What's in a name?

[wicked woman]

Interesting quote.

I married many decades ago and gave serious consideration about whether I'd change my last name or not. While I had a strong pull to keep my maiden name, the final decision was to take my husband's last name. As bg says, it wasn't common to keep your maiden name when she married and I married before she did.

I wasn't unhappy using his name. It certainly made things easier. My kids have his name...so we all had the same name. The only thing was ww....X wasn't me. ww....S was me. My identity was in ww....S.

So when a few years later we divorced, one of the first things I did was revert back to 'my' name. I can't ever see changing my name again. It's as much a part of me as my blue eyes and freckles are.

As for the quote in the OP, while I'd never thought of it before, the correlation doesn't surprise me. The question asked of which came first the question or the egg though is a good one.

 

[blueberree]

I was one who changed it

When I was going to get married, the decision about my name was really my own. However, I made the decision to take his name. I did so for a number of reasons, mostly I wanted the world to know us as a couple. It was probably a time when it was becoming more common to keep your own name, but still a little unusual. I didn't really see the major independence point in keeping my own name since it was my father's name (whom I love) but still my dad's name. So it didn't really feel like changing or not changing was making a statement of independence.

It was a lot of work to change it with SSA, my drivers license, my bank, my employer, and a couple of other entities where it was important they know my name.

We got divorced and it was too exhausting to go through the process again to change it back to my dad's name on top of all the stuff you have to go through to get the divorce. I just wasn't also up for "oh I didn't realize you had changed your name....huh....interesting." conversations in addition to dealing with all the emotional angst about the marriage, its ending, etc.

In retrospect, I wish I hadn't changed my name. Even if it had turned out that we were a life long match, I would have wished I hadn't changed my name.

 

[a75]

In Greece the woman isn't allowed to change her surname after marriage, since the early 80's. She may use her husband's surname in her social/professional interactions, but only combined with her own (ie Mary Papas - Nichols) and 100% unofficially; not in her ID card, passport, bank accounts, driver's licence etc.

Although there had been reactions mostly by christian groups, time proved it was a successful legislation. There are actually no problems with the name of children etc, since the society got used to it. Moreover, it makes things easier with bureaucracy when people divorce..

 

[silverwhisper]

i don't know how i missed this!

i suspect that keeping/changing names and the income divide cited is grounded in correlation, not causation.

professional women who keep their names may have established an identity with their birth names. to have done so, they may have reached a higher measure of seniority than their name-retaining peers.

some years ago i had the opportunity to chat with the former head of factiva, a dow jones subsidiary. she went by her birth name rather than using her husband's name and specifically cited that reason: she established herself as [name] and there's a certain amount of difficulty involved in updating that in the names of journalists and people in the industry.

personally, i don't form judgments about someone's professional capabilities based on such inherently idiosncratic and personal stuff: i've known too many very motivated and accomplished women to think that holds water. one might as well decide to form such judgments based upon other superficial crap.

my wife chose to take my name and i was happy that she did, but had she preferred not to, i would have supported that, too.

ed

 

[SweetErika]

I intended to use both names for awhile at least for sheer ease, but when I took my marriage license to the DMV to have my married name added while I renewed, the guy screwed it up and put my husband's name before my maiden name. Then I had to get my passport renewed with the name that's on my driver's license. Social Security, medical stuff, insurance and most of our credit cards still carry my maiden name, and some bills and such have both names or just the married one. Our son has my husband's last name, and I generally introduce myself with that as well.

My mom has kept my dad's name all these years because she made a name for herself with it professionally.

I know a guy who took his wife's last name because he didn't like his religious family. It's too bad, because they have a great name, and his new last name will give their kids even more potential for teasing (they have bizarre first names as well).

 

[Eilan]

My mom has kept my dad's name all these years because she made a name for herself with it professionally.

When my parents divorced, my dad insisted that my mom change her name back to her maiden name. It was something that she had, in fact, considered, but when my dad started being a dick about it, she decided to keep his name as her way of saying, "Fuck you." Unfortunately, they reconciled a couple of years later.

 

[unregistered]

 

[_Virginia_]

I recently had a dream that I was engaged and my fiance and I were trying to figure out the name thing. In my dream, we both went back in our family trees until we found a name that we had in common - and we both changed our last name to that name. I have pretty detailed dreams!

I've never been married and am not sure that I ever will be - but if I am, I will definitely keep my name, primarily because I'm just not one to follow tradition for tradition's sake.

