Did you change your surname after marriage?

[user1489792710]

The other thread in AIBU got me thinking about changing surnames after marriage.

I didn't change mine. DH would have liked me to and sometimes would ask in mock anger why I haven't. For professional reasons it made sense to stick to my maiden name as most of my qualifications and certification are in that name. So for work I use my maiden name. It's completely unpronounceable and would make sense to change to the easier married name. However I feel it's "my" name my identity and would really hate to change it.

I'm from an Asian country with predominantly Buddhist culture and married women do change their name to take on their husbands although it's not a must. It's 50/50 among my friends back home.

Just curious as to what the UK is doing?

Own your Barbara Cartland daydreams!

And commit to them! Wear head to toe pink, including a hat and 'home-made facelift' sticking plasters down the sides of your face, so that you look like a cross between a life-sized pink toilet-roll holder, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Grayson Perry in drag .

I did and I’m very happy about that decision, I love that DH and I have the same name, it makes us feel very much a unit. I wouldn’t feel properly married if I had kept my surname. Oh and I’m not my DH’s property or chattel and I’m a feminist and so is he.

Unless your wedding day had no ‘ceremonial’ aspect whatsoever and was purely a legal process, then let’s be real, getting married wasn’t a very ‘feminist’ thing to do.

Sometimes people do things just because they want to, just like those of you who gave yourself a new double barrelled name, to me, the height of naffness, but you thought it was a cool thing to do so it’s nothing to do with me

Can I just ask people (no one pp in particular) who took their dh's name because you wanted your new family to all have the same name, (which seems a sensible reason) what do you think your dh would have said if you had asked him to take your name instead for the same reason? If it would have been a resounding no from him, can you really not see the disparity in the equality of your situations?

In a time and an age when both men and women change partners and spouses quite frequently, I am constantly surprised that women choosing to wear an ever-changing collection of husbands' names is not seen as demeaning and sexist by so many.

Women taking men's names is only seen as normal when you have been conditioned by your upbringing and culture to see it like that.

Yes, you can choose to do it and it's "nobody's business"... but only if you stop criticising other countries' cultural sexist traditions first. Not fair when you choose to ignore your own's.

If it would have been a resounding no from him, can you really not see the disparity in the equality of your situations?

We'll be told that the men all had wonderful, melodious names that they were very attached to, whereas the women all had ugly names that they were delighted to get rid of anyway. Because only women hate their names and men always have the best names.... apparrently.

Dead I did ask DH this and his response was that he didn't care what I did but no way was he changing his surname.

I notice you're not asking about what DHs might have had to say about their children not taking their name. I reckon most men would kick off to high heaven at the suggestion their DC don't have their name (I didn't ask DH that one, I have to admit.)

Yes, @IcedPurple. All women’s surnames are Shitsandwich or equivalent, and they long to cast them off and become Mrs Smith.

Strangely, their fathers and brothers appear to like being called Shitsandwich and in fact want their children to also be little Shitsandwiches. It’s a mystery, truly.

Kenn and is that the norm? Or are you presenting your single individual experience as evidence that I'm talking rubbish?

All women’s surnames are Shitsandwich or equivalent, and they long to cast them off and become Mrs Smith.

It also makes me laugh when you hear some posters say they changed their names because their name was so boring and their hubsband's so exotic..... and then you'll see another saying she changed her name because hers was furren and hard to spell, while her husband's was a good old English name.

What it comes down to is that men's names are just simply better than women's names. I agree with the poster above who said that these discussions would be much more honest if women just came out and admitted that they liked the tradition of taking their husband's name and blending their identity with his.

at Shitsandwich

I can see that white frock, veil etc have very sexist connotations, but I'm buggered if I can see what's unfeminist about a knees up afterwards.

