lot. Part of me was relieved I had chose their family name; part of me was frankly amazed he assumed I would and wondered “Did you know how close I came to NOT choosing it? Why would you not think to even ask before making this speech?”. Since then, I have regretted not exploring more name options, and I do hope that maybe we can come up with a suitable merge or something and all three of us (son included) can make our own name, precisely for the “I did not go from my family to his family, we created our own. Shouldn’t it have its own identity marker too?” reason so well expressed above.
When you actually think about it and look at all the options, there are plenty of solutions for the next generation of double-barrelled names. Thing is though, it’ll be up to them by that stage – not their parents. Can’t we trust them to be creative and clever enough to solve the problem themselves? Because as discussed in this post – “traditional” is clearly a big problem as well – which is really the worst one to “saddle” a kid with?
Yep, we’ve given our children double barreled names and they can figure out what to do with them later. I’m sure I’ll try not to be offended if my half gets dropped off…
Oh, I agree. Traditional is a huge problem, and please don’t imagine that I don’t see some of the inherent problems or frequently kick myself for choosing a “traditional” approach. I was merely trying to express that I felt all the choices were difficult. Equally, I don’t feel that a double barrel name “saddles” a child; I was using the term “saddles” only for a particular individual name in our specific case (an obvious combination from elements of our two names, not double-barrelled) too easily mined for cruelty. I would try not to use such an emotive term as “saddled” for describing a class or type of name because it would be a sweeping generalisation. Sorry, I obviously wasn’t as clear as I had intended…
Our real last names inspired everyone who heard them shoved together to roll on the floor with laughter. (Think Dumb-Kitty.) So we just picked one and yes, it caused a lot of angst in my life.
I completely agree, we are forced to pick out of a really bad bunch of options!
My husband took my name when we got married nine years ago. He was unattached to his name and I was very attached to mine. We wanted to have the same name both as a sign of our marriage and to have a common name in case we had children. As previously noted it’s very easy for women to change their name but he had to do the whole deed poll thing which was a big pain. Nine years later we still get quite a reaction when people realise that he took my name. Some (mostly women) are supportive and think it’s really cool. Most men think it terribly strange and don’t know what to say, they usually make jokes about his “maiden” name. The saddest thing is that he sometimes regrets changing his name to mine. Strangely, the hardest thing for him has been dealing with the reaction of my family, he feels that his choice has emasculated him in their eyes with the assumption being that he has been absorbed into my family in the same way a woman traditionally joined her husband’s family. He feels that he has lost power and respect in taking my name. Despite that issue, it has been a good choice for us.
he feels that his choice has emasculated him in their eyes with the assumption being that he has been absorbed into my family in the same way a woman traditionally joined her husband’s family. He feels that he has lost power and respect in taking my name
I feel like that says so much about the expectations of patriarchy right there.
This topic has fascinated me for a while. The amount of flak you get when you announce that you wouldn’t get married when having children and the horror on people’s faces: “But then you won’t share a name!”… My goodness.
As I’m currently pregnant and we live in a country where children are not allowed to have hyphenated last names, we talk about this all the time.
It’s really interesting how deeply rooted assumptions about name-taking are. My usually pro-feminist partner struggles a lot with the idea of his child not having his last name (and his family would be shocked, I’m sure), even though he doesn’t even like his last name! It’s weird, if you ask me.
As I don’t share my father’s name and I’ve never felt less close to him, I don’t seem to care as much. We’ll see what we’ll do. If the baby is a girl, she might get my mum’s first name and my partner’s last name, so that would be a compromise.
Hyphenating would be my preferred option, though, we’re creating a new family after all and not adding to one part of the family of origin.
Oh, and I love Kate Harding’s piece. Thank you for the link.
We live in a country where a woman can’t legally change her surname after marriage so this wasn’t an issue for us. I hyphenated my surname back in my home country but since I don’t live there or use the documents it doesn’t make any real difference. My family is fine with my choice and would have been either way but I think that my husband’s family doesn’t quite believe the legal stance here, they probably think I use it as an excuse, as though I really need one.
What I do regret is not giving more thought to the option of our children taking my surname. It is perfectly acceptable albeit less common here and my husband expressed that he would be fine with it when I was pregnant with our first. My husband’s surname blends a lot better in the culture here and I am ashamed to admit that this was the main reason I didn’t think about the alternative further.
I have an English father and an Aboriginal mother. I grew up with the surname Smith. I really hated it because it was so boring and common and ‘English’! At university and before I graduated, I considered changing my surname to either my middle name or my mother’s maiden name. In the end I just kinda stuck with it. I met my now husband when I was in my early 30s. He has a beautiful Aboriginal surname…we have a lake and a mountain named after it here. I loved it and was happy to have an excuse to ditch the Smith. I haven’t regretted it so far, but who knows…I might in the future. In any event, I don’t consider myself locked in. I think a name can be fluid thing.
that makes me think, maybe it’s not that women should be as attached to their given names as men apparently are, but that we should teach them some of our fluidity (I haven’t changed my last name, but I did change my first name.)
