Your Reductio is My Dystopia

My mother's name was "Margaret Joskow" when she was born and so it remained throughout her life. Thus, I've always taken the traditional family values line and believed that people should hold on to their own names. So I agree with Kay Steiger:

Furthermore, I never really understood, if it's such an important issue for families to all have the same names (because how would you know you belong to one another otherwise?) why it has to be the woman that changes her name. Why can't the man? I've yet to hear a good response to that one. Changing names to become a "unit" is silly. What if you were asked to change your name each time you changed jobs or professions? People would say that's silly, but for me it's no more silly than changing your name each time you change partners.

Fortunately, we don't just need to contemplate how silly it would be to change your name every time you change jobs. Instead, we can read Max Barry's amusing sci-fi satire Jennifer Government, set in a hyper-capitalist future in which individuals use the name of the conglomerate that employs them (Nike, McDonald's, etc.), with "Jennifer Government" thus named because she works for the government.

Back to the topic at hand, isn't the inconvenience of changing your email address reason enough to stick with your original name?

Comments

changing my name when i got married at aged 21 in 1990 is one of my biggest regrets. it was hyphenated for a minute but my maiden sorta fell away after children. professionally however, i've maintained the hyphenated name. women should never change their names! they should keep their father's name instead! (see the problem?)

Posted by kate | June 17, 2008 8:28 PM

Try using a South Indian naming system:

(family name) (father's name) (your name)

Women don't change their names after marriage, so the idea of a maiden name is meaningless. So, when I give my mother's maiden name for security purposes, it's a random string of numbers, #'s, @'s, !'s and *'s.

Posted by chapati | June 17, 2008 8:34 PM

My wife kept her maiden name for multiple reasons, but basically because changing it would have been a pain in the ass.

On the other hand, she said that if she did change her name, it would be because her name right now is extremely common. My last name is fairly uncommon, and the two of our names hyphenated together would be very rare indeed. She once worked at a company in which there were two other women with the same first and last names, and another woman with the same first name and an alternate spelling of the last name. Hyphenating our last names would have given her a unique name, so she considered it for that reason alone. But ultimately, it would just be too annoying to change her name.

Posted by Adam Villani | June 17, 2008 8:35 PM

The most fabulous story of men changing names involves LA mayor Villaraigosa who was born under the more marketable name of Antonio Villa, changed his name to the constantly butchered and difficult name of Villaraigosa by combining his name and his wife's (arguably a very romantic gesture) only to famously cheat on her, get dumped, divorced and now be doubly screwed.
The name - his brand - he can't get rid of and it is still butchered and mispronounced all around.

But then again there was a CA Governor named Deukmejian so I guess that does not completely close the door for a statewide career.

Posted by benjamin | June 17, 2008 8:36 PM

What's wrong with people making their own decisions about this, for whatever reason they want?

Posted by live | June 17, 2008 8:36 PM

I'm confused what we're supposed to do in California now. What do gay couples do?

But seriously, just keep your born name when you get married, unless you want to change it. Or both parties could create a new merged last name.

McCain + Obama = McBama.

Posted by MobiusKlein | June 17, 2008 8:36 PM

Agreed, except the difficulty of naming the children and grandchildren. There are ways to do it, but none are as simple as just all taking the same name.

A co-worker of mine got married and they both changed their names. Why not?

Posted by Citykin | June 17, 2008 8:36 PM

The most fabulous story of men changing names involves LA mayor Villaraigosa who was born under the more marketable name of Antonio Villa, changed his name to the constantly butchered and difficult name of Villaraigosa by combining his name and his wife's (arguably a very romantic gesture) only to famously cheat on her, get dumped, divorced and now be doubly screwed.
The name - his brand - he can't get rid of and it is still butchered and mispronounced all around.

But then again there was a CA Governor named Deukmejian and another one named Schwarzenegger so I guess that does not completely close the door for a statewide career.

Posted by benjamin | June 17, 2008 8:36 PM

I don't know, how about respecting people's decision to have whatever name they want?

Posted by too many steves | June 17, 2008 8:37 PM

I think there was a boomlet of non-name changing that sort of peaked in the 90s and then those same people who brought us the mommy wars announced that women were changing their names again. Thus I didn't change my name, nor did quite a few people I know who are my age or a little older, but it's actually younger women who now seem more likely to change their names.

I made the decision when I was in college, along with the decision that I wouldn't marry a man who wanted me to change my name, wouldn't do housework, or wanted to have a joint bank account. Oddly enough, by using this criteria, I seem to have avoided marrying some kind of sexist Neanderthal--who woulda thunk it? To top it off, we chose to live in the type of community where a good proportion of the parents at the school where we send our kids are married but with different names, so the kids don't see much odd about it either. I'm sure it would be different in a more conservative area, but that's why we don't live in such a place.

They say that in childrearing, expectations make a difference. For those of us who are trying to live a more gender balanced life, expectations also make a difference.

And one more thing--I think some women who have achieved some kind of fame half shamefacedly say that they can't change their names because they are too famous or professionally noteworthy--as if those women who haven't yet made a name for themselves by the time they marry have no excuse not to change their names because they are such losers. If you don't want to change your name, you shouldn't need an excuse--even if you are a check out clerk or telemarketer or preschool teacher or not working at all.