IcedPurple

Even better, they could simply accept that they were born and raised in a country where women never truly own their names, to the point that so many "weren't so attached to it anyway", which sounds completely outrageous and bizarre to any person who has not been raised in the tradition where only women are expected to change names. I was born and raised in one of those countries where both men and women are given the name of both mother and father, and no one changes their names by marriage. My names are my names, as much as my first name. My mother and father will always be my mother and father, and where I came from. I have no "maiden" name, the mere concept of a "maiden name" is hilarious to me. If I got to hate any of my names, say because my dad was a sexual abuser or a serial killer, my first way of dealing with his hated name would be to simply take the two names from my mum. Never in the world would it cross my mind to wait until I have a "husband" to take his name. It really is a bizarre tradition that can only be understood by the sexist origin of the woman belonging to her father first, and to her husband later.

any person who has not been raised in the tradition where only women are expected to change names.

Yes I think we forget that for women to change their names on marriage is not the norm globally. It doesn't happen in the world's most populous country, China, or in the Middle East, or in Italy, the Spanish speaking world and many other countries aside. That said, even in the above countries, children will almost always take the father's name - even in Spanish speaking countries where they also take the mother's name, it's the father's name which is carried on to the next generation - so I suppose you could say ultimately it doesn't make that much difference.

I have no "maiden" name, the mere concept of a "maiden name" is hilarious to me.

I really loathe that expression. How can anyone use it and say that name changing is not a sexist tradition?

IcedPurple

Traditionally the father's name went first, but that changed about 30 years ago, and now the father's name has no prioritywhatsoever, it is the couple who choose the order, and if they cannot agree it will be chosen at random.

Yes to the concept of "maiden". What's the equivalent concept for a man?

I am not married but if I was I wouldn't change my name as it's "mine".

OH would be welcome to change to mine if he wanted but equally I wouldn't be fussed if he didn't.

But then I also don't really see the point in getting married so perhaps that's why.

@aurynne
Oh, that's good to know. I think it's still usual for the man's name to go first? But still, if it's not obligatory then that's progress.

We joined our names together so it was Hisname-Myname. We chose the order that sounded best.

I have no "maiden" name, the mere concept of a "maiden name" is hilarious to me.

It is hilarious, in a depressing kind of way, like a 'starter home' or a 'starter marriage' -- a stage you progress through in order to get to something 'proper'.

What interests me is that despite the rates of marriage breakdown, and the fact that it is no longer even remotely unusual for a woman to be married more than once, and/or to have children with several men, women don't appear to have taken the obvious step of retaining their birth surnames.

That 'I wanted DH and me to be a team rhetoric doesn't sound so bright-eyed when it's put to you as 'Because you're a woman, you get to change your name arbitrarily depending on your marital status throughout your life, OR be stuck with the name of an ex-husband simply because you gave that name to your children.'

It also makes me laugh when you hear some posters say they changed their names because their name was so boring and their hubsband's so exotic..... and then you'll see another saying she changed her name because hers was furren and hard to spell, while her husband's was a good old English name

Maybe that’s because some people like having an unusual name, others like plainer names and some (like me) just did it for the lolz.

You don’t think every woman changes her name on marriage for the same reason, do you?

@Inis

I read an interview with Louise Redknapp recently and she was asked if she was going to change her name back now that she was divorced. "Oh no! I can't imagine having a different name from my boys!" Of course, she could have pre-empted that by giving her children her name, or both her and their father's name.

But I suspect she just wanted to be Mrs. Redknapp.

Maybe that’s because some people like having an unusual name, others like plainer names and some (like me) just did it for the lolz.

When you say "people" you must really mean "women".

Because my point is no matter how plain/unusual/difficult/ugly etc a man's name will be, he will never change it to a woman's name. Not even the most 'woke', feminist ally man -with a tiny number of exceptions - would do such a thing, and he certainly will not want his children to have his wife's name exclusively.

That's because even the most right-on men will perceive taking a woman's name as a humiliation, yet it's the norm for women to take their man's name.

You don’t think every woman changes her name on marriage for the same reason, do you?

Ultimately yes, I think they do.

If we'd had to choose which last name of the two we'd definitely have gone for mine. Mine isn't hard to spell but it is really unusual. Anyone with my last name is related to me. His was a perfectly good name but very common. Think Potter or Jones.

So we went for Jones-Whojamaflip