My husband has his mother’s surname, and a very strong family identity that goes with it and a family that is spread across four continents with the same name, and if I had been interested in changing my surname, it would’ve been because I wanted a piece of that. But I kept my surname, even though I have no particular attachment to it for family reasons, but it was still my own name. We discussed our son’s surname a lot, but it really came down to the fact that the first name we chose sounded better to us with the husband’s family name than with mine. Sometimes I feel all principled about it and sometimes don’t, but I am always slightly surprised to hear when women marry and change their name without seeming to give it much thought. Unlike other people, we’ve never had an issue about having different names in our family – no one has ever commented or questioned it. I think in some ways it makes it easier for our son to understand that we are all members of each others’ families, and all our own selves as well. Which I think is a very healthy thing for a young fellow to grow up understanding.
I had a friend whose first husband didn’t like his surname nor hers so they chose a new one together. Only problem was he didn’t explain to his family that they had made the choice together and let them think that she had pushed for the change and he’d reluctantly given in. Not surprisingly the relationship didn’t last long term.
I have a friend who did this also, and after they divorced, her first husband remarried and his second wife took his name. So it’s like he reinvented the patriarchy from scratch.
I have always been a ‘pick and choose’ kind of feminist which I felt to my core was the heart of feminism. Kate Harding’s piece shows the reasons why picking and choosing – for a variety of reasons- may take more energy than going ‘by the book’ feminism because you have to (1) understand the patriarchal foundations around your decision (2) consider the implications for yourself, and (3) go against the grain (either feminism or society).
Taking my husband’s name was a pain in the butt that I would never repeat. I had property, publications, and an IRA account that still hasn’t been changed over. He had none of this (he’s younger than me).
I agree with Harding that, at the time, I had a great reason that made sense to me. Now I see now that was the first step into forging (giving up) my identity into a man who was so young he barely had his own identity. A great loss.
Now, I’m still married but reclaiming my identity.
We as feminists sometimes make decisions that aren’t mistakes but decisions that we have to learn from to move on. I thought I was safe from patriarchy because my husband was so young and impressionable. Now I realize that I never really invited patriarchy into my relationships, and that I might have slightly overshot the mark ( and having a fourth child (my husband) to raise wasn’t a solution to anything).
Regardless, we do what our mothers did and hope to teach our daughters and sons better (as my mother did in hushed conversations where my father couldn’t hear her). The next generation of blended ‘modern’ families (my stepson’s surname is different) may help pave the way.
So I can admit I coulda/woulda/shoulda kept my name. Interestingly, I’m the only ‘doctor’ in my husband’s family and they are quite shocked that he lucked into such a catch!
I took my husband’s surname mainly because I wanted any children we had to have the same surname as both of us. I do regret it sometimes, but on the whole feel that the way my relationship functions and if it feels equitable and fair is much more important than my name in terms of practising feminism and setting an example for my daughter – though I realise this argument sounds a bit shaky (that’s why I still wonder if it was the right decision sometimes).
Also, my own surname was completely tied up with my fathers identify and family heritage and not my mothers. As he was someone I did not particularly like and his presence so overwhelming in our lives I was quite pleased to get rid of it. I am particularly pleased I’m not linked by name to my brother for similar reasons.
Yes, these are my thoughts exactly.
I, too changed my name when I got married, and actually looked forward to separating myself from my Dad. I was happy with the decision for a few years, and when kids came along I was pleased to have built our own branch of the family up, all with the same name, although for the first while I did feel weird calling myself an ‘O’Rourke’ (his name), especially in front of his parents.
But then I got more interested in feminism and started to wonder whether I had made a mistake. Did I just give up and go with the flow too easily? Should I have paid more attention to my feelings of unease about my ‘new’ name? If I had asked my husband to consider changing his, what would he have said? (The answer to that is ‘no way!’)
I actually gave some very deep thought to changing it back. Part of the reason is that, while I don’t mind not being linked by name to my Dad any more, I’m also no longer sharing a name with my Mum and sister, and I do feel sad about it. I think my name would have been harder to give up in the first place if it had reflected my mother’s ancestry at all. I’m proud of my Dad’s heritage (and mine), but since my husband’s name is actually even more ‘Irish’, I didn’t feel I was giving up that part of me in losing my name. And my Mum obviously also changed her name when she married, but she never felt any particular connection to her original name, as she was adopted and had no blood ties to it anyway. She also didn’t like it, which is why she actually kept her married name after divorcing my Dad, seven years after they were married.
I’ve decided not to do anything about it for now, but I do often wonder if I made the right choice. I think maybe I should have at least kept my ‘maiden’ name as another middle name. Then it would be there, and I could use it, or not. I also think I should have tried to negotiate with my husband that the kids have my ‘maiden’ name as a second middle name. No double-barrelling, but at least a presence in the name. But really I feel it’s rather too late to bother with that now.
Instead I try to teach my kids that there is more to them than just their name, and they are equally related to each if their four grandparents, all with different names and family histories. That even though they only carry one of those names, they are all as important.
I am wondering this morning why these prominent feminists have decided to hit out at other feminists again, for the cardinal sin of changing our names. Is it because they are copping flack? Maybe they have chosen the easier target of other feminists rather than the patriarchy?
