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 married in 1991.

I just don't LIKE my maiden name. It's not particularly long or complicated, but for whatever reason it was impossible for people to spell or pronounce correctly, and this was a pain in the ass.

My husband's surname is one syllable and easy to spell, although far more common in the phone book. He was a bit disappointed I changed my name, pointing out (rightly) that I was setting myself up for a lifetime of wrong numbers and stupid credit checks. I decided that I'd rather deal with that than endless mispronunciations. But as with so many things, mileage varies.

Posted by scribbler | June 18, 2008 6:46 AM

To each his (or rather, her) own. Its a free country, to criticize women who choose to take their husband's name is as small-minded as criticizing women who choose to keep their own name.

In the dating scene, I suppose the issue does make a handy values screen. If your dating partner is adamant about one way, and you're adamant on the other side, then you can both quickly move on to greener pastures. If you haven't had a meeting of the minds already, that's not something to bring up the day before the wedding (that special day is reserved for the rehearsal dinner and your future in-laws springing the last-minute prenup).

Posted by beowulf | June 18, 2008 6:50 AM

When i married lo on 12 years ago, my wife took my last name and adopted her former last name as her new middle name.

I'd could say I just left it to her to decide. I didn't have a strong opinion. But I must face the question, "Why was this HER issue to face" .. if i was so indifferent, then why didn't i just change my name? Of course it was left to her but there were pressures (spoken and unspoken) that she had to navigate. Since she now uses her name prominently in her professional life. It is a defacto hyphenated name without the hyphen and that is that..but, ah, what might have been.

I remember in my younger days driving a certain stretch of West Virginia rural road, I'd always pass this big old mailbox with the family name handpainted on the side: "THE NEPTUNES"

I always thought that was neat that somewhere up that dirt driveway beyond the fencerow lived a hillbilly family named "The NEPTUNES".

I think if i had really listened to my heart when i got married, I would have made the case to my wife to be that we should both adopt that as our new family name. Maybe: JOVE AND MINERVA NEPTUNE. but alas.

Posted by cargocult | June 18, 2008 7:35 AM

"People would say that's silly, but for me it's no more silly than changing your name each time you change partners."

I suppose not getting divorced a bunch of times is out of the question?

Then again, I dont live in the real world yet. If being married is financially far better than going from one long term dating relationship to the next, I suppose getting divorced a bunch of times *does* make sense...

Posted by Nick | June 18, 2008 7:44 AM

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

Really? I'd heard Clooney was in the works to make a film version of 'Jennifer Government' a few years ago, but heard nothing since.

Posted by concerning the trolled | June 18, 2008 7:44 AM

Dear Women Who Keep Their Name While Giving Their Children Dad's Name,

You "gave" your kids their father's last name so that they would not be considered illegitimate. Period. Truly independent women give their children their names--if it is so damned important. Or on the other hand, the kids would take mom's surname if it really didn't matter. But is still does matter, which is why your kids have Dad's name. Or if you have more than one child you could give one Dad's name and one Mom's name and so on.

Posted by kate | June 18, 2008 7:46 AM

Since my last name rhymes with a number of female names (Tina, Gina, Karina, Sheena, etc.) I'm hoping if i marry a woman with one of those names, she keeps her last name unless she wants to sound like a cartoon character

Posted by Andrew | June 18, 2008 7:47 AM

When my wife and I got married we discussed last names. I told her in no uncertain terms that I was not changing my name, since I like my name. She told me the same thing. No problem.

Posted by Nathan Rudy | June 18, 2008 7:55 AM

actually never came up before we got married; lived together for six years first, (oh the humanity). her mother was kinda freaked out when we did get married and her daughter didn't change her name. (we were in our early forties so it made no sense to change). our son has both our last names (no hyphen; it's two names not one). he also has four others which is a story in itself.

Posted by dee | June 18, 2008 8:20 AM

BTW, when he (the son of two last names) gets married and has children, they get to name their children whatever they want. won't bother me

Posted by dee | June 18, 2008 8:24 AM

when my boyf and i bought a cat, we combined our last names to make a unique last name for charlie (the cat, yes, i give last names to my cats). i really love the combined name bc its so silly but also its made up of the best parts of our last names.

Posted by erg | June 18, 2008 8:39 AM

That story about Villaraigosa was great! Can someone please repost it so I don't have to scroll back up to re-read it? Thanks!

Posted by James Joyner | June 18, 2008 8:41 AM

Is this some kind of retro Early 1990s fad?

A little perspective, son. We married in 1978.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 18, 2008 8:53 AM

There's a woman locally named Karen Caron (you guessed it, pronounced "Karen"). That's the best argument for keeping your name (her maiden name was not a homonym!) that I've ever heard.

