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!

"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?"

Elephants, I hyphenated when I married at 24, which in my mind at that age was a feminist compromise. I've regretted it ever since, pretty much, but not done anything about it because, well, it's been eight years now, all my professional qualifications are in this name, I'd have to apply to the Bar Association to get it changed on their Rolls, etc., etc.

And I do feel like other women cheated the system! It's totally irrational of me, because my husband never cared one way or the other - in fact he assumed I'd just keep my name and was surprised when I hyphenated - it was a more nebulous patriarchal expectation I was bowing to, I fell for the mythical "it's my father's name" crap, etc.

So, my fault, my bad, but grrr, I am always annoyed when I meet women who were smarter than I was, and kept their names.

"Many Welsh people refer to themselves by their middle name, for example."

Gosh, I didn't know this was a cultural phenomenon! My maternal side is Welsh, and both my grandmother and mother go by their middle names, as do I. But I didn't know it was a Welsh thing. The things you learn on MNet.

That's interesting, tortoise, because I was really bullied about changing my name (by my mum! who is ultra-patriarchal) and because I couldn't do it at once for visa and passport reasons (got married in the UK but work abroad, here in the USA) I changed my name on the bank account, changed my email address, and basically moved back to my flat in the USA and ignored doing anything about changing my name the rest of the way 'because I can't right now'.

I didn't ever want to.

Now, 2 years on, I know that not only am I not going to change it, but anyone who wants to chat about why I should can fuck right off.

oh, and DH did offer to take my name, and might still. All he cares about is us all having the same name, he says. But he also felt angry for me about the social pressure I was under to change mine, (including being challenged, basically, as to why I was even getting married if I didn't 'love my husband enough' - good grief!)and angry with all the reasons why women do change their names - enough to not push me. We might hyphenate later, we might change HIS later - but both living abroad makes it easier to just keep both our own names for now. And I don't feel a teensy bit 'less married' for it.

I wonder how many women change their name in the stress and pressure of the run up to the wedding (to not offend his family, her new ILs, for example,) and then regret it?
Mainly, I'm just relieved I didn't change my name. I'm lucky that in my line of work most women don't, so that at least isn't an expectation - but my bloody mum still addresses letters to me as Mrs DHfirstname DHlastname.
DH has a tendency of picking up the letters and saying "darling, your mother is writing love letters to my mighty phallus again...."
Which diffuses the tension

Hee. Your husband sounds great. I am wont to collect the mail and tell mine that his relatives have sent birthday cards to his other wife (the one called Mrs HisFirst HisLast).

I've never changed my name, even though I've been married. A touch of feminism, and a larger dose of laziness about sending forms off .

What I do regret though, is giving my two children their father's surnames. But only a little bit. I couldn't give a gnat's knickers if people raise their eyebrows at us all having different surnames.

But as regards anybody else's decision- you can mention it in passing, but you really shouldn't harangue anybody about what they choose to do.

I plan to change mine, we're making a family together (well, we've already got one but we're formalising it I guess) and I like that a family has the same name. I wouldn't care if we all changed our name to something new (although the stepchildren are a good reason not to!) it was just the togetherness of being a family. It's just easier to keep the name we'll automatically all be known as.

When we registered our first child's birth after her death we decided to double barrel, would only ever be for her. The registrar said normally they strongly advise against it (but could totally understand our situation).

Did you consider him changing to your name, confuddled?

All this double-barrelling is all very well for the first generation but what happens one generation later- quadruple barrelling?

If not, which bits do you drop?

I changed my name for lots of reasons:

1. Didn't see the difference between two patriarchal names

1. Don't like children having different surnames from me

1. Travel and work in countries where children having different surnames can cause all kinds of legal issues

1. My first name is so unusual, no chance of professional loss of identity

1. Double-barrelling an Asian and European surname can sound ridiculous (in my instance, it made me sound as if i was some kind of stir-in sauce, not good)

at stir fry sauce!

The professional angle is an interesting one. One gets a professional reputation based on hard work, dedication, putting in the hours, and establishes literally a name for oneself. So, it seems to me, patriarchy aside, that this is a good reason to keep one's own name as it's a bit of a brand in itself. It's really demeaning for a woman to essentially start over again with building up a professional reputation simply on the basis that she has gotten married.