When I got married in 2006 at 26 it was more the done thing NOT to change your name but I did take my husband’s name for a few reasons which I now feel don’t really stand up at all. I wanted to create a family unit for when we had kids with same name, and, more embarrassingly, I wanted to create a new more interesting me, shedding my very boring common surname for an unusual foreign one. I sometimes regret it now and think if changing back but it seems silly after all these years, plus my identity HAS changed. I do think of myself as ‘Jackie K’ and my experiences and life are bound up with my borrowed Greek identity. But yes, overall I do regret it and wouldn’t do it again.
My decision making process went like this: we agreed that we wanted to share a last name, the paperwork for a female to change her name is greatly simplified and (since it is so expected) socially easier after the change. Neither of us had yet started a career, I had only one paper published that was mostly something I had done just to have the experience of doing, not something I particularly cared about having pop up in a google search.
If I had preferred my last name over his, he would have taken mine. If we hadn’t liked either, we would have made a new one and both changed.
For the record, my Dad was sad I was going to change my name (a surprise there).
Personally, I actually really like having a “new” name. It’s been 7 years since we were married and I like the clear division between before marriage (which for me was also pre-career and pre-kids) and after. It’s like the stories they tell of societies where you choose your own name at adulthood. Also, I like the association/family belonging that it gives me with my inlaws. We live across the country so I only see them maybe once a year. Having a shared identity helps bridge that gap a little. My parents I speak to once a week and, having grown up with them, I already have a solid connection with them.
I don’t feel that women should be forced to change their names, I don’t feel that men should be mocked if they do, and I think the legal process needs to be streamlined for men. But I love the idea of families sharing names and a new name marking a new phase in your life.
Mrs Dragon that’s how it was for me too – marking a new stage in my life, and I very much see it as a big turning point. Your comments make me remember I did indeed put some thought behind my choice and even though I wouldn’t do the same now, there were reasons behind it. Thanks!
Yep, I love Kate Harding’s piece too. Haven’t read the Shakesville posts yet though…
Now have read the Shakesville posts and comments at Feministe and there are a lot of valid criticisms of Filipovic’s and Harding’s positions. One key point made is that we don’t necessarily know a woman’s real reasons for changing her name, and she should presume the reason stated is the true one.
aargh, obv that should read “shouldn’t”.
My problem with that is that even with all these many and varied reasons – every woman I know who changed her name did it thoughtfully and with a sincere personal reason – the skew is so very, very thorough.
It’s like how police make complex individual decisions about who looks “suspicious” and what seems like “likely cause” and most of them are quite well-intentioned and yet the pattern of arrests and convictions is highly racialized.
Are we not allowed to talk about the underlying sexism or racism? Can we not admit that you can be a feminist and still have sexist thoughts and do sexist things, for whatever the intervening highly personal and important reason is? If it weren’t influenced by sexism the numbers would be much more even – even if you subtract out the 50% or so hardcore traditionalists, the number who changed to husband’s name would be more like 75% if every egalitarian couple decided on purely idiosyncratic nonsexist grounds.
It’s obviously a web of factors that feeds into the decision, but perhaps like many of these things (who does most of the childcare, housework etc etc), we have less agency than we think. But after we have made the “choice”, we justify it in order to reduce our cognitive dissonance (a la the discussion on here a few weeks back) over the issue.
This article cites a paper which looked at New York Times wedding announcements over the last few decades to show that the number of women keeping their names sharply increased in the 80s and 90s, and decreased again through the 00s.
I wonder what caused that change…
The last name thing is huge for me. I don’t think that an individual person’s act of taking her husband’s last name is always anti-feminist, but I absolutely believe that the tradition of it is terribly anti-feminist.
But equally anti-feminist and even less discussed is the tradition of giving children the man’s last name – even if the woman has kept her own name in marriage for feminist reasons.
I’m currently pregnant with my first, and we plan to alternate last names (mostly because my partner and his family are extraordinarily prejudiced against the idea of hyphenated names – another really frustrating attitude). If we have the two we plan for, one will have my last name and one will have his (if we have more, we’ll continue alternating). If administrative people don’t like it, they can suck it up – they will have to get used to unconventional family arrangements at some point because it’s only going to become more common.
The initial reaction for his mother when we told her was that we were “causing problems” for our kids. Somehow I think they’ll cope. Ours is not a perfect arrangement, but we will make it work for us.
That’s what we did, and it has not caused any administrative problems at all. And I would say it allows them to be who they are without being necessarily tied to their sibling. But we have only have two – our daughter has my surname and our son has my partner’s, an arrangement that feels very fair and balanced. Hope it works as well for you!
Thanks! I’m sure once everyone gets used to it, it will be fine. Glad to hear you haven’t had any problems – that is reassuring.
Hi Alien Tea,
From reading the posts so far I haven’t seen much reference to your kind of option and yours comes closer to the way that we did it with names. I had been married changed my name and divorced before having children. I was sorry that I had changed my name as I could feel that loss in identity that the articles talk about.
As it happens my partner (now 25 years) and I have never married but once I was pregnant I changed my name (by deed poll) to my mothers grandmothers surname.
We decided, if we had a girl, on the matrilineal option. A boy would take my hubbys name and a girl mine. And as it happens we have a boy and a girl – the plan in action. Apparently kids would comment on their different names at school but then that was an opener for the conversation amongst themselves.
I think of the surname – as a birth present particularly to my daughter – a name that she can pass on to her daughters. My mum was chuffed but her sisters and many others bemused.
