Name changing

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

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!

Why not suggest that he take her name?

I have two friends where the man was going to take the womans name - nicer names and otherwise would be the end of the line for the name.

In the end they never got around to it and now they do the traditional thing -I think a lot of people take the path of least resistance TBH.

I also changed my surname because I don't like my maiden name. I struggled with the spellign and ugly, hard sound for years and it wa s relief to change it to something softer and prettier.

I have kept my maide name as a middle name for professional purposes - so I am First name- Maiden Name- Married Name at work, iyswim.

I don't think you have any place suggesting she keep her name or otherwise - totally her decision. I am a feminist, btw, and generally do agree that the whole 'taking your husband's name just because' thing is outdated patriarchal nonsense. I just don't think you can force these opinions on friends - gets too messy.

can't force, sorry

mrsrisotto what you're proposing sounds a bit odd TBH. We double barreled to become Mr and Mrs Myname-Hisname. The children are all Myname-Hisname as well.

DH took out a deed poll but I didn't. The deed poll he signed says "I take this name for myself, my wife and future issue". So in point of fact I have never actually changed my name officially.

As to what happens with the next generation, well that is up to them. DD has already said she will probably combine Myname with her DH's name when the time comes, and lose her father's name altogether. One of the DS's plans to just use DH's surname (but presumably that would depend on any future spouse agreeing). I'd like one of them to keep my name but if they don't well that is their choice.

Blimey.

Is there a deed poll form that I can sign saying "I take this name for myself, my husband, and future issue"?

Eh?

She is probably aware that it is perfectly possible to keep her name if she chooses to. Its not unusual of uncommon so its unlikely that she won't have come across the idea before. Her choice to change or not will depend on how much she is bothered by the principle, what her dh feels about it and what his thoughts mean to her, what her relationship with her father and her fathers family is like and which name she likes the sound of, which name will be better profesionally and if she is bothered by the logistics of having a different name to her dh and possibly her dcs. Its not as straightforward as if you are a feminist you must keep your name and if you don't you it must because you a married to a controlling bully. Do you think you are letting your unease about the man she is marrying colour your judgement of her being able to make the choices she wants?

I consider my first name to be my name and my last name to be my family name. I love having the same family name as my dh and dcs as well as my bils and sils and dns. I wouldn't be at all bothered about having the name of my cousins who I've never met. Its a personal choice and not an antifeminist statement.

wrt your friend I think you would be patronising wrong to try and persuade her. If she has to be talked into it I can't see any good coming of it tbh. Asking her if she is changing or not might make her think about it if she hasn't already.

I ended up taking my husband's name.
I found being a daughter more oppressive than being a wife.
I chose to separate myself from the daughterly oppression by symbolically severing and recreating my identity through my name.
You can choose your husband, not your family.
I love my family, but it was something I had to do.
If I hadn't wanted children, I wouldn't have got married to anyone.
My kids' first names were chosen exclusively by me and they have my husband's sir-name, which I'm not that happy with on the whole, but I do feel that because the children came from me and are therefore more part of me, I want my husband to have a fatherly claim on them which I let him do by giving them his name.
Professionally I vary between my maiden name and married name. My passport is in my maiden name. I haven't changed my name with the bank etc. I'm Welsh, and culturally the Welsh are used to varying the way they use their names. Many Welsh people refer to themselves by their middle name, for example. It's not set in stone. I added a middle name onto my daughter's passport when she was one in case she doesn't like her first name when she's older and can use the other one.

I didn't marry my husband for children ( my post did rather sound like that, didn't it!). I just mean that if I hadn't desired children, I would just had a long monogomous affair with him until it petered out. I wouldn't have got married.

I'm from Welsh stock too Sakura, had a long, difficult maiden name I've burdened DS with as a middle name.

One of my Dad's friend's sons has taken a new name, relating to the local river, I think it's a stage name and there's a tradition of taking a 'bardic' name too I think.
People are often known by nicknames there too, Dai Bread etc.

I took dh's name and consider myself to be a feminist. I'm certainly not oppressed, nor would I assume that someone who kept their maiden name was more free than someone who didn't. It sounds like the question you'd really like to ask is not are you keeping your name, but why are you marrying the "meaty man's man" in question, and is he controlling you?

I don't consider myself defined by either my father's name or my husband's. Probably because the names are very similar and I have a very unusual first name. I tend to just use my first name, but in my professional world that's quite acceptable.

LouAnn & Nooka - you are right, that's why I pointed out in my last post my slight unease with her DP. I know it's colouring my judgement.

I'm not going to try to persuade her not to change - in a serious way anyway. But I'm her "feminist friend" IYSWIM and want to have the chat in case she would rather not change, then at least she would know that one person at least would think it's perfectly normal to stay the same. A lot of people obviously still think it's odd (not on this thread, but IRL) for the woman to keep her own name/anything other than the "tradition". So I want her to know it's normal to at least think about the options.