Posted by JMS | June 17, 2008 8:39 PM

Whatever happened to Max Barry? I liked that book and Syrup (back when he was Maxx Barry).

Posted by Anonymous | June 17, 2008 8:40 PM

The most fabulous story of men changing names involves LA mayor Villaraigosa who was born under the more marketable name of Antonio Villa, changed his name to the constantly butchered and difficult name of Villaraigosa by combining his name and his wife's (arguably a very romantic gesture) only to famously cheat on her, get dumped, divorced and now be doubly screwed.
The name - his brand - he can't get rid of and it is still butchered and mispronounced all around.

But then again there was a CA Governor named Deukmejian and another one named Schwarzenegger so I guess that does not completely close the door for a statewide career.

Posted by benjamin | June 17, 2008 8:40 PM

Agreed with the post, except the difficulty of naming the children and grandchildren. There are ways to do it, but none are as simple as just all taking the same name.

A co-worker of mine got married and they both changed their names to a beloved grandmother's maiden name, and it worked for them.

Posted by Citykin | June 17, 2008 8:41 PM

If men picked a new name for the couple, half the population would have names like "John and Sara Coyote" and "Bob and Martha Battlestar."

Stupid yes, but in most cases more interesting.

Posted by Ryan S | June 17, 2008 8:41 PM

same name=family when you don't live in ny, la etc. don't kids like having the same name as their parents in scranton?

an african american child with a different name from mom or dad is instantly judged as a "bastard" or some such concept. on the upper west side, white kids are freeeeeeee.

Posted by jay | June 17, 2008 8:44 PM

Changing your name if you're a man is really difficult. I contemplated it when I got married. For the woman, it's assumed she'll either change, hyphenate, or keep her name, and there are processes in place to do this as part of the marriage process for financial accounts, drivers licenses, social security, etc. For the man to do it, there is no automatic process in place- it's the same as changing your name any other time, which requires court appearances, fees, and notarized documents. Maybe more men would do it if government agencies weren't so discriminatory about it.
The interesting proposal I heard was a combination of hyphenation and maintaining gender inheritance lines. It was something like this: Man A marries Woman B. He is now known as Man A-B and she as Woman B-A. They have a Daughter B-A and a Son A-B. Daughter B-A gets married to Boy C-D (who is the son of Mr. C and Mrs. D), and the couple is now Daughter B-C and Boy C-B (each loses the portion of the name from the parent of the opposite sex). Their children are named accordingly. Similarly, Son A-B marries Girl E-F, and they become Son A-E and Girl E-A, with children named accordingly. Thus the male family name only dies out if the male line of inheritance is broken, and the female name only dies out if the female line of inheritance is broken, which are both equally likely.

Posted by SP | June 17, 2008 8:45 PM

I knew a Martha Battlestar in grade school !

(no, not really)

Posted by Greg Abbott | June 17, 2008 8:45 PM

I knew a Martha Battlestar in grade school !

(no, not really)

Posted by Greg Abbott | June 17, 2008 8:46 PM

I never really understood, if it's such an important issue for families to all have the same names ... why it has to be the woman that changes her name. Why can't the man?

Men will change their name to the wife's family name in the event that a man is marrying into a royal family.

This was also the tradition in the family who owned the now-liquidated Kongo Gumi construction company, which was the oldest family-run firm until it went bankrupt in 2006.

Posted by Tyro | June 17, 2008 8:47 PM

I wouldn't marry a man who ... wanted to have a joint bank account.

??? Getting a joint bank account when we got married was a major stress-reliever. No more did we have to worry about paying each other back for our half of the rent, figuring out which groceries were for whom, who pays for furniture, dining out, vacations, gas, etc. The basic point is that we share just about everything, so what's the point in complicating the bookkeeping? There's nothing sexist about wanting a joint bank account, it's just a matter of not wanting to have to be a part-time accountant.

Posted by Adam Villani | June 17, 2008 8:48 PM

I was given a hyphenated last name at birth. My wife is asian and kept her last name. We're both reluctant to change our names because it would complicate our publication record. We haven't decided what name to give the kids (when they come), but its gonna be pretty complicated.

I used to joke that I was going to marry a woman with a hyphenated last name and hyphenate our names (ex: smith-jones-brown-cook) just to spite my folks.

Also, that Jennifer Government was a good little read.

Posted by ben | June 17, 2008 8:50 PM

The most fabulous story of men changing names involves LA mayor Villaraigosa who was born under the more marketable name of Antonio Villa, changed his name to the constantly butchered and difficult name of Villaraigosa by combining his name and his wife's (arguably a very romantic gesture) only to famously cheat on her, get dumped, divorced and now be doubly screwed.
The name - his brand - he can't get rid of and it is still butchered and mispronounced all around.

But then again there was a CA Governor named Deukmejian and another one named Schwarzenegger so I guess that does not completely close the door for a statewide career.

Posted by benjamin | June 17, 2008 8:51 PM

Whose name does the kid get? Hyphenation is awkward.

My wife and I both changed our names. Easy as pie!

Posted by gussie | June 17, 2008 8:53 PM

As Gustav Mahler said in untranslatable German, tradition is slovenliness.