But then isn’t that the nature of change – its all weird at first and then it can become – just what people do.
All the best. In the scheme of things of bringing up children – the topic of names can slide into oblivion.
We are doing this too – our older daughter has my name, the younger has my husband’s. Both names are polysyllabic and frequently mispronounced, so hyphenating them was pretty much out of the question. It’ll mean we’ll all get addressed by the wrong name sometimes, probably, but whatever, both names are part of the family, right?
And seriously, there are plenty of perfectly legitimate family arrangements that are less traditional than ours! People are just going to have to learn to suck it up, be courteous, and not make assumptions.
It is indeed a fascinating topic. I am always amazed at friends who change their names. It basically just seems really weird to me. We are not married, if we were I would not have even vaguely considered changing my name. This is not because I would have been thinking of how to act like a feminist but because I cannot see any conceivable reason why I would take his name. Really cannot see it….When my daughter was born we hadn’t really made a decision and in the blur we gave her his name. When she was a few years old I decided that also seemed weird and we changed it legally to hyphenated. We are all happy with that and yes, I’m sure she will work out what to do in the future if she and a double barreled partner need to name their child…
‘But feminism is not, in fact, all about choosing your choice. It is mostly about recognizing when things are fucked up for women at the societal level, and talking about that, and trying to change it”. That kinda summed it up for me and I think is what was missing from the shakesville pieces which were focused on your right to make your own private choices and not to have them publicly examined…
I think the problem women are having with the articles is that they perceive them to be attacking the women who make the choices rather than the societal structures. Victim-blaming, if you will.
Absolutely. I’m seeing a lot of “we wanted the same name, and this was easier”, and some “my father was an abusive douchebag, and I wanted to distance myself as far as I could”, and a little bit of other things – and yet, the focus of the discussion is on individual women’s choices, instead of on the structural issues/laws/pressures that make it easier for women to change their names and harder for men to, or on the horrors of domestic abuse.
And – and I think this is the really telling part – of the families who do decide to go with one spouse’s name or the other: for every woman who makes a choice to change her name on marriage, there’s a man who makes a choice not to change his. But which one’s copping the current round of feminist ire? The man? Not so much. And that’s (among other things) why I’m pissed off.
Thank you Tamara and lauredhel you have clarified for my why I find these endless debates so frustrating.
And having said that, I also experience frustration when I perceive that women are changing their names without at least thinking through the issues. Of course, that takes us back to the other issue of whether we really know when a particular woman has made the decision what her reasons and thought processes have been.
I agree, tamara and lauredhel. Name-chaning upon marriage, at least in the US, is bound up in centuries-old laws and traditions of property rights (“property” meaning women-and-children) and men as head-of-household, among other reasons. Scolding women for not bucking a tradition that is so prevalent that 90% of us adhere to it is actually pretty sexist. I changed my name because of pressure from my in-laws. I kept it until my son was six months old, and then changed it. I wish I hadn’t, but back then I wasn’t brave enough to stand up against the pressure. I didn’t want to change my name, but I allowed myself to be shamed into doing so.
It’s pretty ridiculous to think that the solution to this issue lies on the shoulders of individual women, when it’s at a societal level that things need to change. And yes – where are the scores of articles admonishing men for their part in this? Easier to just blame women for men’s behavior, as usual.
Oh sorry, the quote was from Kate Harding’s great piece.
gotta ask, are you the rosierabbit who ate too many fruits and veges and got a sore tummy?
But isn’t taking your husband’s name just as bad as having your father’s surname? In my case, I changed my name because my dad was an ass hat and I was glad to longer identify with him. My husband is a good man and I’m proud to be married to him, not as a chattel, but as an equal. For me the tradition was a convenient escape pod from an unhappy family.
Why is it just as bad? Why is your husband’s name his name and not his father’s name too? I think it speaks to the unspoken assumptions we have imbibed that we’ll end up changing our names, that we think our husbands’ names are “theirs” but ours are actually our father’s.
As a matter of fact though, my parents gave me a combination of their names as a last name, so this is an argument that only works for one generation in any case.
Most of us have names that come from our fathers. It is more my father’s name than mine, for instance. After all, I wasn’t given my mother’s name. I do laugh at “just keep your father’s name; that’s totally different from taking your husband’s, even though (in the US at least) 90% of surnames flow down from males and does nothing to address that whole issue.”
aaarrgh, I meant “and keeping another man’s name does nothing to address the issie” – the larger issue, that is, of why names are imperative for men but rather discardable for women.
“So despite the fact that my name was given to me out of a sexist tradition I am choosing now to own it for myself.”
And I am confused as to why the same logic should not apply to taking one’s husband’s name. If the entire deck is stacked in favor of male names and all the implications therein, why are some women making “anti-feminist” decisions about names, but others’ decisions are considered feminist?
I think the difference is that you have had the name your whole life, since birth, just like your brother’s, yet it is treated as temporary, while your brother’s is not.
Perhaps it is clearer to treat it as either keeping your own family’s name or taking your husband’s family’s name. Those things re quite different.
I meant “your brother has”.
