Anyone know of any stats on name changing after marriage?

[anotheronebitthedust]

I'm at the age (28) when facebook suddenly makes the change from photos of nights out to endless wedding albums - but scrolling through it today I suddenly realised that pretty much every single woman close to my age I have as a 'friend' on fb has changed their name after their wedding. Not most, not even almost all - every single one!

Most of these friends are from school/uni/work/travelling so are within 2-3 years of my age, some left school at 16 but majority have at least a degree, lots with masters, post grads, etc. They come from, and now live, all over the UK, so some still in the smallish town I grew up in but many others from all over the place. Several either have previously, or currently do, live abroad. So a fairly wide spectrum of my age group.

It really surprised me. When I was in my late teens I thought it was getting more and more common a) not to marry at all in a ltr and b) not to take the husband's name. However in the last few years it seems like both trends have completely reversed and I wondered if anyone knew of any stats that back up if my personal experience is/isn't reflective of the UK generally.

I'm not necessarily bothered by it - although some of the reasons I had from the friends I asked about it did make me ) I would imagine most of them have made reasoned decisions why they name changed and are happy with it. It just struck me that if it was a true choice, then the likelihood would be that not everybody would happen to make the same choice and that therefore, for whatever reason, perhaps it isn't as much of an actual choice... - I know this is incredibly badly expressed but hope you get the gist of what I mean!

The name changing thing really annoys me because there is absolutely no reason why men shouldn't change their surnames upon marriage at the same rate women change theirs, but they barely ever do. It is so clearly completely sexist and not a free choice - if it was a free choice then the numbers would be equal, not nearly always women doing it. If it's purely about what people want to do then why do women always apparently want to lose their surnames and men nearly always want women to take theirs?

Amy

You could ask, but I doubt you insisting would go any better than him insisting you did it would!

I also think we are all known as our names for 20-30 years, why should anyone change?

Maybe insisting is the wrong way of putting it. Marriage doesn't particularly appeal to me (easy to say I know, maybe in years to come I may feel differently), but if it were to happen I'd like my potential husband to change his name. I'd like to think the kind of man I'd be with would be happy to. I don't think it's the same as men have been insisting women change their surnames for generations, and still do.

If there was complete equality then I'd agree no-one should change, but as women overwhelmingly still do, for reasons grounded in sexism and the man insisting, I think more men need to change their surnames upon marriage. Also if I ever have children then no matter what I would absolutely insist they had my surname, I'd be the one who'd given birth to them after all, why on Earth should a woman go through all that only for the father's surname to automatically be given?

"for reasons grounded in sexism and the man insisting"

I agree that the reasons are grounded in sexism, but I'm not sure how many men insist, vs it being more of a societal expectation/norm.

I wouldn't want to change my name because it's mine and has been all my life, I wouldn't change it to yours to make a political point, though I see your logic.

OP if you're still interested in some research on the topic discoversociety.org/2013/11/05/whats-in-a-name-gendered-naming-practices-and-identity-in-britain/