It makes no sense for a woman to change her name just because at some time in the distant past women were viewed as property.

It also makes no sense for a man to change his name simply as a (pointless) protest against the fact that women habitually change their name just because at some time in the distant past women were viewed as property.

We flipped a coin for a family name - literally. Heads for mine, tails for hers. Tails it was. Worked a treat.

Posted by Andrew | June 17, 2008 8:56 PM

Also, the notion of citizenship based on corporate employment goes back at least as far as the early Gibson work.

Posted by ben | June 17, 2008 8:57 PM

"The interesting proposal I heard was a combination of hyphenation and maintaining gender inheritance lines. It was something like this: Man A marries Woman B. He is now known as Man A-B and she as Woman B-A. They have a Daughter B-A and a Son A-B. Daughter B-A gets married to Boy C-D (who is the son of Mr. C and Mrs. D), and the couple is now Daughter B-C and Boy C-B (each loses the portion of the name from the parent of the opposite sex). Their children are named accordingly. Similarly, Son A-B marries Girl E-F, and they become Son A-E and Girl E-A, with children named accordingly. Thus the male family name only dies out if the male line of inheritance is broken, and the female name only dies out if the female line of inheritance is broken, which are both equally likely."

I think the Spanish have a system like this. At least, my friend took her mother's last name, 'Rabadan' and her father's last name 'del Sol' to become Marta Rabadan del Sol. Having two last names or somesuch would also work. I don't think her mother took her husband's name.

So basically, people keep their name upon marriage (or maybe the wife moves her maiden name to her middle name and takes her husband's last name - like my mother did), and the children have two last names, first their mother's, then their father's. Seems fairly logical, really, though I'd imagine filling out forms is a pain.

Two very good friends got married recently, and both of them got rid of their fantastic last names, Butters and Roof. Kinda sad, really.

Posted by Jeremy | June 17, 2008 9:01 PM

The philosopher J. M. Ellis had to add the name McTaggart as a condition of receiving an inheritance. However, his middle name was already McTaggart. So he is know to history as John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart.

As for the "family unit", I repeat my invariable advice: stop being something.

Posted by SqueakyRat | June 17, 2008 9:01 PM

In Quebec the law is that people keep their own name on marriage and it is difficult for one partner to change theirs without a procedure akin to a non-marital name change in other jurisdictions. I.e. lawyers, hassle and $$$

This has been the case for about a generation. During that time the obvious problems emerged: the Leduc-Boudreault boy started going out with the Lapierre-Bissonette girl and parents were staring down the barrel of a quadruple-hyphenated name for their grandchildren.

But of course it worked out in the end, as the kids just began to lop off half of their surnames when naming their children rather than get into ridiculous surname territory. And more recently they've pared it down even more to one surname per child, through flipping a coin or discussion.

Before the late middle ages, almost no one had surnames anyway. The change of name ritual is an artifact of history, and it's a history we shouldn't regret seeing pass.

Posted by Estrien | June 17, 2008 9:03 PM

women should never change their names! they should keep their father's name instead! (see the problem?)

No, I don't see the problem. Names have all kinds of whackadoodle history--some people got named after places they lived, or jobs they did, or relatives they hated. Some even took on the name of people who had owned them! Using that name doesn't mean you endorse the social norms that gave you that name. Otherwise, we have to believe every person named Shoemaker or Cooper is anti-capitalist because they have endorsed non-fluid labor markets by saying yes, one should be named after a profession!

Frankly, it doesn't matter how I came by my name, it's the name I grew up with. And it's flatly bizarre that people expect me to change it just because I'm a woman.

Overall, the name change issue is the perfect demonstration of the utter falseness of the "equally free choice" explanation of why women do things like leave the workforce to raise, more housework, etc.

Logically, there's no "free choice" reason why a random woman should be more likely to change her name than a random man. You can't argue that men as a group have "better" names, because people have male and female children randomly. And yet, it's almost unheard of for a man to drop his name entirely and take on the wife's name. Why? In a "free choice" environment, we'd expect men and women to change names roughly equally. But I swear, more men get breast cancer than change their names upon marriage.

And don't tell me it's because it's logistically "harder" for men to do! In NYC, the forms have spaces for name changes for bride and groom on their marriage forms--they're literally identical. And once you've got that form, every bureaucracy in the world honors it as evidence of your name change. But I've yet to see even 20% of NYC marriages in which a man takes his wife's name.

Posted by anonymiss | June 17, 2008 9:05 PM

The corporate naming thing reminds me of the corporate naming (of years and so on) in Infinite Jest. A funny thing (if you made it through that book) is that David Foster Wallace subsequently became the Roy E. Disney Professor of Creative Writing at Pomona College. I wonder whether he was chagrined or delighted by that, or both.

Posted by guyx | June 17, 2008 9:07 PM

Got married in January and changed my name, mainly because I'm more pragmatic than I am feminist. If I had liked my maiden name better than I liked my husband's, I probably would have kept it. But my maiden name was a mouthful, and something I never much cared for, so for me it was an opportunity.

And seriously, Matt, have you never changed e-mail addresses? That was by far the easiest part of the process. Go to Google (and/or IT guy at work), set up new e-mail, set up auto-forward. Any response comes from my new name; most people catch on, and if they don't, no problem there either. The DMV on the other hand, well... (at least Social Security allows you to do it by mail with a certified copy of your marriage license. Best $7 I ever spent).