Right. My name is just as much my own as my brother’s name is his own. When the name was give to me, it became my name. Trouble is, I got my name as part of a patriarchal tradition – but that still doesn’t make it any less my own name. So if I have a daughter, passing my name on to her breaks her free of the tradition where her name – the symbol of her identity, is seen as temporary and ultimately belonging to the men in her life. So despite the fact that my name was given to me out of a sexist tradition I am choosing now to own it for myself.
I’m really enjoying reading all the comments from those that did change their names when they got married, the reasoning, the regrets and the deep thought that has gone into many people’s decisions. I did not change my name when I got married, for all the reasons listed in the Harding article, and I have never had a meaningful real-life conversation with my peers/friends who did change their names about why they did so. This forum has been an illuminating insight into why people actually do it.
I got married in Quebec, where, interestingly, a woman is actually not allowed to assume her husband’s name; you can try to have your name legally changed, from what I understand, but the process is expensive and a pain in the ass and you’re likely to be refused anyway, as marriage is not usually considered justification enough.
At the time, I thought this was a spectacularly stupid thing to legislate, and I would have changed my name if I’d had the option. Talking to coworkers, though, I was surprised to see that in the 30-40 years that this rule has been in effect, it seems to have generated an actual culture shift; most of the women I talked to at work – some of whom were pretty traditional in other ways – could not fathom why anyone would *want* to change their name. Not a large survey by any means, but it was startling nonetheless.
I moved out of the province a couple of years later, at which point I could have changed my name had I wanted, but I found I didn’t want to any more, and was glad to have kept my own.
…OK, that should read “I got married while living in Quebec” 😛
I too have enjoyed reading this thread of comments. When I married in 1989 (at age 24) I kept my name and thought this was the way to go (probably given the sociology I had studied in my undergraduate degree). I thought the changing of one’s name belonged to ancient history. Yet, as friends/family later married I was surprised when nearly all did change their name. I just carried on feeling a bit different and silly about my wrong take on Australian society. We decided the kids could have his name and they could choose to change their names if ever they want to (sometimes this is discussed with them). In retrospect I think I would have liked them to have had hyphenated names,and sometimes they say they would have also preferred this (I have four children), but honestly I think I was too befuddled with motherhood to really have the space to think about names. However, I wanted to say, this year I have been going into the classroom to assist with reading groups. The children all call me Mrs my son’s surname – this is what makes sense to them. My son keeps correcting them and has told the teacher my correct name. I’ve told the teacher I’m happy with the children calling me by my first name, she is not, I have to be Ms someone, so I’m going with Ms Julie – still the children keep referring to me as Mrs my husbands surname. Do we (my 9 year old son and I) keep correcting them or just let it go? It’s kind of inconvenient given I’m there to assist with reading, but other than this I’ve never had one issue with keeping my own name. It’s lovely that my youngest son is proud to have me in his class room and insistent on making sure my name is correct among his peers. It also shows to the children that people in families don’t always share the same names (which must surely fit with some their experiences too).
personally, I would let it go, but maybe mention first that you kept your own name and that’s why your name is different than his?
My son’s school uses first names for adults (it’s a Montessori school) but even though I’m there every week, and have been for 2 school years now, the vast majority of the kids call me “Mica’s mom” or Teacher. I think adults as individual humans is a little past most elementary school kids.
My partner and I both took a new last name together. We couldn’t legally arrange it to be simultaneous, so he opened his ‘official letter’ at our wedding just after we took our vows, so it could be as close as possible.
Our relatives think we’re crazy, and his at the time thought I didn’t like them. We chose our common last name after a lot of deliberation to represent what we hoped to be together.
We moved from Cambridge, MA to upstate NY last year. In Cambridge, I knew lots of people who kept their last names. No one thought any thing of it that my husband and I had different last names. Here, it’s become such an annoying issue. Particularly from older people, the number of questions that I continue to receive baffles me. It’s become so tedious — especially since my son was born — that I’ve considered changing it many times. But I just can’t do it. It is my identity.
Reblogged this on meinthe21stcentury.
When I was induced to marry in the 70’s it was automatically assumed I’d take my husband name. The marriage lasted just over a year (when I refused to continue being his victim & left him) & for the next 5 years I was stuck with the hated surname. It grated as being totally unfair.
Then I got a job at Births, Deaths & Marriages in the Northern Territory where part of my job was to answer the phone. One day a woman rang up to ask what she had to do to change her name back to her maiden name after divorcing her husband. Unsure, I asked my boss, the Registrar General, who replied that as far as the govt was concerned administratively the name on your birth certificate is your name & it is this, not your married name, that is referenced in any & all clerical paperwork (even though certificates/letters/documents/even death certs will be issued in the name you currently use). This is why all govt forms ask for your birth name.
Except for illegal purposes (fraud/tax evasion/avoiding prosecution) it is perfectly legal to use an alias…such as adopting a husband’s surname… and it is also fine to simply stop using the married surname & go back to using your birth name. For that matter you can use any name you like.
While a lot of women still do, there is no requirement to change your name back via deed poll…not in Oz anyhow. That’s just a legal hang over from former times, and may be helpful when dealing with dinosaurs in institutions orgs & companies getting certificates references or degrees updated. Saves a lot of tedious arguing.
And this is what I was advised to tell the newly divorced woman and other women inquiring along the same lines.
