To ask: why wouldn’t you take your husband’s surname?

[Josephinaphia]

Not looking for a row here - just genuinely interested in people’s reasoning behind not changing their surname upon marriage.
I am married and although I have a very unique maiden name which I love, I took my husband’s surname when we married. It was strange at first and a little sad, but now it is my name and part of my identity, as my original name was. We have 2 DDs who both have the surname too.
My questions are:
If you kept your name, what were your reasons? (e.g. you’d already made a name for yourself in your profession)
If it is a feminist issue of ‘ownership’ as some people seem to suggest, why is it any better to be ‘owned’ by your dad, to be known by your dad’s surname?
Is it not complicated having a different surname to your children, does it not get annoying when people assume you are Mrs DH’s surname anyway?
Do your children question why you have a different name?
With the whole double-barelling thing, again is this a feminist issue? To both be equal? But then what is the long-term plan? When your DC get married will they add their surname to their spouse’s surname and potentially have a quadruple-barrel name? And what of the generation after that?
I have a really lovely dad who treats my mum incredibly well and my husband is the same to me, so I’ve never really had a complex about men being superior or me being inferior and just never really saw the issue with having a shared marital, family name - but it seems so common now for women to want to keep their maiden name (their dad’s name) in some capacity and I guess I’m just curious as to why. As far as I can see, taking your husband’s name is the sensible way to do it if you’re going to have family. Double-barrelling in particular is surely just causing problems for your children further down the line?

My friend is a teach and didn't take her husbands name as it started with c o c k.

It was strange at first and a little sad

This is why. I didn’t want to feel strange and sad on my wedding day that I was leaving part of me behind.

As it happened XH would have happily changed to my name instead, he wasn’t that attached to his own and it was an awkward one that needed spelling out. However in the end we double barrelled them.

The DCs have both names officially but DS1 prefers XH’s part of the name and the other two DCs prefer my part of the name so they just use whichever suits them. When/if they marry they will also make a decision about which name(s) they wish to keep and which to discard. Hopefully DD will be aware of the feminist views on the history of marriage and choose to adopt only those parts of it which make her comfortable. Ditto the DSs.

Well you sound very angry Rubicon.

Cultural factors are relevant to me. I’ve explained this. I used the example if my friend, but I could equally have said that those traditions exist within DH’s family too. We have relatives who are in arranged marriages and relatives who are currently arranging marriages for their DC. But I don’t really want to get into all that, beyond the point that there are different perspectives on what is “right” and what is “wrong” (as someone put it earlier) and I think that’s ok.

be changing your own name for that of a man, is only one of the ways that happens. And certainly some women do it through pressure, not thinking or not knowing

A lot of what we perceive as romantic in regard to relationships is patriarchal. From the man ‘chasing’ the woman, who pays for dinner, waiting for a proposal, engagement rings, wedding vows, a lot of the traditions surrounding marriage in particular are patriarchal but our lives are spent being told what is ‘romantic’ and it usually means the man having the choices and us feeling lucky to be chosen. A young woman practising her ‘new name’ Signature when she falls in love is such a well worn trope, and the whole name changing thing is seen as romantic, disregarding the ownership aspects of it.

@30to50FeralHogs Agree completely. It's depressing but true.

I rejected every single one of those aspects, the whole thing turns my stomach.

Rethymon What irritates me is women are so angsty and up on their high horse about taking a man’s name when it’s their husband, yet fail to correlate this patriarchal tradition to the deeper significance of how and why their name in the first place and view it in a wider context.

Can I just point out that, even in Britain, it has not always been a universal convention for a woman to take a man's name. Plenty of landed families have taken the name of the estate, or of the wealthiest individual coming into the family, which may have been female, often double barelling but not always.

My husband's surname, which I didn't adopt, is comprised partly of the surname of a 18th century heiress and partly of the male line. And the heiress's name is not comprised of her father's name, it is the name of an estate which is based on a local topographical feature. There will certainly have been men who had the name before her and passed it down but the name arrived in his family through a woman, and she is the one noted in the history books as the origin of the name in that family.

I wouldn't change my name to that of my husband because I am not my husband. Why would I even consider it? It makes no more sense than taking on his first name. Those are his names, I have my own.

I'm me, an individual first and part of the "Dry" family second. I have no blood relationship with the "DHname" family.

Who would I need a reason not to take my husband's name?

Noone's ever asked him why he didn't take mine.

Why would I, even

Just to add, my children have my name. Why would you assume otherwise?

Several reasons

Didn't want to maintain one name for work and one for outside work
Didn't want the hassle of changing everything
Didn't like his name
Didn't like the in-laws so happy not to share a name with them

I can understand it gets complicated if you have children but if not why does either party have to change their name. Just do it if you want to

Because its been my name since I was born? My birth family is still my birth family and as far as I know, I wasn't sold to my husbands family when I got married. All my achievements are in my name. My husband's name is common, so I would be one of many sparklybanana joneses. Why is this even a question nowadays?

@IABUQueen Excellent explanation. Interestingly even patriarchal Christian societies like the Spanish Catholics and ultra protestant Afrikaners at least incorporate the mother's surname into her marriage name and those of her children.

Little bit of a tangent but OP mentioned it so I thought I would pick up...if you have a different surname from your children, has it ever caused any problems?...…………..
…………..
...…..Are we the exception or is it generally not a problem for most people?

I have never had a problem with having a different surname to my daughter, I am married to her dad/my husband. The only problem I encounter is when complete twits asks me if it makes a difference that I have a different name to my daughter. I find sarcasm is the only answer there.

I couldn't be bothered with the paperwork.
In the country where I was born, I was the only person born with my surname the year I was born (I thought this was cool!).
I prefer my name.
DP's name is very common whereas mine is unusual.
I have published a fair bit under my maiden name (academic).
Neither me nor DP cared much about it (marriage wasn't very important to us, we got married for financial reasons)

I still wince when calling DP my husband and being referred to as Mrs. I think I like that we both have our own identities.

My family tree on my father's side (and paternal grandmothers) goes back over a thousand years. It's very interesting, with a few minor historical figures in it. My husband couldn't even given the first name of his paternal grandparents (he has a stepdad who he has a good relationship with).

Both me and my husband grew up with different names from my siblings. My mum changed her name to my father's name, having a different name from her children - who kept HER maiden name, as they wanted nothing to do with their father. My mum and my sister, for different reasons, even changed their first names.

We've never grown up with the notion that you need the same name as someone to be family, I guess.

(In fact, the following shows how ridiculous is:

My MIL's maiden surname is a first name too - say John.
My husband was given John as a middle name, and his father's surname.
Then his dad died, and his mum remarried - someone with the surname John!)

My DC have both surnames, as do me and DH. I use just my name at work. DH uses just my name at work. Adult DC1 uses just my name all the time. Adult DC2 uses DH's name most of the time. Adult DC3 is married and his DW uses DH's name, but DGC has both.

If any more of them get married or have their own children I expect they will choose which name(s) to use, just like we did. I plan not to be a dick about it, unlike my ILs.

I would keep mine or double it. My reason. Is I have two dc. Eldest from past relationship has my name and youngest from current has both our names. This means that if I changed mine my eldest would feel like a spare part. If his awol father was some how found and consented to changing ds1s name then I would change us all to dps. If not then until my eldest is 16 and can change it himself I would stick with my own name or both. After that when he can change his maybe I would change it over.