Surname change after marriage

[CalmDownPacino]

This probably seems trivial but is really bothering me and I don't have the right responses to people! Getting married in a few weeks, am not changing my name. Some people have asked if I'm changing my name and I've said no. The responses I get are mainly "well you'll still legally be Mrs Blah even if you pretend not to be". As far as I know this isn't true but I don't know if I'm right, nor do I have the right reply when people say this to me. As I said, I know it's no biggie but it's really irritating me.

I kept my name when I got married. Mil pretty much had an argument with me about it at the reception (that makes it sound significantly posher than it was, we went to the pub for lunch). Her husband laughed himself silly at me turning all her arguments back at her. "If you really loved him you'd want to have his name" I turned into "well if he really loved me he'd want my name. Looks like we don't love each other, better call it off"

We had the dcs before we got married too. Dd1 has my surname, dd2 has his. We're all still a family. It's unusual, but it works for us.

My mum accepts that I've kept my own name, but she thinks it's because I didn't want to leave dd1 as the only one with our surname (dd1 is mine only, so we obviously given my surname as her "father" was not involved in any way). I would have kept my own name anyway, and if I'd wanted to change my name then we could have changed dd1's name at the same time. But I wasn't giving up my identity (I'm a teacher, I spend my whole life being called Ms Dragon) just because I happened to get married. Who can be bothered to do all that paperwork?

Perhaps taboo is too strong a word, but where and when I grew up it was definitely seen as very very odd not to change your name on marriage (rural Westcountry). And I admit that my mother's perspective on these matters probably coloured my views too - she still thinks that anyone who is a Ms must be divorced (the D word to be said with a slight sniff of disapproval...)

Rings absolutely aren't compulsory! Vows are in so much as you have to clearly state that you are legally free to marry and fully consent to marrying the individual next to you. You don't to honour and cherish them, or "with my body I thee worship" or anything like that if you don't want to

I didn't change my name. My MIL in particular is annoying about it and seems to think that legally my name is now my DHs... even though it isn't. So yea some people can be annoying about it but you learn to ignore them.

I'm 35, got married in 2014 and I would say 95% of my friends who have since married have changed their names; I thought not changing would become more common than it has.

I've since sadly lost my Dad very suddenly and it has made me absolutely sure that I made the right decision. I associate my surname with him and am so glad I have it to keep a little of him with me ❤️

I’m in my fifties and got got married in the last century. I kept my name and have never regretted it and it’s a very common British surname. I use my husbands name for restaurant bookings and take always, because it’s a lot nicer than mine and far more unusual.

I did also think that many more women would keep their names in the future and that doesn’t seem to have happened - yet!

I'm 35, got married in 2014 and I would say 95% of my friends who have since married have changed their names; I thought not changing would become more common than it has. me too! In fact I’m disappointed that so many of my friends changed theirs. It makes me seem very strident rather than just normal. I feel exposed, and it is harder than following the norm.

Sorry you lost your Dad.
I've since sadly lost my Dad very suddenly and it has made me absolutely sure that I made the right decision. I associate my surname with him and am so glad I have it to keep a little of him with me ❤️

I’m glad that you did. I too am quite proud now of my name. It would be easy to have changed it. It IS very hard to spell! And quite rare. Yet it’s mine, it’s MY history, not a mans history that I met. It might be through my Dad, but it is on my genes and my make-up. It was good to be divorced and not have to carry on with my exes name. Or change back. It gave me a sense of steering my own path through life.

My children have my name too. And it makes us feel like a very strong unit. Even though I’ve been a single parent. It gave us stability, no one asks if I’m the mum, my kids don’t have to explain why their mum has a different name to them. My kids feel especially close to my side of the family, and we joke that we are all ‘x surname’. That’s natural as despite all the talk of equality, me, like thousands of other mothers, have done the lions share of parenting. Why not reflect this in the name?

That's really bad that you were told rings are compulsory when they're not at all!

On the taboo point, that's perhaps a slightly strong description, but I suspect the majority of us who have kept our names who aren't from a culture where that's done by the majority have had to weather at least some disapproval, deliberate misunderstanding, strops, invention of non-existent laws and stupidity on the matter.

Why do so many women still change their name? I mean, why hasn't it become a challenged issue in the way so many other equality issues have been?

I grew up in very traditional part of the world, but still I assumed that women changing names would be over by my generation, in the same way that we were always being taught, 'well, women had to leave the civil service when they were getting married, women really weren't encouraged to work when they had kids, women weren't allowed mortgages on their own, women didn't have bank accounts etc'. All of these things were true for my mother's generation. It was a staggeringly different way of life - we have gone from assumed dependency and subordination to a general assumption that women can and will be educated, financially emancipated and independent in fifty years.

I really, genuinely thought there would just be an add-on to that; 'and THEN, children, in those days women weren't allowed even to keep their own names, but had to give them up and be known only by their husband's name. Imagine THAT!' cue general horror etc.

Instead I'd say 95% of my friends indeed have bolted to the loo mid-reception to update their fb profile with new name. And it definitely makes some people offended/upset that I didn't change mine.

Also, my DH is from a hyper-masculine, hyper-traditional culture, but he doesn't give a f**k that I haven't changed. Why do some men (and women) care so much and others not at all?

Why have so many things changed so dramatically, but this hasn't? It's very curious.

Waxmyballs yes yes on the disapproval, refusal to accept it, almost slight social rejection where I am. It'd probably be easier just to not wear my wedding ring and then I'd just be an 'unmarried mother' who had her own name.

@KennDodd love your username. LOL at the idea of a man suggesting it. But when I talk to younger women I despair. It's as if they no longer need feminism - it's all old hat to them.

