Amal Alamuddin has changed her name professionally

[EhricLovesTheBhrothers]

I'm actually disappointed. Her choice blah blah but honestly. Successful women who change their names professionally always strike me as either stupid or coerced and I'm sure that's unfair I'm not really but honestly why be so committed to the concept of the obliteration of the unmarried self that you allow it to impact on your professional reputation and renown?

Exactly Chunderella. If she hated her name, and was prepared to change it, why not do that earlier? Like before she became well-known? No one needs a man to come along to help them change their name, least of all a lawyer.

Much was made of her changing her name for her professional life but not her private one.

Voyager

So liking Notting Hill is the sine qua non of being a hypocritical feminist? I think I liked it; I don't remember much except the guy with the t-shirt that said "Fancy a fuck?"

Vestandknickers I'd have Mr Alamuddin tattoed on his.

"Just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her."

www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/oct/14/amal-alamuddin-or-mrs-george-clooney

I feel frustrated when women who have made their name - really, made their name known through their actions and talent and achievements - then give that name away in favour of the name of a man's name.

I would like to think that they both had equal regard for their respective names and would each have called themselves Clooney Almuddin, or Almuddin Clooney. (she has added his name, not replaced her surname with his).

I would like to see more women challenging the staus quo - that a woman takes her husband's surname, and children take the father's surname. When it isn't taken for granted as a patriarchal custom then whatever people do will be what they actively choose and have no more currency than any other choice. While taking the man's name is the default, it remains a contribution to a patriarchal status quo.

I see that as a matter of fact - but have no judgements about what individual women do. It's up to them.

But it is undeniable that it is the default that women give up their names and children are named after the father. Choose in line with that default, it may or may not affect any view of you, but accept that it is a custom within a patriarchal default.

I don't know who this woman is expect that she married george Clooney but I feel disappointed any time a I see a woman change her name and go by Mrs so I agree op.

I made an unfeminist (anti feminist for many I suspect) when I changed my name. I have made many choices that certainly are not neutral in feminist terms. I wear make up, I shave my legs, I was a SAHM for some years, plus I also have a career now which is of equal importance in our family to DH, an entirely fair division of domestic responsibility, a DH who has made changes in his career to support mine, and so on.

This is such a high profile issue for many. I don't see it as more significant than the others. Sometimes I look at the lives of women who have not changed their name and are vociferous about it, and question whether they are living the principles of feminism more than I. Whether the decisions they make about their lives impact other women and the choices available to them more than this decision of mine. I am not always convinced. I do agree that it is certainly not a feminist choice. Just not that it has the significance over other choices that it sometimes seems to have.

And my name is my name. My mum divorced and remarried, but kept the name she had had for getting on for 40 years. It is her name.

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?

I think I see it as more of an issue than the other things you describe because it is about giving up your identity solely for a man. There's pressure for us to do many things but this is an easy one not to do too! It's not like you feel self conscious if you keep your name like you may do if you don't wear makeup. It's so easy not to change it.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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?