It took less than a week for me to decide to change my own name back, slightly longer to update things like bank accounts etc. The only problem I encountered was from Dept Social Security (now Centrelink) when a female counter staff tried to take issue but when I told her to check with her Manager she soon returned to the counter and grunted “Yes, It’s fine” as she accepted my form.
It’s true every time the issues of women taking the husbands name arises it is ALWAYS the same conversation.
And it always includes wives saying they only changed their surname because they wanted their children to all have the same surname. As if there’s something wrong in that. And why must it be the husband’s surname the kids all have anyhow?
and the argument that it makes things easier at school? How so? Isn’t the teacher’s job about opening the children’s minds … not reinforcing old out-dated inhibitions> so if the teachers can’t cope, do we really want them influencing our children?
typo
* As if there’s something wrong in that.
should have read
As if there’s something worng with them having mum’s surname or different surnames.
When a woman chooses to keep her own surname, she routinely chooses to keep her father’s surname not her mother’s.
In addition, women who choose to keep their surnames on marriage routinely allow their children to take the father’s surname (that’s, of course, if they don’t opt for one of those double bangers, in which the woman’s name routinely gets the ‘inferior’ middle position).
While this may create an illusion of identity equality, in practice it still entrenches the superiority of the man’s surname. While it maintains an illusion of ‘choice’, the woman is really choosing between two patriarchal conventions.
The only real way to dismantle this centuries-old imbalance (and alleviate massive headaches for family tree researchers!) is to opt for a fundamentally equal naming system, in which all girl children take their mother’s surname and all boy children take their father’s surname.
(PS: Various traditional societies used a similar naming system, e.g. Gaelic Ireland.)
Forgive the digression, but this is one of those class distinctions which fascinates me. In the noble/genteel propertied classes over several centuries, the surname of the family with the higher social rank came first because hyphenating only happened when an ancient family name needed to be preserved despite the lack of male heirs, and the heiress/heiress’ family normally chose a partner of slightly lower social status because only such men would be willing to hyphenate the family name so that their own name came last.
Come the industrial revolution there was a new wave of hyphenated surnames whereby a plethora of noble (but impecunious) heiress’s names prepended the bourgeois surnames of men whose only social asset was a fortune made through trade – the whole point of the hyphenation was that the recognised-by-Society noble Anstruther name came before the common Brown name.
Once the non-propertied bourgeois adopted hyphenation for themselves as a way of aping the richer classes, they misinterpreted how it was done as a gender rule rather than a class rule, and that’s how it’s become commonly viewed amonst most of us whose families don’t include women whom others refer to as heiresses.
My husband and I (queenly wave) hyphenated our kids’ names with his surname first and mine last, simply because it sounded so much better that way around, and our social status was dead even, so what did it matter that I let him put his name first? Several years later I came across a letter to his mother from a family friend (when finalising her estate) that excoriated me for demeaning him by putting my name last.
Moral: no matter what you do, somebody will think ur doin it rong.
This reminds me of a discussion I had with my present partner shortly after we became engaged years ago.
He referred to me as the future Mrs G. then remembered & corrected that to Ms G.
So I asked if he would consider becoming Mr B. and of course he replied No.
Soooo, why should I be the only one to change my name? He gave it some thought then shrugged. He concluded he didn’t really care if I became G or if I stayed B. But I could see he was still struggling with the concept despite us having a number of friends who hadn’t gone for the name change thing.
But, he added, he had no intention of changing HIS surname as it wasn’t a very common name.
But it IS a common name, I said brightly. Your mum told us (in discussion over a copy of the family tree) that the Gs and her L ancestry are all commoners. No royal in-breeding at all. Well, at least as far back as the couple of generations that Dutch people have actually used surnames.
Yet my family, the B’s and my mum’s Hs, have ancestry going back to way before 1066 with the names recorded in the Doomday Book. So not only are there less of my mob than of your mob making B more uncommon, the name itself is not Common at all.
Thus if anyone should change HIS name it really shouldn’t be me.
He took it well.
Interesting was the same logic shut down his parents’ digs over my keeping my surname too. The subject has never been raised since…and that was 14 years ago.
Not sure why the middle position is inferior, myname-hisname puts my name first which means his is more likely to get dropped off by people.
The simple fact is that IF all the women now in their thirties and forties had refused to make the anti-feminist choice of subordinating their identity to their husband and his family, the world would have accommodated us. All the demeaning things would be over. Bureaucracies would have adapted their forms; society’s expectations would have shifted; schools wouldn’t notice; passport controls wouldn’t require women to carry letters from their husbands authorizing them to take children of a different name out of the country. Our daughters would not have to deal with this problem. Women would not now be describing themselves as ‘Mrs Someone Else’, but by the names they had been given at birth and made their own through childhood, education, professional life and so on. A privilege that is still now that of men but not women.
I am ashamed of my generation for ducking this problem and handing it on to the next generation, especially since all the reasons for doing so are small, selfish and conventional, as illustrated by this thread. By comparison with the women who have come before us, who had to fight enormous battles in pursuit of equality, we are shockingly spoiled and lazy. So that we could have our little family units under one name, not argue with our in-laws, gratify our husband’s sense of entitlement, we sacrificed our daughters’ equality. Some pretty strange priorities here.