That sounds very difficult. I've never had anything as bad as that, just occasional incidents of dickishness. But I think it's very clear that for many of us, it isn't something we can simply be allowed to do. Ironic really, when so many are keen to frame the discussion in terms of choice. My choice is to have what men have and keep their own names and neutral titles, without it causing any pushback. It's not been quite forthcoming.

I do think there are elements of wanting to show you're taken and it being a status thing, tbh. I married young, earlier than any of my friends, and consciously rejected that. The ones who'd been single for longer seemed particularly keen to name change.

Agree 100% with @Nativityriot. I think we live in the same country.

The FB updating has me laughing and crying - its so true.

There was an AIBU thread not long ago from someone who was indignant that her mate had changed her name on FB a few days before the wedding. It was quite something.

Never changed my name. Nobody has a problem with this, except my MIL, who has is explained to her regularly, but is extraordinarily stupid and probably won't ever get it.

I've since sadly lost my Dad very suddenly and it has made me absolutely sure that I made the right decision. I associate my surname with him and am so glad I have it to keep a little of him with me

I am the same. Since I lost my Dad it has made me 100% convinced that I am keeping MY name. I planned to anyway but I feel like I have more reason to now he isn't here anymore.

Some people seem quite angry about this as a ‘thing’. I see it as an advantage that I was socially allowed to change my name to one I liked better without causing offence to the wider family.

Mine was a name which identified me as part of a nationality into which I did not feel a huge draw. I was born and brought up in the UK and had little contact with my father’s home nation. My first name was not from that nationality but was a common English one. I liked changing to a more usual surname which raised no comment.

I had forgotten before this conversation that I didn’t actually change my name for about five years - only did it when I changed jobs and my passport was due for renewal. Nobody in the family particularly cared or commented.

My brother didn’t do this, he went the other way and gave his children names from our father’s nationality - so that their names ‘matched’ their surname better.

Mine was a name which identified me as part of a nationality into which I did not feel a huge draw. I was born and brought up in the UK and had little contact with my father’s home nation. My first name was not from that nationality but was a common English one. I liked changing to a more usual surname which raised no comment.

Well yes.

But as many of us have pointed out, an equal number of men have names they don't like, for whatever reason. Yet a vanishingly small number of men abandon those names and adopt a woman's instead, much less allow their children to have that woman's name exclusively. As you say, your own brother didn't do so.

So whatever way you look at it, it is a highly gendered decision. There are almost no men who take a woman's name, yet women do the reverse all the time.

Yes it’s not always so much the name change as the speed and eagerness to change Instagram handles etc. Or the woman I knew who bought embroidered bed linen etc with E.g. “Mrs Smith” on and her mum put them on when they were away on honeymoon. Can’t be starting married life without your correct name on your sheets and towels, can you?

The children having men's names is also interesting. I didn't take DH' name. (And I've used a version of the "that's okay Karen, I'll just call you Nancy from now on" suggestion from page 1, successfully! )

However both DC have DH name. Both DH and I are fully aware that this is not a particularly feminist decision and it was discussed at length. DH strongly wanted us to do something like give DC1 one name and DC2 mine. Or perhaps split it by girls/boys. He did have a real sense that he wanted a child with his name - which we both attributed to a slightly irrational but nonetheless real feeling generated from spending his entire life assuming his children would have his name.

I was the one who resisted giving the DC different names. Intellectually, I think his boy/girl suggestion was a good one. However, I couldn't face it. I took so much heat when I refused to take his name from the weirdest corners - family, friends, colleagues and random strangers - that I didn't feel I was willing to fight the fight about why we were giving the DC different/my name. I completely accept that was not a particularly feminist decision, and I own it as such.

DH still makes name noises. He's repeatedly said if the DC want to take my name in due course he'd be understanding, especially as his name isn't english and is weirdly difficult for English people to manage (it's not a particularly complicated foreign name IMO). He's even more supportive of the idea of DD taking my name down the line if she lands up being the rampant feminist I am!

Broadly though, I agree. If you choose to take your DH name, I think it's sensible to at least consider what decision you make. We don't have to make decisions that fit with all our feminist goals all the time, but the lack of thought before 99% of my friends rushed off to change to Mrs DHName always disturbs me.

I tried double barrelling but it was a huge inconvenience. Having to say Comet-DHname every time and spell it along with the hyphen was a PITA. It didn’t fit on those forms with little boxes. I changed my name on two bank accounts before I got bored and decided I couldn’t be bothered changing everything else. So I just kept my maiden name.

DS has my name as a middle name and DH’s surname. Mostly because I found it a PITA for the week that I used a double barrelled name and I didn’t want to inflict it on DS for life.

"especially as his name isn't english and is weirdly difficult for English people to manage"....exactly the reason many women give for adopting their DH's name .

IMO the issue isn't why women change their names, but why men don't change theirs. I believe reasons include:

Having grown up expecting not to
Having grown up with the understanding that men 'pass their names on' , and women do not, re-inforced by other family members. Men see themselves as the core of of dynasty, women are seen as joining men's dynasty, not the other way round.
The sense that adapting and change is a lower status thing to do in a relationship - the woman changes her circumstances to the man's and maintaining the status quo is the dominant position
Much of the language and traditions of marriage are around men acquiring women. Does Jeremy Kyle ever say to a woman of a man 'put a ring on it'? The woman becomes part of the man's 'brand' , emphasised by changing her name to his.
Populist sexist crap - men assuming that men 'under the thumb' change their names or double-barrel, women 'don't love them enough to get married' etc but this is never reversed.

Why do so many women still change their name? I mean, why hasn't it become a challenged issue in the way so many other equality issues have been?

Romance, innit.

That and the number of men apparently “not accepting” any other options.