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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

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Original poster

Name changing

89 replies

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 03/07/2010 13:52

One of my friends is getting married next year. Her DH-to-be is a meaty man's man and I'm pretty sure he will want her to change her name. She is a young professional and what I would call an informal feminist. Should I talk to her about it? Would it be wrong to persuade her to keep her name?

TBH a lot of (older) women I know now regret changing their names, and professionally at least I'm sure it's a better idea not to change. But i'm aware that my feminist "ideals" also make me groan at the thought of her changing.

Advice needed please!

OP posts:

frikonastick · 03/07/2010 13:59

well, what does she want to do?

i changed name becasue i really didnt like my last name (has embarrasing connotations in english) and my DH has a really cool surname.

if she asks for your support in keeping her name, then i say give it. if she doesnt, well, it doesnt make her a bad feminist.

vesuvia · 03/07/2010 14:02

What's an informal feminist by the way?

Is your friend aware that she has the option to keep her name?

wastingaway · 03/07/2010 14:12

I often wonder about this subject, which surname will any children have?

I had intended to keep maiden name as a middle name, but you have to do that via deed poll and I wanted to get my passport sorted for the honeymoon.
DS has my maiden name as a middle name though.

midtowner · 03/07/2010 14:13

Do you know what she wants to do or are you just guessing?

Could she double-barrel?

FWIW I didn't change mine (dh and I have equally embarrassing names, and when we got married a long time ago I had strong principles ). The only time I get called Mrs xxx instead of first name yyy is at dc's school, and it doesn't bother me that much tbh (it would have done when we were newly married).

midtowner · 03/07/2010 14:16

wastingaway, our children have dh's surname. They have asked why we don't have the same name, and think it quite funny that some of our friends who aren't married have changed/double-barrelled their names so they all have the same name, while we are married and don't have the same name .

happysmiley · 03/07/2010 14:16

I'm in two minds about name changing.

I did, partly because DH wanted me to and partly because I felt it was a given that any children we had would take their father's name and then I'd be the "odd one out" in the family. (If the children took my name then DH would be the odd one out and that would be equally unfair.)

Professionally, it hasn't had much of an effect to be honest.

However, I'm deeply attached to my maiden name because it represents my ethnic and cultural background. Before people knew a lot about me just because of my name. Now people ask me questions about myself that they wouldn't need to ask if I still had my maiden name. I never had thought about that, so it came as a surprise, and is taking a lot of getting used to.

(I have kept a couple of things in my maiden name, my passport and a couple of other things, just because I can't bear to let go completely.)

HerBeatitude · 03/07/2010 14:18

One of my friends changed her name for personal stuff and kept her name for professional stuff.

England is one of the few countries that you are allowed to have multiple names, as long as it's not for a fraudulent purpose.

happysmiley · 03/07/2010 14:19

Re your friend, no harm in mentioning it in a "by the way, do you think you'll change your name" kind of way, but if she's made her mind up, I wouldn't go out of my way to convince her.

sethstarkaddersmum · 03/07/2010 14:23

I know quite a few people who did the changing for personal/keeping for professional thing. It used to work but lately they have run into trouble travelling abroad, particularly to America.
One woman I know had real trouble at Immigration because her passport was in her married name but her conference invitation and the conference programme were in her original name.

happysmiley · 03/07/2010 14:26

I've had stuff like that happen. It's a pain. I just make sure that if I'm travelling abroad, travel docs etc are in my maiden name because my passport is.

midtowner · 03/07/2010 14:32

I have an "observation" in my passport which says "the holder is also known as Mrs first name xxx". I've never had to use it, so don't know if it would work.

The last couple of times that I've travelled to the UK with dc's (we live in the US) the immigration officer at Heathrow has asked how we are related to one another. confused, after an overnight flight, the first time I said we were father and daughter . I was better prepared the second and got it right!

frikonastick · 03/07/2010 14:45

i always carry a certified copy of my marriage certificate (not all my id is in my married name). that always works

BigWeeHag · 03/07/2010 15:05

I genuinely didn't care. I felt that my pre-marriage name was a connection to my father's family that I neither had nor wanted, so it meant less than nothing to shed it.

I quite like the name I have now, I have split with DH but think I'll keep the name, it's a good one.

In my ideal world, we would all choose our own, and they would be meaningful.

MillyR · 03/07/2010 15:11

I am married and have kept my surname. The children also have my surname. I don't think of it as any kind of feminist statement - it is not as if DH has changed his surname to mine.

