Amal Alamuddin has changed her name professionally

Petula Maybe Santa brought them?

Let's hope he brings more this year

I'm talking about Amal because she's a high profile woman with a successful career. That's why it's so inexplicable to me. Married SAHMs don't have the same consequences to name changing

Her career will be as successful regardless of changing her name, she won't be diffucult to find!

And if you don't believe women should change their name then you shouldn't differentiate between high profile women with successful careers and SAHM's.

Smartiepants if it is just a free choice then why is it nearly always women changing their names? Surely if it were free choice with no societal pressure there'd be more men changing their names or people keeping their own surely?

Applauding Puffins

I kept my own name. However I let my children have their father name - so my husband. I wish I had passed on my name - however it is too late to rectify it.

I am surprised she changed her name.

I got married 12 years ago but people still thought it was strange that I kept my name???

where we as women have the right to choose to live our lives as we please, and to observe whichever customs or cultural practices that we so desire

Yeah, where is this place? I would like to visit. But I think time travel might be involved.

I love it when people intend "feminist" as an insult

Where do they think they got all these rights and increased choices from?

Great post Puffins

But oh look, here's Looklively, another great voice of reason, to tell us that we're taking it all too seriously and no doubt overthinking it all and life would be so much simpler if we just totally didn't care about anything ever. If you think so little and have so little to say, why are you on a discussion board???

I'm glad I live in a free society where we as women have the right to choose to live our lives as we please, and to observe whichever customs or cultural practices that we so desire.

That sounds like an amazing place to live. Where is it?

OMG... Seriously? Are you really getting your knickers in a feminist twist over what some trophy wife did (or didn't do) about her last name?? Honest to god why do you even CARE when it's blatantly obvious that it's all a sham anyway?! I personally think you might be taking this all a teensy bit too seriously. And for the record I don't appreciate being patronised by those amongst you who seem to think that because you've read up on the subject and are fully subscribed to the feminist ideal that somehow that gives you the right to preach to the rest of us. I'm glad I live in a free society where we as women have the right to choose to live our lives as we please, and to observe whichever customs or cultural practices that we so desire. If you have a problem with that then that's your issue - go deal with it.

Why can't women accept other women's choices as being their own free choices just because they are different to the choice that the other person would have made?
I'm an educated, intelligent woman. I chose to change my name when I married. It was what I wanted. No one else has the right to tell me otherwise.
My identity is a damn sight more complex than my name or my career. Changing my name did not change who I am and it's ridiculous to suggest otherwise. My name shows I'm part of my family and I'm very, very happy with that.

Oh I agree that the personal is the political. We all make choices that impact on the range of choices available to other women, and this is one for sure. Owing to my own issues (which are somewhat more complex than wanting to be a "team" with DH), I have chosen to prioritise others.

I do find it somewhat odd to be told that I am assuming my husband's identity and destroying my own, because identity and the factors which influence our sense of it are surely not the same for everyone.

I love these debates. The exact same things get said in every single one of them:

1. I wanted to be a 'team' with my DH, we could only do that if we shared a name. Nope.

2. There are bigger things to worry about. Yup, but hey, let's occasionally have a day off from the spandex and muse on how the personal is political.

3. Feminism is about choice. Nope, it's about women's liberation from patriarchy. The outcome of this will be women being able to make choices in a free and equitable society, but until then, all choices made by women are made in the context of patriarchy, which isn't altogether friendly to women.

4. You burn the bra bastards are bastards.... love this one. If I burned my bra, the earth would tilt on it's axis.

5. It's my father's name. Nope, it's your name, it just happens to be the same as your father's. It's as much your father's name as your husband's name was his father's name.

6. If we carry on double barreling children's names, then it's going to get stupid, what if they marry a child with a double barreled name, will they have a quadruple barreled one? . Erm, nope, I suspect that they will choose their own versions of their own names, I find this one really strange, almost like people with double barreled names must be incredibly stupid. in the poster's opinion

7. I hated my name, and DH's was so nice etc etc. With some glaring examples otherwise.... why do we never hear of men who HATE their surname so much that they just HAVE to take their wife's name on marriage?

Always the same. Always.

I like daughters having their mother's name and sons having their father's name (if applicable). I wonder if it would ever catch on?

Double barrelling is always an option. One that people seem afraid of. It's common place in a lot of other countries.
Or each having your own names and the double barrelling the children's.

Having a different surname to my family was not something I liked. The feminist thing would have been for DH to change his surname to be the same as mine, but my identity is less bound up in my actual name, as opposed to the feeling of belonging of having the same name, than my DH's. Anyway, it's my personal reason, I have acknowledged that it is not a feminist one, and as it touches on some rather difficult issues for me, I'm not going to defend it any more than that!

Personally I wouldn't change my name if I got married [again]. Didn't the first time round and that caused huge rows with my then husband. But I was known professionally by my maiden name and didn't see any benefit to changing it. I don't have a beef with anyone changing their name as long as they choose to do it and are not coerced into doing so.

This is going slightly off topic but with current DP - we rub along very nicely without being married and neither of us have any plans to change this. We didn't want the kids to be double-barreled as we each have 3-syllable surnames. Instead, I chose to give them my surname as one of their given names - there's a tradition of this in my family and they took DP's surname. But a little part of me is sad that my surname dies with me. There are other branches of the family to carry the name forward of course but not mine.

How does your name changing as a child relate to you changing it as an adult for separate reasons?

For you it would be giving up identity for a man. My name changed during my childhood through adoption. My identity, name-wise, is closely bound to the idea of family. It's a lot more nuanced for many women than a surrender of identity.

messy this thread started with criticism of an individual, and indeed any woman who chooses to change to her husband's name (OP's first three or four posts). Speaking only for myself, that is what I had a problem with, not the broader discussion of societal norms that has continued since.

What I'd like to know is why people find it so hard to realise that criticism of a particular custom doesn't necessarily translate to criticism of the individuals who go along with the custom?

Excellently put.

It's a good question messy. The stupid or coerced thing might have something to do with it...

Maybe it was just changed on the website by an over-zealous employee