Posted by bottomofthe9th | June 17, 2008 9:11 PM

If I were in charge of naming conventions, I would make it so each person had two last names, a matrilineal name and a patrilineal name; then each kid would take their mother's matrilineal name and their father's patrilineal name. One nerdy benefit of this would be that everyone in a family with the same matrilineal name would have the same mitochondrial DNA, and everyone in a family with the same patrilineal name would have the same Y-chromosome.

Posted by Jesse M. | June 17, 2008 9:12 PM

I changed my name when I married because I wanted to. I changed my name in spite of being an academic professional with a small record. I changed my name because his was cooler and I wanted to become a part of him. Why would I keep my father's name that I was stuck with because of tradition? Or why would I switch to my mother's name which my grandmother got stuck with because of tradition, regardless of my feelings for these men? I love these men, but why should some ridiculous notion of individuality make me keep a name that I have for the same reason people refuse to change theirs?

It's a stupid argument. Change your name or don't. Let people do what they like and stop commenting about who is rational and who isn't.

Posted by brenna | June 17, 2008 9:12 PM

I'd add, also, that I'm 23 and as a result had no professional reputation. If I did, I'm sure I would have felt differently about changing my name.

Posted by bottomofthe9th | June 17, 2008 9:14 PM

Agreed, except the difficulty of naming the children and grandchildren. There are ways to do it, but none are as simple as just all taking the same name.

There is nothing complicated about the children taking the father's name, unless you choose to make it so. This is what happens, as I understand it, in the vast majority of cases where the mother keeps her own name - as it did for Matt, and also for myself.

I suppose that this is also paternalistic, but really, you have to draw the line somewhere.

Posted by John | June 17, 2008 9:18 PM

My wife wanted to change her name when we got married. I didn't care either way. I also don't care when people tell me why they did or didn't change their names when they got married. Whatever people want to do with their names is okay with me so long as they don't feel the need to run around work telling me about it or declaring that it makes some important statement about society or their relationship.

Posted by Helter | June 17, 2008 9:19 PM

The Quebec civil code is very French in its rigidity, but some of the more obviously bullshit strictures are slowly being eroded without sacrificing the underlying principle.

I sort of like the Hispanic approach (lotsa names) and the Brazillian/Portugues (nicknames). Both, of course, play havoc with the Procrustean bed of US form-filling bureaucracy. As do Icelandic patronyms.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 17, 2008 9:27 PM

I don't think it's silly to want to change your name to be part of a family unit. The emotional bond within a family is far more important than a bond created with a company or other organisation. I am proud of my family name and it means something to share it with my siblings and parents. I would say the only rationale for prioritising the paternal line of names might be to provide a counterpart to the female contribution to the family of childbearing, though of course I understand the connotations of taking a husband's name and why some people would have a problem with that. Still, I would rather take my wife's name than have the family split, so to speak.

Posted by Simon | June 17, 2008 9:32 PM

Frankly, it doesn't matter how I came by my name, it's the name I grew up with. And it's flatly bizarre that people expect me to change it just because I'm a woman.

Yeah, I've never understood why my surname is somehow less mine than my first name (my paternal great-grandmother's-- a female relative on the male side) or my middle one (the feminized form of a maternal uncle's-- so that one's male relative, female side). And hell, my dad died at 45 anyway, so if I live past that age I'll have had it longer than he did and should be able to claim it on those grounds* alone.

My glib response to questions on this topic is 'I don't do ritual sacrifices,' but the social pressure really is ridiculous, like changing one's name makes the marriage more binding somehow. When I was younger, I even had some people tell me that my position was simply eliminating too many good men who couldn't deal with it; that always seemed bizarre to me, since someone unwilling or unable to get it wouldn't be a very good prospective partner anyway.

*not that there should be any justification for not changing one's name either; there are relatives who accept my sister's decision not to because she has a doctorate, but still can't understand why I'm averse to the idea. Like I'm supposed to earn the right to decide what I'm to be called.

Posted by latts | June 17, 2008 9:35 PM

See Claudia Goldin and Maria Shim, Making a Name: Women’s Surnames at Marriage and Beyond for some Harvard data on this issue.

Posted by stefan | June 17, 2008 9:36 PM

Barry has subsequently written the terrific Company and I believe has a screenplay for Syrup in production.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra | June 17, 2008 9:38 PM

I could really care less. Seriously, I think Kay Steiger should get a life and stop worrying about what other people choose to do.

Posted by The Other Steve | June 17, 2008 9:43 PM

Posted by Freddie | June 17, 2008 9:47 PM

in portuguese-speaking countries you can have as many names as you want (now in Portugal this has been reduced to a maximum of two given names and four family names). most people keep the family names of all their four grandparents. they choose one to use professionaly (not always but frequently the paternal grandfather, or just the name that sounds the best), and sometimes use another name in day-to-day life, when booking a hotel room or renting a car. each spouse can adopt the other's family name but this has become rare for women, and even rarer for men. so, in practice everyone knows by a pair of names given-family, but in your ID all of your five or six names are there, grandpas and grandmas contented, and everyone happy.

