Taking DH's surname after 8 years of marriage

[5by5]

I have been mulling over changing my name recently. I didn't change my name when I married for feminist reasons and for weirdness reasons - I found/find the idea of changing your name strange, it must be an odd process to go through.

However, there are a few reasons why I'm thinking of doing it now...

1. I am now NC with my parents and sometimes I don't like this tie I still have to them. I feel much more like DH's family are my family now.

2. We are moving overseas, a fresh start, seems like a good time to do it if I was to do it.

3. My name needs spelling out or people don't get it right. This is trivial.

4. DCs have DH's surname, though my name as a middle name. The more I refer to friends and family groups as 'the So-and-Sos' the more I'd like us to be 'the DHsurnames'. This is also trivial.

Reasons against would be:

1. Moving overseas will be a testing time for our relationship. I fully believe we are strong enough for it to be a great adventure for all of us, but I'd be a fool if I didn't consider the idea that it might all go wrong, and while changing my name back would be a minor point in what I'd be dealing with if it did, it seems like it would be salt in the wound.

2. Still feminist reasons.

What do you think? I haven't mentioned this to DH at all.

By the sounds of it you can call yourself what you like just use the rest of the family surname when you move but tbh it doesnt matter i dont think

I signed with my maiden name but have taken my husband's name.

The "but it was my dad's name not mine" is bonkers. It was your name all your life - everything you did and achieved was in that name- you made it yours.

OP- ask your husband to change his name - make a new family name for all of you. Starting a new life is a fantastic time to do this.but I bet he won't

Following your logic, 5by5, your name is still your name, not your family's. So even though you are NC with them you're still you.

I would agree as well that changing name whilst changing country is just asking for some kind of bureaucracy hell resulting in you being renditioned to Guantanamo or similar.

Personally I would stick with your name for now. You may find moving a long distance from your estranged family gives you more closure than changing your name would anyway.

Change your name to your husband's - I'd really like a rational explanation as to how this may diminish your feminist status.(It doesn't. It just saves your kids a lifetime of not having to explain things and you the same length of time of not having to describe your relationships to children and husband.) Or his to yours, just all have the same name. Double-barrelled names = TACKY....

I haven't had the same surname as my mum since I was 7, Barbara (she remarried). I haven't had a lifetime of explaining things Actually what I have to spend more time correcting is people saying 'your dad's just called'. Really? After closer examination it turns out it was my step-dad, which at least saves me the cost of a phone call to mainland Europe to find out my dad hasn't called!

Your mileage may vary of course!

GiveMeStrength! Why is your name your 'father's name' or your 'husband's name', but not ever actually yours...?

A man's name is his name. He gets to keep it, and go through life unfettered by this concern, nor with having to change his title on marriage.

A woman's name is her name, just as much as a man's name is his name. Men's names were (inevitably) passed down by their father, but nobody discredits their ownership of their name because of that; they only discredit women's right to own - and keep - their name.

I have no axe to grind - I took DH's name after a few years but I defend to the death any woman's wish to keep her own name, and really reject the idea that it's was only ever her father. No more or less than her brother's name was 'just' his fathers...

Barbarasmum - I just have to assume you're in the UK! Because plenty of countries are more forward in this area, and children having different names from parents, especially mothers, really does not come with a lifetime of explanations. It's just accepted as part of modern day life.

The "but it was my dad's name not mine" is bonkers. It was your name all your life - everything you did and achieved was in that name- you made it yours.

Well I only got it due to being my dad's child. So yes it became mine but it's not a name I ever chose and thought 'This is the label I want for all my achievements' like an author or actor might choose a work name.

Whereas I suppose I decided on my first name shortening that everyone knows me by, so I am rather more attached to that than I ever was to a surname.

A man's name is his father's name too. How come a woman having her father's name makes it somehow transitory and impermanent, while a man having his father's name makes it something to be proud of and that it would be unreasonable to ask him to change?

Why is your name your 'father's name' or your 'husband's name', but not ever actually yours...?

I just meant where it came from. I also kind of think my name is just a handy label for everyone else but I don't see it as important to me. I know who I am, I'm with me all the time, (lucky me!), I don't need to call myself anything. In the nicest possible way I am simply ME and fuck everyone else.

Regardless, you're apply inconsistent rules to men and women, even though they inherit, and live with their names until marriage, in the same way.

I changed my name after 18 years of marriage. It didnt matter anything like as much as I thought it would.

Following your logic, 5by5, your name is still your name, not your family's. So even though you are NC with them you're still you. That's true.

Names are weird. I've never felt particularly attached to my first name. There are loads of us for a start. So Firstname Surname was always much more 'me' than just my first name, iyswim.