So the problems are:

1. At heart I think it's a crap institution that the woman's name is traditionally the one to be changed, just one reason why women are so hard to follow through history etc

2. I'm not that fond of her DP

3. I know that he tries to control her in other ways and I'm worried about them getting married and her being legally bound to him.

Obviously changing her name is not the most important decision she's making here. But I would love her to assert herself about this (esp as she has a good career built in her current name) to continue this step of their relationship on an equal footing. Am I being stupid?

I don't think you are being stupid. You obviously care about her. You just need to be careful that you are supportive and that you are not following your own agenda re. the name changing, otherwise you may just alienate her when possibly she really needs a good friend.

I guess you have to think whether what you really want is for her to force this issue because that might show up the DP as controlling and she will then have second thoughts about the marriage? My best friend didn't like my DP (at least she didn't like our relationship I think) and it was a part of why our friendship withered a bit. I thought that she was asking lots of really intrusive questions, but I'm sure she felt she was looking out for me. Perhaps she was, but it didn't feel very supportive at the time. If you can have a neutral conversation then no problem at all.

Thanks nooka, I'm aware that if she's marrying this bloke she needs her friends to stand by her, even when he makes this difficult at times.

I will try up to bring this up "neutrally" (fingernails stuck into palms probably!) and not come across as a PITA. As I am naturally a PITA, this may be tricky

Out of interest, what kind of questions did you find "intrusive"? I need to know what not to wear say!

God I hope that wasn't one of them.

i am getting married this year and LOADS of people have asked me what i intend to do so i wouldn't worry about raising the question with your friend.

i am going to play it by ear i think.. keep my maiden name for work and on my passport as long as it lasts (another 7/8 yrs) but might consider using my 'married name' if we have children, at least for their school stuff.. i don't forsee a huge problem in having two names, i'll tuck a copy of my marriage certificate in with my passport so i always have it if need be.

Congratulations fluffles. FWIW I think fluffles is a lovely name

I love the way you make it sound so easy! It should be, after all.

I agree with the others who are saying not to push it - after all she may have perfectly good reasons for wanting to change her name, if she does want to.

LouAnn - I think it's all very well to say "She is probably aware that it is perfectly possible to keep her name if she chooses to. Its not unusual or uncommon so its unlikely that she won't have come across the idea before.". I agree that it's not that unusual, but I do think a lot of people don't think about it or think of it as something that applies to them iyswim, depending on what others do around them. Certainly worth bringing it up with her, without pushing.

Sorry E&M I'm afraid I can't remember - almost 15years ago now. It was just fairly obvious she thought I was doing the wrong thing (or at least needed to think about it a lot more!). Although I think one of her main concerns was that I should be checking out more guys before getting married, so a bit of a different agenda I guess.

I'm not married, but just to reassure people about a family having different names, I am MyName, dp is HisName, and our dcs are Myname-Hisname.

We have never had the slighted difficulty with this, we have travelled a lot all over the world, and never had any queries about our 3 different names. The children are happy with their last name - it's never been a problem at school, hospital, drs.

So don't feel you have to change your name becaue life will be difficult if you don't.

This is an interesting thread for me, I'm getting married very soon and I always swore I'd stick with my maiden name. Except my DP is the only one in his family with his surname (he changed it to distance himself from his abusive family) and despite adoring my family name, I love the idea of being the first generation of his chosen family name.

It's made me wonder if people are looking at us and thinking I've gone back on myself due to pressure rather than choice. It's an interesting thought.

At least it is more common now for it to go either way, one of my friends has double barrelled her name and her husbands - insisting her name was first of course

I think it's very personal.

A friend of mine who is a feminist happily changed her name to her husband's because he has always treated her with respect and her father (whose name she obviously had) was both a flawed individual and a useless parent.

So although I'd never change my own name.... I don't think I'd talk somebody else in or out of changing theirs.

It's tricky, it's just the loss of identity that I find a hard concept to swallow.

For example today, I was writing a list of people to be considered for a certain role. I wanted to put down a couple of women who have married in the past few years. I couldn't remember their names. These are people I know and have known for ages but because they changed their names when they got married I can't look them up in the phonebook or find them on the internet. You end up with a choice to either put down their former name and hope someone can remember what she changed it to, or note down an identifying feature FFS (e.g. Emma works-in-marketing).

This is an interesting Polemic Against Name-Changing @ Bitch PhD. I seem to remember them posting something around the same time, in response to it, at Pandagon as well.

Oh I like it.

When I heard the news I did ask her boyfriend brightly "so how are you looking forward to becoming Mr Friendssurname?" He was deeply unamused.

I was thinking earlier, if I were to [have a sudden brain transplant and then decide to] change my name, it would annoy me every time I talked to someone who had kept theirs. Like they had cheated the system somehow?

It would probably even annoy me to see someone else still retaining my (former) surname - everyone else in my family then. Not good.