Posted by rui tavares | June 17, 2008 9:53 PM

I'm one of those non-name changers. I've been married for 18 years and was 23 when I married (and hadn't established a career yet either). I liked my name and it was part of my sense of self. My kids have my husband's last name and they can easily comprehend and understand that I have a different last name. It has made me neither more nor less bound to my husband than I think I would have been if I had taken his. People should do what they like on this issue--to me this is one of those non-issues.

Ah, but as an aside, I seem to know so many 50 year old women who are divorcing after 25 years of marriage and wishing they'd never switched. And are choosing to switch back.

Posted by led | June 17, 2008 9:56 PM

My wife kept her name and at my suggestion we had our son take her last name -- hey she paid the dues. Because of this I am frequently called Mr. (wife's last name) which I find amusing. I long ago stopped trying to explain.

Speaking of which (sort of) Max Barry explained that he had ceased being Maxx Barry when it occurred to him that the extra "x" spelled asshole.

Posted by Sir Charles | June 17, 2008 9:56 PM

I'm one of those non-name changers. I've been married for 18 years and was 23 when I married (and hadn't established a career yet either). I liked my name and it was part of my sense of self. My kids have my husband's last name and they can easily comprehend and understand that I have a different last name. It has made me neither more nor less bound to my husband than I think I would have been if I had taken his. People should do what they like on this issue--to me this is one of those non-issues.

Ah, but as an aside, I seem to know so many 50 year old women who are divorcing after 25 years of marriage and wishing they'd never switched. And are choosing to switch back.

Posted by led | June 17, 2008 9:58 PM

My wife kept her name. I'd suggested that we each take the other's last name as our a new middle name, but that didn't happen.

It's about as important as the brand of beer we buy.

The kids took my name. My wife's parents were originally aghast that she kept her maiden name, but in the two years between the wedding and the first birth lobbied for the kids to take their last name. That's some kind of progress.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 17, 2008 10:23 PM

Well, good grief, whose business is it what you do with your name? My husband's name is simpler and easier to spell, I was happy to take it, others don't, who cares? I hate it when people make political issues out of dumb things.

Posted by jibeaux | June 17, 2008 10:25 PM

My wife hyphenated, and I kept my name - but this was her choice. She thought it would be weird for me to have her last name. She's now decided that I should hyphenate. I'm willing to do this, but in California, a man changing his name goes through a lot of nonsense like having to take out an ad in the newspaper to let the world know that he's planning to change his name. So, I guess that will wait for later.

I wanted us to have the same last name because I come from a blended family and I always wished that we all had the same last name. Too much splainin' to do as a kid. Maybe you solid nuclear family types out there can't relate, but it feels like a legitimate reason to me. Our kids have the hyphenate.

Posted by Brandon | June 17, 2008 10:29 PM

Whatever the f on names, will people please copy their comments to the clipboard and refresh a couple times or open a new window/tab or something to give the site just a little time to see if the first attempt posted? Please, just a little patience?

Posted by bob mcmanus | June 17, 2008 10:31 PM

My wife elected to hyphenate 'way back in '85. That wasn't a problem until we moved to a suburb of Tucson. Every six months for five years, she could guaranty getting jury summons from the State, County, and town courts. Yes, all of them. After four years, I elected to give the municipal court clerk at call to complain, but it was pointless. Our computerized system picks names randomly, she assured me.

Well, bullshit. But, there was no point in telling her that based on my years of experience in software design and maintenance, it was quite possible that she was wrong. It was almost certain that the developer hadn't adequately handled the hyphenation case. If I hadn't taken a job out of state the next year, fixing that one issue probably would have been my driver into town politics.

Posted by cmholm | June 17, 2008 10:32 PM

My wife and I have been on both sides of this fence. She kept her name when we were married, though she was a little torn as it came from her stepfather, who she wasn't really talking to, and really liked my last name (Chillman -- especially attractive if you don't have to go through grade school with it). I had no problem with that, I actually thought the idea of someone literally naming herself after me was kind of weird. But then, when she was pregnant with our son, she decided she wanted to change it after all, as kind of a statement of family unity.

The hitch was that, if she'd changed it when we got married, she basically would have just written it down on the marriage certificate and that would be that. But since it was a couple years later, we had to go through this whole thing with testifying before a judge and coughing up $200. I don't really object; she changed it when she wanted to, and it was our decision. But I'd recommend that if anyone's on the fence, you might want to consider the expense if you change your mind...

Posted by Chilly | June 17, 2008 10:37 PM

My wife kept hers. Somehow I think it was for the best. Mércia Maria Esteves Barbosa Paul just doesn't cut it.

Posted by Randy Pul | June 17, 2008 10:41 PM

the objection that women keeping their own names are merely preserving their fathers' names and thus it doesn't amount to anything is egregious bullshit. where the fuck do you think the man got his name? the name fairies?

Posted by belle waring | June 17, 2008 10:56 PM

Women change their names because they are the ones who traditionally get custody over the children after a divorce.

Women change their names because women choose who they marry; men are chosen by those who want to marry them.

Women change their names because its a patriachal, but nevertheless harmless and innocuous Western tradition.