I'd really like a rational explanation as to how this may diminish your feminist status. I didn't say it did. As a pp said, you can be Mrs DH and still be a feminist. There's no such thing as a perfect feminist, there are no rules which say you are banished from the movement if you don't conform. We all make compromises for an easy life, or have preferences that handily align with societal expectations. But for me, one of the things I felt strongly about was not changing my name when I got married. I just seemed like a really weird thing to do. Now, for the reasons I stated in my OP, I'm rethinking my stance on it, though I'm a long way from taking any action.

I'd sooner chop off my arm and eat it than change my name to that of the man I married. Keeping your name seems to me to be one of the easiest acts of resistance possible to married feminist women and yet it seems they are disproportionately affected by difficult to spell or otherwise aesthetically-unpleasing names...

I don't use DH's surname. We got married 12 years ago when I was 42, I had an established career as a freelance professional, and I have a DS who has his father's surname. I felt very strongly that my DS shouldn't be the 'odd one out' regarding surnames in the family. It made (and still makes) sense for us all to have our own names.

I am also an old-fashioned lefty 70s-stylee feminist! But regardless of all that, I seriously couldn't be arsed with the bureaurocratic bollocks and expense involved, the loss of my professional 'Brand', (DHs name is v. 'usual', mine isn't) and the dilution of my, well, personal idenitity.

I REALLY didn't want to disappear off the radar in a digital media sense - think FB, LinkedIn, FriendsReunited etc. Women can become invisible when they change their names - old friends and contacts cannot trace you. Think about that.

You are in a different position however and I can understand why you might want to make a change, given your circumstances. Moving to a more patriarchal culture complicates things enormously.

But think very seriously about it. It's a huge deal.

I think if you want to do it, do it and to heck what others (family, friends, feminists) think about it

Thanks everyone. I wish I could say it has helped, but I'm still very much in two minds - interesting to hear from people who have changed after many years of marriage and it was no big deal, but also interesting that I'm nodding along with those who would never change their name.

it seems they are disproportionately affected by difficult to spell or otherwise aesthetically-unpleasing names... Yep, I'm aware of this phenomenon. Especially when the woman having the unusual or difficult name is a reason to change, but the man having the unusual name is the reason for him to keep it. However, while mine isn't unusual or difficult, there is a very common mistake people make which means I have to spell it out every time, and each time a little niggly voice says, well, there's another option on this you know...

Gah.

I've been married for 15 years with two pre-teen DC. I've kept my own surname (DCs have DH's) and still feel as strongly as ever against changing mine, I agree with RobinsonsSquash that it's one of the easiest, most visible, stands for feminism you can make, alongside refusing to use Mrs. Easy because you literally do nothing, visible because we use names all the time. A lifetime of explaining as a PP puts it is a lifetime of having a ready made conversation starter about feminism, which is great. It has really never been a hassle having a different surname to the DCs either.

In your case I also think that moving abroad is going to be a huge change as it is for you without changing name as well.

I kept my name because it's my name. It's not because I'm passing on the family name for my father. Like the OP says. It's my identity for 30 years before I got married. People from school and university remembered me as Myname Mysurname. I'm very attached to that identity. If I change my surname then I feel I have given up my old image.

My children has my husband surname, and not mine. And mine isn't even listed their middle names. I don't mind at all. To me they have to have a name. My 4yo is already proudly telling everyone she is Hername Hersurmame. Funnily she told her dad he can't be Hersurname because it's her name.

Incidentally, I'm ethnic Chinese and we always kept our own surname after marriage. I know my mum and both my grandmothers birth names. So maybe that make me see my name as mine, and not something belong to my father.

However OP do whatever you like. It is your name and you are free to change it to whatever you decide.

Sounds sensible to me. I always wanted to be a unit with my DH and children rather then my brothers and their children.

My wife and I talked about this subject when we got married. I made it very apparent to her that she could keep her last name - if she wanted to. I find the behavior of changing the women's last name is unequal to the man, and thus women need just as much of a choice as men do when changing their name. The idea that women are compelled and many times forced do this behavior is not fair to women... and yes as a feminist I find it is degrading of women and making them seem more like property than people. Why change names at all? I find it weird and dominating. hint hint. Keep your name... there are many women across the globe that did not have a chance.

Tbf I had a couple of surnames before i got married my mum remarried my biological dad didnt really bother with me and my names was changed to my step dads surname so i was quite happy to change my name when i got married as the othersurnames i had didnt mean that much to me

I didn't change my Surname. My children have my DH's surname. I wouldn't change it, and see no reason ever to.
Two big advantages:

1. when a phone caller calls me Mrs DHname, I instantly suspect they are a salesman, certainly don't really know me.
2. my name also needs spelling out, because its unusual - DHs is very common, it makes me stand out.

I certainly wouldn't change it now. In fact at least one of my DC at present plans to change hers to mine when she's older.

Also lots of cultures and countries women do not change their surname, and sometimes the surname has a totally different origin. Look at Portugal or Iceland.

What I find fascinating that even women who keep their own names seem to assume that children will have their father's name. Why?