Original poster

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 03/07/2010 17:42

Thanks for all your responses, it's given me a lot more of an idea of the options that are out there.

But I don't know how I can talk to her about it - won't she think I'm a bit odd to care? Trouble is I think of her DP as being quite controlling already so it's a more emotional issue for me than it should be IYSWIM.

OP posts:

happysmiley · 03/07/2010 17:47

My friends and I have talked a lot about changing our names as each of us has got married. Just a simple, 'what do you think you'll do? have you ever thought about keeping your maiden name' should get the ball rolling.

ImSoNotTelling · 03/07/2010 20:24

Just ask her if she is going to change her name and take it from there.

If she is going to take his name, and he is someone who would not be at all happy with anything else, then trying to persuade her will either a. not work or b. work and cause a whole load of trouble in her relationship. So I wouldn't push it TBH.

As for whether it's an essential feminist thing - I always felt that I would definitely keep my own name on marriage. But when it actually came to it I thought that for various reasons I would change it. Mainly to do with wanting to have the same surname as any children (and DH would not have been happy having a different surname to his children), and practical reasons to do with official type people getting confused. It just seemed easier.

In the scheme of things I think that how people operate in their day to day relationships has more of an impact than what they call themselves. I think people were surprised that I changed my name but knew it wasn't because I had changed IYSWIM.

Would still like to see miss and mrs scrapped and replaced with ms though. That one really annoys me.

ImSoNotTelling · 03/07/2010 20:25

And then eventually a removal of titles indicating gender altogether, I suppose.

wastingaway · 03/07/2010 21:51

I don't think of my name as being that central to my self-construct.

I don't believe in the soul or an immutable essential me anyway, so changing parts of what makes up my sense of self isn't that problematic to me.

I wanted us and any future children to have the same name.

And keeping one's father's name doesn't seem that much more radical than just following tradition of taking husband's name.

Although in the past marriage may have been about the handing over of ownership of a woman, I see it as being in the protectorate of husband and his family. Mothers and infants are vulnerable and to me marriage and being Mrs. .... means that society asknowledges that Mr. .... is responsible for his family.

I think it would be better if we could choose our own names, or have an individual name given in the Native American style Sitting Bull.
Make a clean break from the patriarchal naming system.

msrisotto · 03/07/2010 22:02

I am pondering this one currently as me and DP recently got engaged. I think he is coming round to both of us double barrelling it. I will remain Ms and he/we do want to recognise our union IYSWIM and the potential children surnames dilemma would be slightly easier.

Still, how would it work? You change to yurname-hisname and he changes to hisname-yourname and post to/reservations etc for the both of you gets addressed to both of those names? It's not perfect.

wastingaway · 03/07/2010 22:05

And then when your children decide to marry someone else with a double-barreled name...

msrisotto · 03/07/2010 22:15

yeah! Headache.....

MillyR · 03/07/2010 23:31

When your children marry someone with a double barrel surname, the convention is that they combine the wife's mother's family name with the Husband's father's family name, so that they still only have a double barrel name.

I prefer the Icelandic version - my daughter would be Miss Millysdaughter and my son would be Mr Peterson (if my husband was called Peter).

ImSoNotTelling · 04/07/2010 09:55

It is a bind. I have never been keen on double barrelled names - just a personal thing but I think they're cumbersome. In the event DH already had a double-barreled name so I got that. it's a bloody mouthful! He suggested triple-barrelling when we got engaged but that is clearly ridiculous!

msrisotto - if you double barrell but do it the other way round for you and your OH - then you still have the problem with which version do the kids get? You would also get people who know your DH better referring to you as Mrs his-one, and people who know you better referring to him as mr your-one. I think that would get really irritating quite quickly! You would also get people like eg bank joint account type forms, having a "brain/computer says no" situation all the time.

If I were you I'd just pick one and go with that.

Oh I forgot - of course the other reason that people do what I did ie the traditional method - is that everything is set up for that. The woman just tells the registrar and it's done. Whereas for the man to change, means deed poll. If everyone changes, that's 2 deed polls, and then double of the task of changing the passports, bank accounts, driving licences, everything. Which is bad enougn doing it for one! So I took the 2nd easiest way out - the easiest being keeping your original name and not changing abything. But then you're back to what about the kids? I can't imagine many men would be cheerful about having a different surname to their children.

Rockbird · 04/07/2010 10:02

Why would you care what your friend is doing? I'm sure she's made her own decision about what she'll do. I don't mean to be arsey but let her fight it out herself.

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