Posted by Kuros | June 17, 2008 10:59 PM

In Latin America, most frequently the woman doesn't really change her last name (altough she adds a "de XXXX" after it) and the children get both parents last names (father name goes first and is used as your everyday last name, but you get both). Simple (most people uses just one first name and one last name in daily life), avoids namesakes, allows for some women's equality.

Posted by Charrua | June 17, 2008 11:06 PM

My wife and I considered hyphenating -- but it would have been Brown-Shirts. Ugh. Heil Hitler :(

Posted by mrs | June 17, 2008 11:09 PM

My father in law has started appending every single family name to his as his extended circle of grandchildren grows. I think he's up to 7.

(It's a very postmodern family tree. I don't think I can explain all of them without a whiteboard.)

Posted by dbt | June 17, 2008 11:18 PM

Muslim women don't change their names either.

Posted by Juhs | June 17, 2008 11:29 PM

My wife and I hyphenated our names. She was in med school and was reluctant to give up her father's name. We both wanted our kids to have the same last name that we had. My 'maiden' name was silly and common(John Johnson). I would've changed my last name to hers, but she had an older brother with my first name who committed suicide and it seemed inappropriate.

The irony is that everyone in our family is known by our hyphenated last name except my wife who somehow ends up being called Dr. Johnson.

Posted by William Ockham | June 17, 2008 11:36 PM

Hyphenating is an easy reductio ad absurdam, since you can't go on doing it forever.

In general I think having a chance to get more names or partially change the one you have as a result of choice is really cool, so the I-don't-like-the-hassle argument against female name changes in marriage seems kind of lame to me. The gender equality, why do only women do it, argument seems better to me, but then again it treats changing your name as a kind of bad thing that should be shared in some way, and I don't agree with the premise.

There's a sort of femimist assumption that anything that only women do must suck, because of course sexists that we are we wouldn't let only women do something cool. The assumption usually hits the mark but not always.

Posted by Colatina | June 17, 2008 11:38 PM

Interestingly enough, in Japan it's not an option to have different names. A married couple MUST share a name.

Posted by Zak | June 17, 2008 11:44 PM

Is this some kind of retro Early 1990s fad? Are we all supposed to take feminism seriously again? I remember the last time was back right after the Anita Hill whoop-tee-do, when we were all supposed to treat Naomi Wolf and Susan Faludi as profound thinkers.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 17, 2008 11:54 PM

Go Boston!

Posted by Dave C | June 18, 2008 12:00 AM

As opposed to alleged human being Steve Sailer who's a fucking font of wisdom. Don't you have a cross burning to go to?

I'll take Faludi myself.

Posted by Sir Charles | June 18, 2008 12:02 AM

Geez, get over yourselves. Nobody else cares what you name yourself. But you shouldn't be surprised when society groans and rolls it's eyes at the egotistical "statement" you are making. Please try not to be offended when I can't be bothered to remember that everyone in your family unit has four diffent names. The hyphen isn't fooling anyone.

Perhaps we should all just call each other by our social security numbers. Then we would all be unique and we could create the warm communal bonds of a prison or large state university.

Posted by Just Karl | June 18, 2008 12:10 AM

This thread is oddly similar to the one on smoking. In both cases, it just makes me wonder what's wrong with a person who would care what name somebody they don't even know chooses to use, or whether somebody they don't even know chooses to smoke. Steve Duncan, meet Kay Steiger. Go start a Meddlers Anonymous group somewhere.

Posted by too many steves | June 18, 2008 12:12 AM

"where the fuck do you think the man got his name? the name fairies?"

Belle, usually I agree with everything you say -- but this time I don't understand it. Maybe I'm being a moron but I've read this five times and all I can say is, wtf? Seeing as you're the author of the greatest blogpost of all time I have no doubt that the problem is mine. Once you explain it I'm sure I'll agree with it.

Posted by Bloix | June 18, 2008 12:15 AM

My mother's name was Alderetta Jenkins, and my father's was Aurvillio McSwannessy, so I go by Swan Jenkins McSwannessy, but I often leave out the Jenkins to make it shorter. To me it's no big whoop.

Posted by Swan | June 18, 2008 12:18 AM

Mrs. (whoops, make that Ms. ) Rat changed her name to mine when we got married, mainly because she wasn't fond of her adoptive parent's last name.

Truthfully, even at the time, it didn't matter to me either way.

Posted by Desert Hussein Rat | June 18, 2008 12:18 AM

Is this where all the wet blankets are hanging out?

It was not a hard decision for my wife. Despite her thick Louisiana accent she was always being asked if she was related to Canadian Dan Akroyd with her maiden name.

She also wasn't worried about changing her name back after a divorce because of this weird deal we have where we keep our promises to each other.

Also, hooray Boston. Scot Pollard finally gets his ring.

Posted by mantooth | June 18, 2008 12:20 AM

Dad was a Phillipino-Puerto Rican pirate (the last name comes from the Puerto Rican side, where they had some Irish settlers a few generations back, apparently) and Mom was an Irish-American NYC RN. How they got together is a whole 'nother story-- but thankfully here I am, to write comments on Matt's blog!!

Posted by Swan | June 18, 2008 12:23 AM

If I had a name like Swan McSwannesy there's no way I would ever change it. That's just awesome.