I think you might be overstating the case a little there. Keeping our names would not have solved all the problems associated with living in a patriarchy so I think ascribing all the blame to women who changed their names is a bit harsh.
I meant that it would have forced society to address all the problems associated with taking, or not taking, a man’s name on marriage, not that it would solve every problem related to patriarchy!
Thanks for clearing that up. One of the big problems we have with that issue is that many women then and now aren’t aware that there is a) an option or b) a reason not to take their husband’s name.
Tigtog. It’s hard to prove whether the tendency to put the woman’s name in the middle of a compound name is the result of women’s social inferiority or because, historically, the family of higher social standing wanted to put their name first.
However, I’d say almost certainly the former. Your relative’s negative attitude to putting your partner’s name in the middle indicates this as well.
In many Spanish speaking countries people take two surnames as a compound name – the father’s comes first and then the mother’s. However, when a man and woman marry, both the mothers’ surnames are dropped and the children take the fathers’ surnames as the compound name. So, despite the mother’s name being placed last, it is clearly the ‘inferior’ name.
This full-blown drama about the two stances (feminist and non-feminist) allegedly implied by name-changing at marriage sounds very odd to me, since in every european country I’ve known and lived in so far the legal and social frame within which the choice is made is different, and so are the meanings that women in general seem to associate with the whole thing.
And I’m not talking individual differences here, I’m thinking more of how the choice to change one’s name at marriage is inevitably intertwined with all that ‘marriage’ happens to mean in a given historical phase and within a given social class, political group, profession, religion, ethnicity, etc.; and, moreover, in a context where several of these categories are relevant to women’s choice and generate multiple conflicts when they overlap.
That’s why what Kate Harding writes seems very sensible to me (especially her basic idea that the name ‘choice’ is not crucial in itself, as what really is crucial is how it affects the actual social/political power of women, or lack of). But still, this conversation between her and Jill Filipovic seems to be caught up in a very stifled frame, one that puts a lot of pressure on individual (which means Woman’s) responsibility, and too little on the social fight against the root of evil: which is, imho and as far as I know, the deficit of effort put by much recent feminist thinking (except of the sociological kind) in figuring out precisely why and how marriage has become an unfit institution in a society where women’s roles have globally shifted from a prevalence of reproduction-based activities to a full-immersion in the ‘real’ economy (complete with the double-shift curse it entails, among many others), that is, to a male (-oriented) one.
Even worse than that, this deficit of theoretical and political effort toward the real thing effectively serves many patriarchal institutions other than marriage, notably by veering women away from questioning their enslavement in the non-monetized economy of care (which typically happens when having children within a marriage or marriage-like situation) which is in turn a big chunk of what really matters, and for which the name-changing ‘choice’ is not much more than a cover.
So, why do we need the cover?
I need it, too and I have no valid answer to this question, but it really angers me when feminist material goes so spectacularly to waste for all of us to see and more or less hysterically laugh our heads off.
Awesome patriarchy-blaming! Well-put!
Ami. I hadn’t heard of the Quebec situation, which makes it compulsory for women to keep their own names on marriage. After reading your comment I checked it out on Wiki and read a bit about 1975 Civil Code legislation that produced it. Fascinating how a Western government was able to get away with legislating something like this when free-choice rights occupy a sacred place in the Western canon just a notch above God. A combination of assertive 70s feminism and Quebecois separatism perhaps??
Gattopardo. I fully agree. I know feminism is constantly being taken to task for ‘failing’ to address this, that or something or other, but this is definitely one issue that should have been actively lobbied by feminists at least a couple of generations ago. As a result, we’ve now got this sloppy hotch-potch of ‘choice’ that simply reinforces the critics’ claims that it’s all too hard.
To be fair, second-wavers did successfully address the Miss/Mrs nightmare with the simple and brilliant ‘Ms’. It’s just a pity that they didn’t go further and proactively take on the surname issue.
However, as I mentioned in a previous comment, I don’t believe that women keeping their father’s surname is all that ‘feminist’ or gives women equal naming status. The only way to effectively achieve naming equality for women is to legislate to have female children take their mother’s surnames and male children their father’s. Anything less simply continues the confusions of the current naming practices and the inequalities of the traditional system.
I haven’t read any commenter who says changing your name is “feminist,” but that seems to be what’s always argued. Not being able to withstand pressure in a given situation is not the same thing as declaring, “therefore, this is a feminist act.”
It’s just the least shitty choice in a patriarchy full of 100% shitty choices for women, who, by virtue of our existence, are always wrong.
That said, I just filled out the paperwork to take my name back.
I’d like to see more done with ‘Ms’. At the moment, (in the UK at least, and in my experience) it is used by very few women and pronounced by the rest of the population with a kind of contemptuous fastidiousness. It certainly isn’t the default position.
Something else not being addressed in these discussions is the fact that women are doing more than taking their husband’s names: they are changing their title to show that they are married. They aren’t ‘Ms Husband’sname’, they are ‘Mrs Husband’sname’. And for me, the most extraordinary part is that my PhD gets taken away in the process. Although I kept my name, I am always getting post for ‘Mrs Husband’sname’ from people – usually women – who must know that I am ‘Dr Myname’. These aren’t people who want to upset me: these are people who like me, and who bizarrely assume that I must be prouder of managing to achieve a husband than a PhD. I associate the whole thing with the ghastly wedding industry, disney princesses, and the depressing idea that the best day of a woman’s life is her wedding day – rather than all the days that follow in her, hopefully, happy marriage.
