Taking partners foreign surname

[AmIBeingCrazee]

Hi all,

Just something I’ve been thinking about lately. I’m a white woman in the UK with an Irish surname. My DP and I have talked about marriage in the future over the past year and it’s made me think. He has a common Asian surname as he is Vietnamese. Think ‘wong’ ‘chang’ ‘nguyen’.

Is it silly to think about in the future if people see my name written down before they see me in person, they would think I’m completely different from what appears by my name. For example my race, which could affect job applications and such.

In my first job my managers name was Ms Ngenda and I was very surprised to see her in person upon meeting as a white lady. Just goes to show preconceived impressions.

Anyone else had a similar experience taking a foreign surname ?

Well said sixteen! I can't believe it took so many posts for someone to say this.

I’m with zappey. Your name is part of your identity and usually reflects your nationality and heritage. Why should women give up their identity to take on their husband’s, if men don’t do the same for their wives?

You don’t have to change your name. You could keep yours. Or both double barrel (but I don’t see why you should if he doesn’t).

One of my colleagues is gay & married to an Arab man- he initially changed his name to the Arabic surname but both men now go by his English surname - I do wonder if they encountered prejudice but am too polite to ask.

In my first job, a small tech company in 1997, I witnessed CVs of people with Asian sounding names being thrown away despite their good qualifications. It was shocking and I did speak out but no one listened.
But that was 20 yrs ago!

My own surname is European sounding and I've been asked many times about my background!!

Why would you take a man's name anyway. Surely this is beginning to be outdated

Maybe because she'd like to? Is t it about having choices?

Actually zappey got their first, glad there have been more posts though!

Last post was to eurochick

Having lived with a foreign sounding name, if I had a second chance, I would change names for both of you on marriage. Do you really want your children explains their name forever more???
Mine was born in UK and only speaks English but he often gets asked if he speaks another language because of his surname :-(

well you wouldn't want to work for a racist company anyway take his name

That’s a bit like a bogof. Sexism chucked in for free if you risk racism.

My dh has a foreign last name. I didn't change it because I didn't want to and the combination sounded weird anyway. My dcs obviously have his surname and I do worry about them facing prejudice when applying for jobs. I remember taking ds1 as a baby to a health centre that did baby weighing. You wrote your name on a list and waited. When the nurse read out ds's foreign name she had a disgusted look on her face. When I stood up with my blonde blue eyed baby, her face completely changed. Racist bitch.

My dcs obviously have his surname

Obviously?

Don’t change your name. Sorted.

I have my mixed race husband's Asian surname. No issues at all, occasional curious comments but it's fine

I think that as you are a woman (and presumably of a vaguely average age to get married?) then most people would be likely to assume at least the possibility of it being a married name if you have a clearly Irish or otherwise Western first name that doesn't "fit" with Vietnamese heritage, e.g. "Siobhan Nguyen" or whatever.

There are so many people around called Jane Singh or Vicky Xyzski (or whatever) that I'd assume they're a Brit married to someone of different origin .

I've taken dh's foreign surname and never encountered prejudice but don't deny that it exists. For that reason I kept both surnames (his and mine) and our dcs have both so they can use both or drop one or the other. I've ended up just using Haffdonga Foreignname most of the time and my major regret is spelling it correctly in dh's language. (Dh's language has sounds that don't exist in English). Endless mistakes have ensued. I just wish I'd gone the phonetic route and used English spelling for the sound.

I THInk the thing about not wanting to work for a racist company needs unpicking too. No one’s suggesting you hand your CV in to the Ku Klux Klan. “Racist company” is a bit of a misnomer imo. Companies have their decisions made for them by people, and the person doing the first sift of applicants could be an HR junior who is racist or prone to stereotyping, even if the company is wholly meritocratic.

Ooooh, me! White British and husband is British Chinese. Changed my name seven years ago when we got married to his name. I often get ‘Oh, that’s an unusual surname!’ comments when people meet me but it doesn’t bother me a bit. If I can tell they are being rude/racist then I will say ‘Is it? Really? Do you think so? I don’t think so.’ and that usually is enough to shut them up. It was important to me to take his name and share this with our children, so it didn’t cross my mind not to. I certainly don’t care whether people think negatively or indeed have any thoughts at all about my name when they see it, I can’t see why it would concern anybody else! If you want to take his name then take it and just ignore any silly comments or surprised faces.

I have my husbands Cantonese surname. Well, I've double barreled it with my Irish surname but I'm still down as Mrs Cantonesename on lots of things.

I don't worry about people being surprised that I'm white. I've actually had a couple of people just assume I'm part Chinese because I'm dark.

The thing that annoys me about it is that nobody knows how to pronounce it. I don't think it can be pronounced in English, so it's been translated in lots of different ways depending on region etc. I wouldn't mind if it was an easy one like Chang.

ihave my ex husbands tanzanian surname and im very white woman with red hair so i get the odd look when i say my surname and though its only five letters i frequently have to spell it for people, in fact im so used to spelling it i automatically say it and then spell it now, a shame i took his name though as we are divorcing and im now stuck with it

@titty sorry how was I sexist?? op wants to take his name but is worried about racism

Why change your name? Its 2018

A good friend of mine is self employed and due to his Polish surname (born and bred in Essex, as were his parents) he rarely got enquiries about work.
He decided to change his surname to a more English sounding diminutive and he got more than double the amount of calls and work.
Sad but true, people do make ridiculous judgements on a name alone.

titty sorry how was I sexist?? op wants to take his name but is worried about racism

I didn’t say you were sexist. Women changing their names is derived from a deeply sexist tradition.

You advised her to face the racism risk by taking an action that is invariably sexist!

I will be taking my partners surname (my choice) when we get married as I don't really like mine and think his is much nicer, and when we have children I want us to all have the same name. He doesn't expect me too as in Italy women keep their own names, but I dare say I'll confuse people as I'm very pale and blonde, but will have a southern Italian surname

@titty tbh I find marriage in general sexist but op only asked for opinions on the name change!

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