Posted by Just Karl | June 18, 2008 12:29 AM

As women become more and more accomplished and recognized in fields where published works are important (research science, law, journalism, etc.) I'd be surprised if the trend was toward women keeping their original last names.

Posted by Angry Sam | June 18, 2008 12:33 AM

(or, rather, wasn't)

Posted by Angry Sam | June 18, 2008 12:40 AM

I'm all for people doing whatever makes them feel the most comfortable and happy. I think it's kind of sweet to pick a new name together, or be confident enough in your love to reverse the tradition and take your wife's name.

But do not underestimate the importance of long tradition, however arbitrary and objectively unfair it might seem, and however divergent its original source logic is from current thinking. It has value merely as a tradition.

When children are small, they love feeling the connection to a long, continuous tradition, that they are the culmination of a long line of meaning.

And as soon as we are old enough ourselves to have tested out rebellion and amply asserted our own identity, again we come to highly value the concept of transmitting accumulated meaning on beyond ourselves. Sure, a lot of the trappings of the package are worn and torn and look fairly silly, but it has value nonetheless just for surviving so long, as for the values long safely stored inside it.

Not all traditions deserve to survive, but watch you don't spill some important things when you transfer your values to a new bag. Gently, gently.

It's nice to establish yourselves as a single unit, though. It's practical, too!

But this is an ancient 40-something talking. So as you will.

(16 years ago I tried to talk my wife into keeping her name; she adamantly declined.)

Posted by Jon M. | June 18, 2008 12:45 AM

The reason why women and children are assigned the man's surname has an obvious biological basis: women have much more confidence that the children are theirs than men do.

Posted by John | June 18, 2008 12:46 AM

I'm a 40-year-old, too, but never changed my name. My kids have yet to forget I am their mother, despite the different last names, and my husband still recognizes me as his wife, despite the different last names.

I kept my name because it was my name. The "family unit" argument for changing your name makes me laugh. If you can't figure out how to make a home and a family without changing your name, then you have far larger problems than name changes.

My kids have my husband's last name -- I traded away the rights to the last name in exchange for first and middle name naming rights. The kids' first names are far more important to me, because that is the name that I use daily.

I have never had problems with taxes, insurance, loans -- anything. I have found that people will find you if they want to, especially if they want money from you. The only people who get confused about my last name are my children's teachers. They call me by my kid's last name. And I don't give a damn. I answer to it without correcting them, because I am not the issue -- the kids are.

If you want to change your name, then change it. If you don't, then don't. No excuses, no explanations required.

Posted by claire | June 18, 2008 1:01 AM

I'm just kidding. My origins are actually a lot more mundane than that.

I'm 1/2 Polish, 3/8 Irish, and 1/8 German, and I come from a city in New Jersey where you keep meetin people who are half-Irish and half-Polish over and over and over again. There are some other kinds of people there, too- Jews and Italians- but not much else. It's diverse in an old-fashioned kind of way, but not so much in a modern kind of way. The town where I live now is a lot more diverse-- like 17% Asian Indians and 12% East Asians.

My mother took my father's name on marriage, and I don't think I ever met a married woman who kept her unmarried name until I was an adult. I'm sure I met a bucnh of women who kept their husbands' names after divorce, though.

I think it's really the better practice to keep your name when you marry, but I don't want to crack down on changing your name too much, which can be effectively just about non-oppressive if you have an otherwise-equal relationship. We're in a transition period between what's acceptable and what's not, and during a time like this a name alone isn't likley to be the thing that alone makes the difference if the rest of the relationship is other modern, or anachronistically opressive-- but the transition is towards things like a woman keeping her name being the practice that is right. I just think that if you want to change your name, you should do it because of some romantic idea you have of things, not because you just don't have any idea about what you should do. Something should just be figured out for the kids' names, as the hyphenation idea doesn't seem to work beyond one generation.

I also think, though, that every relationship shouldn't necessarily be totally equal. I used to think an equal relationship was the absolute ideal that had to be worked for, but now that I'm older and a little less idealistic, I think trying to force an artificial equality on a relationship in which the members don't really have equal faculties is what can be a problem. You should assume each member of the reelationship equally important, of course, just not assume they are equally intelligent and capable.

Let's say I'm actually more savvy than my wife, because I figure stuff out better, make decisions that turn out better, know who to trust and who not to trust better, etc.-- and all this can be proven by the actual results of our decisions. Then to make the relationship work, I'm really the one who should be making those decisions, and there needn't be a lot of debate, or letting my wife get her way on one of those decisions just to please her, because it's actually going to screw us over and make our lives worse if we follow her bad judgment. But, let's say she fixes cars better than me. Then I should defer to her on the specific matter of fixing cars.

If two people are really close to being equals, though, then the couple should usually strive for an equal relationship, I think. It's just that if you choose to marry someone who really differs from you in age and experience or ability, the idea that you are absolute equals isn't any more true than if you weren't married. In other contexts where you meet people who aren't your absolute equals, you don't treat them as if they are, so why should it be any different when you are married? Your more-experienced supervisor doesn't treat you as if he should defer to your opinion; and unless you have some kind of personality problem, you don't treat peole who know better than you about something as if you knew better.

