To ask why you changed your name if you are married?

[Danni290]

This isn't to knock anyone that has made this decision - I truly believe each to their own.

I haven't changed my name and get a hard time particularly from men about it.

I totally understand why the family should have the same name - that makes total sense to me.

But what I don't get is why in 2020 this is purely dictated by gender? And why so many women go along with it without question?

Just wanted your reasons, AIBU to think it's a really archaic way of doing things?!

Why can't we choose the surname depending on whose we like the most, like we do with first names?

I use both names just to be a pain. And my dh uses my 'maiden' name when ordering food or a taxi or booking a table.

I wanted us and our future children to have the same name, and nobody could ever spell my maiden name, and even at times told me I was saying it wrong!!! Plus I had bad memories from hearing my full name with the maiden name (ex fiance ran up a lot of debt in my name and I hated hearing people at the door or on the phone asking for me) So I was glad to get rid of it really 😂

Oh and absolutely no one over the years has had an issue with it except exH and exPILs.

@BerryPieandCustard almost identical situation here.

I didn’t change my name because I love my name. My surname is my Dad’s first name which makes me love it more.

Our child has my husband’s first name as their surname so we all have different surnames.

‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet’ Shakespeare

I changed my name and, being honest, have regretted it ever since. It's such an archaic and patriarchal thing to do.

Because he refused to take mine and I wanted us to all have the same surname. 10 years in it was a mistake

Because when paired with my first name it's more lyrical when I introduce myself than my maiden name.

Seriously? It was just bloody easier.

I wanted the same family name and my husband absolutely would not change his. I like us all having the same name but I regret changing it and would live to change it back but it’s too much work.

@AnotherEmma well I'm sorry but it wont be wiped out as long as poor little damsels like me exist, owned by my husband because I took his name. And I love it 🤣

I didn't. My name is mine.

So are you sort of saying @AnotherEmma that as a woman I cannot make an objective decision about which surname I chose to take but as a feminist woman you are entitled to tell me what I should do?

I am firmly in the OP and Anotheremma camp!
Where the choice is an actual choice, many of the posters who have posted here suggest they changed their name under varying degrees of duress. This makes it a little bonkers because the woman is changing their name because of tradition and having to do all the changing of official documents for the honour of becoming the property of their husband!
Changing your name because you don’t like your maiden name and you prefer that of you spouse makes more sense to me...

1. My last name was a name often used as a first name for boys, think Warren, James etc.
2. People regularly used the wrong spelling for it, even when I spelled it out loud for them.
3. In one particular job, I often received replies to emails addressing me as my male last name e.g Dear Warren or Dear Mr Warren even though I'd signed off previous emails with my first, fairly obviously female, name e.g. Hannah
4. My brother has had his first name and last names swapped more than once because both are common in either position e.g. name is William Warren and he gets called Warren.

I wanted to avoid all of the above for me but also for any future children we might have. DH's last name would (and has) achieved that so that's what I changed mine to when we got married. Our DC are very pleased I did.

I didn’t change my name and I am really surprised how much of a problem it is for other people. Including my quite feminist friends. They all either changed their name or gave their kids the husbands name. None gave the children their name and kept their original.

I do get judged for it. My friends tell me quite defensively that they feel like such a family all with the same name - making me feel quite small as because I didn’t, my family had different surnames within it. MIL insisted on calling our children by DH’s name (when it was in fact mine!). Wrote separate cards to them. My family made fun ‘oh we know who wears the trousers in that relationship’.

It has been a real eye opener! For the worst really. It’s made me feel like I really stand out as some awful strident person when I’m actually quite private. It is like my decision is public property.

To have same name as my dc and dh

I suppose it did because it felt like a traditional sort of thing to do. Wish I hadn’t though, now we are divorcing!

I like new things.
I'd had the old one for 23 years and was bored.

And I could never ever get my signature really nice.
My DH name came with S and Ts and they swirl better.

I didn't change mine for the first few years of marriage, then changed my mind and changed it for these reasons:

• Annoying maiden name with three separate words, could never be found at doctors, dentists etc, hard to spell and pronounce, always wrongly spelled
• Maiden name came from my mum's stepdad who she only knew for a year of her life age around 6
• Wanted same name as DCs
• Fancied trying out being traditional (I come from an unconventional family so for me being traditional was kind of rebelling)
• Fancied a change

Sometimes I think I should have stuck to my maiden name and having changed my name makes me feel a bit old-fashioned and non progressive compared to my friends who kept their own names. But overall my married name is just easier to say, spell and be found in computer systems.

My name is my name, DH and I had been together for years and had DC before we got married, so it would be odd to change.
DC have DH's name , his parents are both dead and his DSis changed her surname, so he was the only one left until DCs came along.
My family surname has no history with it, it's my name but I'm happy for it to end with me!

To answer OP’s question of why our child has their Dad’s name rather than their Mum’s name, it is because we don’t care enough about it to not follow tradition.

We would both consider ourselves feminists, quite non-confirming to traditions, rather different in our views and opinions- so not submissive or passive by any means. But for us, we don’t feel too bothered by it and so did not give it any headspace.

I changed my name because I wanted to have the same surname as my husband and son. But:
My maiden and married names are equally crap.
My maiden name will continue (my brother has two boys) whilst my husbands family name would die with us.
I don’t feel my identity is tied to my maiden name -I feel ‘me’ beyond what people call me.

So I think you are right, we should stop automatically taking the man’s and agree on individual cases.

Thinking about it, DH and i did discuss him taking my name or double barrelling. That wouldn't have worked though (would have been very close to a famous actor but slightly different enough to look like we were copying his name rather than it being an accident, if you see what I mean). DS was born before we were married and has my maiden name. I found out after DH died that he believed his own surname was unlucky and didn't want DS to be cursed with bad luck because of his name - i always believed that we chose to give him my maiden name because the name would die out otherwise. I had no idea DH was so superstitious, but he told my dad in confidence one day. He would have preferred to change to my name but I was so keen to take his name (for the reasons I gave in my last post) that he didn't push it.

Historical sexism. When all this taking his name stuff kicked off women were property first owned by the father, then sold to her husband for a Dowry. She was literally his property, so of course she had to have his surname as a sign of ownership.

It doesn't mean the same thing these days, it's just thousands of years of tradition.

It’s sex, not gender.

Tell the men to get lost. Ask them why they didn’t take their wives names, with an innocent look on their faces.

I kept my last name and my ‘Ms’ title. My DS has my surname and DH’s surname double barrelled.

Why on earth should children just get the Dad’s name when it’s the woman who carries the child, gives birth and (let’s face it) will do the majority of childcare and worrying about the child throughout its childhood?

*your face