I have a different surname to my DCs and it hasn't ever been an issue. Think perhaps once a US immigration official asked me why they had different surnames and I said because they were illegitimate

Yeah, but then I'd be married to my brother and not going there! I like the sound of my married name better and it makes better business sense to use his name.

Most women are proud to take their husband's name - why on earth would anyone have a problem with whatever a couple decide to do? it's up to them and no-one else.
I've never met a married woman who regrets changing her surname to that of her husband.

Agreed. I'm divorced, I took on his name, changed back when I started my family (didn't want that name on the certificate!)and I'm still taking on my second husband's name. I'm as proud to take it on now as I was then and nothing's changed.

It's interesting, cos when my mum said, aghast, "you should be proud to take your husband's name!" I said - why? What am I being proud of? That I've avoided dying a spinster? That someone loves me enough to make an honest woman of me? That I've finally attained the world's highest calling of wife? What am I supposed to be so proud of?

As it happens, I'm very proud of my relationship with DH - we both work at it, and it's the most precious thing in my life. But proud to take his name? That suggests I'm proud to have 'caught a man' or something - proud to be married, which is a different thing, and about which I just don't have any emotion at all.

[shrug]

Personally I am a bit indifferent on the whole name change thing- willingly admit I wouldnt have changed if I hadnt liked the new name!

I don't really buy the professional thing. I can see that if you had your own business branded as your own name, it could be an issue, but if you're a lawyer, doctor, banker, etc, people adapt without mishap- it's not as though they cant compute that you're the same person.

Most IT/phone systems can deal with 2 names to single email address/line in the transition period and I just got my PA to send an email to my contacts whilst I was on honeymoon. Only had one person out of about 300 who got confused and thought I was a completely new person.

I really don't think that it is particularly "smart" not to change your name (partly I guess because it implies that those of us that have changed are stupid, which I would challenge), nor do I have any feelings of envy toward those who choose a different option to me. That seems slightly bizarre. There could be all sorts of reasons why people make the decisions they do about their surname. I wouldn't for example assume that someone who kept their name was more of a feminist than someone who didn't - indeed if I didn't meet them in a family context I'd have no idea if they had the name they had at birth or had changed many times over, for whatever reason. I don't usually know if they are married or not unless they tell me (I've never really worked in an industry where titles are used, except for professional ones) because it's not generally terribly relevant.

But then I don't really use my surname much - a definite advantage to having a very unusual name (plus I got married at 25, so the established professional thing wasn't very relevant to me).

If some people are using the "I don't want a different name from my children" arguement then why do you give your children your husband's name and not your own?

IMO it's more of a feminist issue to give your children their father's name than whether an adult woman changes her name.

I don't know about that, forever a student. I can see what you mean, but still think it's weirder to have an adult change their name because of a change in their marital status, than it is to call a child any one name from birth.

God knows, blackcurrants. I would be embarrassed to change my name. Don't get me wrong I used to dream of being Mrs Surname-of-boy-I-fancied, like all girls do in the patriarchy. But now I would feel like I was erasing my past history.

Don't you think my DP should be proud to change his surname to mine, Mal? (serious question)

Absolutely Elephants, if that's what you chose as a couple, of course he should feel pride to do that.

My own surname wasn't the "right" one in any case, I was adopted so had a completely different birth name, the only name that would be mine would be my mothers' maiden name, ( birth and adoptive mothers were sisters).
I'd have gone double barrelled if our names had gone together.

I still don't find anything wrong with taking your husband's name, I'd be very annoyed if someone told me that doing so negated me as a feminist.

I never said it was wrong to take your husband's name, it isn't.

It is a remnant of an oppressive tradition, and a history of ownership which you can say is in the past maybe, but still exists in other countries, and isn't far back in our own history.

I got a shock when I read the Handmaid's Tale (still at the Mrs Boy-I-fancied stage) and realised that the naming practices in that book are our actual current [sur]naming practices.

My children are as much their father's children as they are mine. One day we will have a name that represents the four of us as a family, my children have that name already, why shouldn't they?

I see changing my name as being about unity as a family not about any ownership - even if that's what it's a leftover from.

And agree with Malificence:

"I still don't find anything wrong with taking your husband's name, I'd be very annoyed if someone told me that doing so negated me as a feminist."

I've had my married name, my husband's name, for far longer (25+ years) than my maiden name (18 years) and it will be my name until the day I die - hardly associated baggage.