Posted by Swan | June 18, 2008 1:11 AM

Hear hear for matrilineal/patrilineal names! I.e., daughters take the mother's name, boys the father's. (Works great in Iceland.) I was all for it but, er, my wife preferred the old style. Women!

Posted by citizenstx | June 18, 2008 1:13 AM

"My wife kept her name and at my suggestion we had our son take her last name -- hey she paid the dues. Because of this I am frequently called Mr. (wife's last name) which I find amusing. I long ago stopped trying to explain."

The opposite with our daughter. I tried to suggest that she take Dr. Mrs. Joe's last name, but was told "look, we both know that you are going to spoil her so completely rotten that she's going to be wrapped around your finger for as long as you both live. She might as well have your last name." Two years after the 67-hour labor, and that appears to be right. Wait, I hear someone calling "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadddddddddyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!" Got to go.

Posted by Joe | June 18, 2008 1:13 AM

My daughter, who was married over the weekend, is changing her last name to that of her husband. Why? Because her maiden name was the vernacular for a very negative concept. Otherwise, she would have kept it.

That sounds right to me.

Posted by Daphne Chyprious | June 18, 2008 1:34 AM

It's kind of sad how Jennifer Government is the closest thing we have to a 1984 about dystopian libertarianism.

Posted by Quietus | June 18, 2008 1:37 AM

Why is it that the world never remembered the name of Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern- schplenden- schlitter- crasscrenbon- fried- digger- dingle- dangle- dongle- dungle- burstein- von- knacker- thrasher- apple- banger- horowitz- ticolensic- grander- knotty- spelltinkle- grandlich- grumblemeyer- spelterwasser- kurstlich- himbleeisen- bahnwagen- gutenabend- bitte- ein- nürnburger- bratwustle- gerspurten- mitz- weimache- luber- hundsfut- gumberaber- shönedanker- kalbsfleisch- mittler- aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm?

Posted by Boronx | June 18, 2008 2:06 AM

My family comes from Sweden where the surname was given by the dad's first name + son (or daughter). Every generation had a new surname since each dad had a different first name. Then one son moved to the US and we've all had his surname ever since (anglocized from Johansen to the very boring Johnson), but if it had been his father or son that came over instead, we could have just as easily been Hansen or Nilsen.

So for two generations, we've carried the anglocized version of a name never meant to last more than a generation. That never made a whole lot of sense to me and, if anything, it takes something away from the sense of family history (especially since we got stuck with such a boring and common surname).

Posted by Nylund | June 18, 2008 2:20 AM

My wife wanted to have the same name as the kids. I wanted to have the same name as the kids. Being physicists, we had too much admiration for symmetry to take her name or mine as the family name. So, we hyphenated and changed our names professionally as well. Caused no problems, except that I've learned to spell my name for people by saying "dash" instead of "hyphen" because a significant portion of the country doesn't know the word "hyphen".

Amusingly, I got one little side benefit. Prior to hyphenating my surname was "Lee", which made me essentially invisible in scientific databases. Now my family are the only four people in the world with our surname, which I'll count as a second little side benefit.

Posted by Ben V-L | June 18, 2008 2:22 AM

Never mind surnames, do whatever you want. But when I first heard women being addressed with their husband's first name, as in "Mrs. Albert Smith", I was pretty shocked.

Posted by novakant | June 18, 2008 3:11 AM

And don't tell me it's because it's logistically "harder" for men to do! In NYC, the forms have spaces for name changes for bride and groom on their marriage forms--they're literally identical.

True in New York City (the rest of the state, too, obviously) but not in most other states. Google "Michael Buday," a California man who last year had to sue the state of California to make it as easy to change his name as it would have been to change his wife's. In only six states was the process for a groom to change his name the same as for a bride.

Posted by Adam Villani | June 18, 2008 4:37 AM

For anyone who's curious, I'm the grown up child of happily married, differently surnamed parents (both of whom are white, american and not in anyway swedish, hispanic or brazilian). There was no family tradition, my mom is the only one of her sisters to have kept her own last name. It has never been a problem. As a child I was proud that my parents were different (I also grew up calling them by their first names) and it always made it easy to tell who the telemarketers were ("Hello is Mrs. dad's name there?" always meant a sales pitch).I have my dad's last name because they flipped a coin and he lost (both names are strangely spelled, strangely pronounced, and not too attractive). I am not scarred, never worried about my parents' marriage bond and never felt I was not part of a family. For some reason my general mental well-being in light of my parents' different surnames always seems to surprise women of my generation.

Posted by UK_Expat | June 18, 2008 5:14 AM

"Each time you change partners"?
This reflects a very different conception of marriage than the one with which I was raised. I was taught to believe in marriage as a life-long institution. While some, perhaps even most, marriages will ultimately fail, if you don't go into it thinking that it's a forever kind of a thing, it doesn't feel like it's actually a marriage.

The name change is a symbolic act that makes sense in the context of an eternal union. You agree to share everything about your lives, including your name. In a less grandiose agreement, then it makes a lot less sense.

Admittedly, there are still plenty of feminist and identity-based reasons to consider it a weird and creepy custom-- but the only way it makes any sense at all is if you treat marriage as being an enormously important institution, not just something that happens "each time you change partners."

Posted by Anthony Damiani | June 18, 2008 6:42 AM

I adopted my husband's surname when we marr