Small things that make you angry and you feel you can't mention elsewhere

Rosabud, really good point.

My girls have my dp's surname but on them it looks like theirs in a way mine wouldn't (to me), because my family have a habit of taking everything over. If I got married I wouldn't change my name because it's mine now. But for brand new people I quite wanted it to be about us rather than the family I came from. I know it's weird that I felt like that and Rosabud has articulated very nicely why, thankyou, my dear

A very similar but slightly different point. The thing that drives me crazy is the 'ooh, but your maiden name is your father's name anyway' line of argument about why you might as well change your name - ie. that you always have the name of one man or another.

Bollocks. If I 'had my father's name', so did my brother. But no, because he is a boy it's his name.

I do agree about the taking names thing too. Yes, there are conceptual arguments if you change your name to that of your husband. But from then on it is your name. You don't 'keep' it if you divorce. It's not a bloody CD collection

I agree wholeheartedly that it is not your father's name, it is your name.

Why should it be his name because he happens to be a man if he was born to it the same as you.

Ds and dd both have a the same surname and it certainly is not more ds's name because he is a boy.

But I can't see how you can argue that choosing your husband's name isn't taking on "his" name. You have no other right to it other than your marriage. No other reason to take it on besides him. It is a subservient thing to do really.

And I say that as someone who took on their husband's name. You can't refuse to question these things otherwise nothing would change.

One of the things that makes me REALLY angry but which I can't mention anywhere but here (and it has been met with bemused misunderstanding by friends/partner/family etc) is the obsession with who is taking whose name because by making it an issue at all, it makes it part of patriarchy. When I was born I didn't have my father's name - I had my name. When I got married and changed my name it wasn't my husband's name - it was my name. When I gave my children names, I didn't give them my name or my husband's name - I gave them their own names and the minute they received those names they became their names. When I got divorced, I didn't keep my husband's name, I kept my name. Because whatever I choose to be called is my name. I am a person in my own right, I don't belong to my father or my husband or my ex-husband or my children, and whatever name I choose to call myself is MY name.

I really like dh's name and would have happily taken it ifi didn't like my own so much. The kids have my surname, with his as a second middle name. We talked about double barrelling but they're three syllables each so it would have been a bit ridiculous.

I took dh name because our names looked stupid double barrelled and he refused my name as he said it is a comedy name

same sex couple we know (male) double barrelled their name

we know one couple who took wife's name as she had an academic career and had published under her name

That makes sense to me too.

I know one couple who both changed their names to a hybrid of both surnames. Their families were both really hurt, it's caused a lot of bad feeling, so much so that his father barely speaks to him since he changed his name. You have to have really strong feelings about a name to do it in spite of that much pressure.

Dp and I aren't married and our dds have one name each. So dd1 has my surname and dd2 has his. Although, since dd1 is not biologically dp's that probably isn't a feminist choice. Dd2's first name sounds better with his surname than with mine, so that's why we went for his name. If we ever split up (we are currently quite happy with the way things are) then I will still be happy for her to have his name as we would always hope to be equal parents.

see TSC that makes more sense to me, and I tried to convince dh of that. Not sure if for him it was a "man" thing or not. Maybe deep down he wasn't 100%sure about our marriage at the time though and didn't want to get saddled with another name?

The one man I know who uses his wife's name had a chaotic family background with various stepfathers - his legal name came from one of them. In adopting his wife's name, he wanted to establish a family name.

I wanted dh to change his name to mine, I know why he didn't though. Its the same reason I changed mine to his.

(dh's mother wanted to play happy families whenever she met a new guy so she would change dh's name each time to the new guys name. He has had his current name for 20 years and wanted it to mean something and couldn't face another name change. He feels like now that me and the kids have his name it finally means something. Although now I feel like I've just been subjected to what he had to suffer all along... I can honestly say if not for this one unusual situation I would never have changed my name.)

I also have a friend who wanted her dh with a rubbish name to change to hers (awesome name), it was considered and then her friends took the piss so bad they changed to his

I also know a married lesbian couple who changed their names when they got married

I think a lot of families want to have the same name so it would be nice if the tradition was changed and it was accepted that either name could be used. To keep a name going or to get rid of a name that's caused you pain.

I don't think its necessarily feminist to keep your name but then let your children have their fathers names which is what I generally see happen.

If dh and were to divorce Id go back to my old name and the kids would be double barreled (despite how bad it would sound, and it would be bad) because they aren't having a different name to me

I know a family where the father left and the mother brought up 4 children. The three boys, as adults, all changed their names by deedpoll to, respectively, their mother's maiden name, their maternal grandmother's maiden name, and the third to his wife's name, because they thought those three people deserved more commemoration and respect than their absent and unmissed father. This is a very down to earth family by the way, nothing guardian-reading or modern-parenty about them.

"Men don't do it be because they'd never live it down"

Or maybe they don't because no-one suggests that it would be fine to do that?
My husband took my name, and hasn't had any stick for it. I didn't ask him to as tbh it didn't cross my mind that he would do that. And I suppose as we are Mr & Mrs MyName, all the people we've meant since we've married just assume that took his name..

Schooldidi - The two female couples I know in CP's both changed their names. Not to one of the existing surnames though - one to a totally new name and one to a hybrid of both existing names. Both planned to have a family and I wonder if that is why they did. Or the pre-existing normalisation of women changing their names on marriage. I suspect, but don't have any stats, that far more lesbian couples do that type of thing than gay male couples.

"Men don't do it be because they'd never live it down"

Exactly!

I think there are lots of good reasons to change ones name. men don't do it because they'd never live it down. I suspect if the taboo was gone loads of men would change their names and loads of couples would create new names.

I changed mine for similar reasons - it is foreign, hard to spell and easy to take the piss out of. I did keep mine for a while, but when DD came along, I switched, although I am Ms rather than Mrs. I don't think of it as DH's name, it is my name now.

Yeah that's probably true schooldidi. I'm just a bit disappointed in my peers! I know 2 women who have kept their names one was part of my uni feminist society and the other has a particularly lovely surname and has also built her professional rep under that name

A random sentence I just read in the Evening Standard:

"I read widely: Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell, Tom Hodgkinson..."

Yes that's terribly wide, city man being interviewed by journalist man.

I do know lots of couple who are happily not married though (like me and dp), so maybe that's skewing the results, those of us who wouldn't change names maybe aren't as likely to get married in the first place?

I've noticed that too Madame. I only know 2 women who have not changed their name, one of whom is in her 40s and the other is technically in a CP and I don't think people change their names when it's a same sex relationship do they?

Not to offend anyone that has changed their name upon marriage but literally every female on my Facebook who has got married and these are girls I went to school with so my age, 27ish, the supposed "post feminist" generation has changed their surname with not so much as a double barrel in sight
It makes me feel really cringe, like I'm embarrassed for them?? Again, posting here as will get flamed anywhere else for expressing my irritation with this... (So if I have offended u pls don't roast me!!)

schooldiddi the best part of it was she really meant it as a complement at the time.

ds also doesn't like strangers at all, and according to that thread I've made him afraid of strangers.