 

[ElijaRDC]

As I was browsing across the news today, an interesting article caught my attention. It spoke of a dilemma some women may face when trying to decide whether or not to take on their partner's surname when they marry. Some decided it was easier to take on the spouse's name because it would keep things simpler when it came to kids and such. Others wanted to retain their maiden names because they felt it was a mark of independence. About the time I decided it was all a bunch of hot air about nothing, I read this paragraph:



Are you kidding me? How people could surmise that based upon a name change just boggles the mind. As always, I'm curious to see what my fellow Litsters think.

Ladies - did you or would you change your surname when/if you married? Why or why not?

Fellas - would you be bothered if your partner did not take on your name? Why or why not? If your partner wanted you to change your name (ie - accept his/her surname or hyphenate with his/hers), would you? Why or why not?

Fair it may not be, but that's life. I can see how people have this perception because I do myself; I however force myself to reserve judgement until I get to know the woman better.

If/when I marry I will be keeping my last name. The perception people will have of me does play a small factor, but my decision to do so is based mainly on the fact that I love my name (it's unique) and would never be able to feel like myself without it.

The type of man who would be against my retention of my own surname is not the type of man I could ever be married to, so that aspect is moot.

 

[bailadora]

Fair it may not be, but that's life. I can see how people have this perception because I do myself;...

Elija:

if you don't mind - would you mind expanding on why you have this perception? Cause honestly, I just don't understand how a name change one way or the other is an indicator of personal personality traits. If you don't mind sharing a bit more - I'd be interested in your thought process.

 

[lovecraft68]

Well first off in my particular situation my wife took my name but also uses her maiden as a "middle name" she does not hyphen it but always refers to herself by first maiden and last name. I personally would not have been terribly upset if she did not want to take my name but it was also my second marriage and she means the world to me so why would I let something that trivial bother me.

This boils down to how secure a man is. If a man is terribly offended his wife doesn't want the name what is the real reason? Petty childish jealousy the "name" in their eyes is them "claiming" their wife. And if the wife does not take his name what will Joe at the bar or Bob at the office think?

The inevitable "Well I made damn sure my wife has my name" comes up. I equate this with homosexuality jokes. If a guy mets mad if he is called a "fag" and constantly busted up about it in the end it means he is insecure in his manhood. for me if someone asks if I'm a fag I tell him to take me out to dinner and find out. I know I'm not what do I care if he does? I know my wife loves me and wants to be with me what would I care over a name?

Now as for this article was it written in the friggin' sixties? Or by a knuckle dragger who still wishes it was? This smacks of that 1950's wives handbook that talked of how it was the wife's job to be second fiddle etc...

I would like to know the age of the women who kept their name as opposed to others. reason I say it is this. Most women I know that have kept their name married older-late early thirties and up who, at the time of their marriage, were already career women. So already making the good money and wanted to keep their professional identity.These women are also less likely to have children.

Women who marry younger and take the name are also most likely have kids younger and set their careers back to raise kids. This is a comparison not of money but choice; did a woman get married to raise kids and have a family or are they "power couple"

What is being overlooked is who is happier? Maybe a woman made less but is more content where as the other works incessantly to make up for something lacking. It's not that cut and dried.

This falls under one of those who the hell pays someone to come up with this and why do we care?

 

[ElijaRDC]

I don't necessarily perceive a woman who has taken her husband's name to not be assertive/strong/independent but I do perceive women who keep their name to be those things. Like I said, I do reserve judgement until I have gotten to know the woman better, but I have found that in most cases women who keep their names do possess these traits.

It would make sense to me that these traits are associated with people who are also capable in the workplace, know their value, and would be likely to turn down a position which didn't pay what they thought it should.

Elija:

if you don't mind - would you mind expanding on why you have this perception? Cause honestly, I just don't understand how a name change one way or the other is an indicator of personal personality traits. If you don't mind sharing a bit more - I'd be interested in your thought process.

 

[Calypso]

When I got married, oh so many years ago, I took my then husband's name. While his name still had tongues trip over it occasionally, it was better than my maiden name which tripped up the speaker 99% of the time. When we got divorced, I had the option to change my name to whatever I wanted. I chose my mother's maiden name, which was easy to spell & say. It's interesting tho, when someone asks for my mother's maiden name as a security question, you can hear them pause, wondering how/why I have her name!!

Were I to marry again, at my age I wouldn't go thru the hassle of changing it. The first time, I was enuf of a traditionalist to not really think about it. But I think if I'd been establishing a career, I would have kept my name.