About father’s names – well, so are men’s names. Men have their father’s names, but somehow this is considered to be ‘their’ name, whereas if a woman has it, it is considered to be her father’s name. Why is this? It makes no sense at all.
Naming should probably be matrilineal. We need a clean break with the notion of male ownership of women and children, and that is the only way to move on. I don’t like the idea of naming children along gender lines, as it suggests that sons are more the property of fathers and daughters of mothers – reinforcing heteronormative gendering of children. And what about transgender children?
What is the point of matrilineal naming? It’s just the converse of patrilineal naming and continues the imbalance of gender status.
Naming is not about ownership, it’s about identity. Naming children along gender lines formally acknowledges that half the world is female and the other half is male. The present naming systems of almost all countries enforces universal human identity as male, and female identity as ‘un-male’ or ‘sub-male’.
I agree that naming children along gender lines is not a good idea as it continues to reinforce the separation of the genders, “us and them”. An alternative would be to alternate according to birth order. Mum’s then Dad’s, then Mum’s etc.
My children’s names are double barreled.
iorarua – I’m not sure that matrilineal naming is the converse of patrilineal naming. The reasons for doing it would be very different. Making it a social necessity for every pregnant woman and every woman’s child to be acknowledged by a man or be a social outcast – or worse, which is the historical background to patrilineal naming, is very different from giving the mother’s name to her children on the basis that she carries and gives birth to them and society currently demands, indeed, legislates through unequal parental leave provision, that she carry the main practical and moral responsibility for them. But I agree that it’s not really all that much better IF we assume that the parents are equal partners in parenting.
Naming is only about identity if a woman keeps her birth name or invents one for herself. Otherwise it’s about ownership. Spin it how you will, ‘Mrs Bloke’ is the wife of Bloke, and that’s ownership, or, if you like, the identity of an owned woman.
I feel uneasy about saying that the world is half male and half female. That’s just one way of dividing people up, and I hope feminism will make that a less meaningful distinction.
I don’t think legislation is the answer. At present, in Australia, you can give your child whatever last name you like (within some boundaries). The problem is that culture dictates that all children get their father’s name – and so that is what most people do, and the tradition continues. And when it doesn’t, lots of people get their panties in a knot about it.
I actually believe one thing that will help solve the problem is same sex marriage and children to those couples – there are no clear cut social rules here! Any way that same sex couples choose to name their children will be somewhat unconventional. And my hope is that these ways will become accepted and normalised, and maybe adopted by some opposite sex couples too.
The problem is that culture dictates that all children get their father’s name – and so that is what most people do, and the tradition continues.
But it’s actually worse than this because less women are keeping their names now than did in the 90s (as I mentioned in a comment above). What’s that about?
I am quite perplexed about how this will change. Obviously there are large social forces at work, but society is made up of individuals, and so if we don’t make changes ourselves (those of us who can anyway), or agitate for change, then won’t things stay the same?
I hope you’re right about same sex marriages being a catalyst. I live in NZ and it was so moving and exciting to see the same sex marriage legislation take one more step through parliament on Wednesday.
You’re right. That’s why I’ve used what little privilege I have in the matter to push/convince my partner into agreeing that our kid should get my last name. I can only hope that this move will make it seem like a more legitimate option to other parents around us. Fingers crossed? Unfortunatly I think it’s more likely people will just think we’re being difficult and causing problems.
Alien Tea. I know that promoting legislative solutions to cultural injustices is a Western no-no, but sometimes it’s the only way.
The patriarchy is far too entrenched and is not going anywhere in a hurry. While we live under a patriarchal system, the naming ‘choices’ we make as women usually end up being between two or more patriarchal options that simply reinforce women’s inferior status.
The Quebec solution (see Ami’s comment above) indicates that legislating for naming equality does work. After an initial outpouring of outrage and a period of adjustment, Quebec’s new naming system just become the new ‘normal’.
as an aside…
Prince Phillip changed his name to his wife’s Windsor when they married.
and I reckon if it’s good enough for the Queen it’s good enough for the rest of us too.
🙂
I have a Javanese father and an Australian mother. Traditionally Javenese people don’t have surnames, but when my feminist mother married my father back in the 1950s she took on his name – basically they made up a surname. But none of us used a surname. All the kids had their own name. No family name what so ever… that is until I moved to Australia. All our systems and processes in Australia require a surname, so my mother tacked on my fathers name at the end of mine. My siblings who live in Indonesia don’t use surnames, and their kids all have their own name. But because I am here, I have one. It drives me nuts. When I got married, I kept mine, I just couldn’t stomach changing again! My kids though, have their dad’s surname. I was pushing for us to make up a family name, but that didn’t work :). When I was working with international students, the uni systems here can’t cope if someone has no surname. So when someone only has one name, they get repeated, for example, Sugianto Sugianto, or if they have two names like Indri Handayani, they’ll be registered as Ms Handayani. Complicated.
[…] Time We Have the Last Name Conversation” and the comments on Andie Fox’s post “The Surname Conversation” are well worth reading. For my part: I kept my name and have never looked back, but more […]