My last name is Dull, my husband's is Boring. Our daughter is Dull-Boring. This is not a workable solution for everyone but does save us a good deal of confusion, as none of the other Boring or Dull children in town are confused as ours (which used to happen when I was growing up as a Dull).

Growing up there were a few kids with different last names than their moms, but there's more of them now. I think we're the only hyphens in our (admittedly small) school though.

Posted by Persia | June 18, 2008 9:18 AM

Dear Kate. You are probably correct that many of us (not all--we know families at our kids' school that have alternated in giving the kids the last name of one parent and then the other parent) at least partly give our kids our husbands names so that they will not be "illegitimate". What I don't understand is why you think this is wrong or why you are so hostile about the practice?

Oh, and just generally, I have noted above and also for myself personally that for lack of a better word, aesthetics, plays a big role in people's decisions, and why not? I prefer my name to my husband's, (his is long and doesn't fit in the box and is hard to spell)--that had a role in my decision. Some women don't like their maiden names, and like their husband's better--so they switch.

Also, since, there doesn't really seem to be some hard and fast link between cultures where people do or don't change their names and patriarchal-ness, we probably shouldn't make such a big deal of that either. The naming thing is pretty much cultural, and because U.S. culture tends to value individualism, variation would seem to be pretty much par for the course. Sometime there's a fad toward more people not changing their names, sometimes not.

Posted by JMS | June 18, 2008 9:27 AM

I like the ancient Japanese idea that ones name changes at important life events. The only current example I know of is deceased emperors are referred to by their regnal names, not their ascension names.

Posted by pluky | June 18, 2008 9:31 AM

The question was, Why do women change their names when they get married? I think it has to do with the traditional notion that a woman, when she married lost her identity, in exchange for the man losing his freedom.

Posted by Jose Padilla | June 18, 2008 9:32 AM

A half dozen or so comments above about how a woman just didn't like her "maiden" name, so adopted her husband's name.

Not a single one about a man who adopted his wife's last name because he didn't like his "maiden" name.

And we're supposed to think that this "free choice" to take your husband's name comes from a context-free, gender neutral environment?

Posted by Ikram | June 18, 2008 9:32 AM

While misogyny informs the current convention I'm sure, the practical problems remain when gay couples get married and are further complicated when they have kids.
Really though, who cares how people deal with this? I like the idea of choosing a third name. Lord Jack Battlestar of the Rings. Works for me.

Posted by Jack H. | June 18, 2008 9:51 AM

Why don't we get rid of this whole silly name thing and just use numbers?

Posted by THX 1138 | June 18, 2008 9:55 AM

Ikram,

I didn't like my 'maiden' name and, had it not been for the unfortunate personal circumstance that I referred to above, would have taken my wife's surname. I remember several older men telling me that they wish they had taken their wife's name (particularly a fellow named Batt).

Posted by William Ockham | June 18, 2008 10:02 AM

Ikram--

Where is anyone making the claim that it's context-free? We're saying that women choosing to accept one tradition that comes out of our historical context isn't the same as buying into the idea that women are property anymore. Otherwise, y'know, we'd all have to go to work on Sunday, too, and screw that.

Posted by Cliffy | June 18, 2008 10:36 AM

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.

Charrua,

On the other hand, some of the names can get a little out of hand. One of my goddaughters in Brazil is named Ana Luisa Esteves de Barcellos Emery Pereira. I think a little reductio would have been a good idea here . . .

Posted by Randy Paul | June 18, 2008 10:39 AM

I didn't change my name when we got married because (a) I'm lazy and (b) my first and last names are both unusual Italian names and I didn't want to start mixing the ethnic message in the name of "tradition."

Kids haven't come into it yet, but I might consider adding my husband's last name to mine when/if they do. Problem is, I've heard from some women here in Los Angeles that they've been told by the Social Security Administration that they are not allowed to merely add their husband's name or make their maiden name their middle name. They must literally change their last name and discard their maiden name entirely. The clerks who told them this claimed it was for homeland security reasons (no, seriously).

Some of them walked out, went to a different office, and got to change their name the way they wanted to, so either the memo hasn't made it to all of the offices or some clerks are aware that how one changes one's name is not an issue of national freakin' security.

Posted by Mnemosyne | June 18, 2008 10:58 AM

My favorite name change involves my boss. When single, his name was Tom Zamora, and his heritage was Italian. He married a woman whose last name was Hill. When they married, they changed their last names to Collina, Italian for hill. This both respected her last name and his heritage without burdening their children with hyphenated names. It is about as good a solution to a knotty problem as I've heard, and I'm privately jealous of the ingenuity.

Posted by Ron Zucker | June 18, 2008 11:07 AM

Aren't we missing the obvious here? Get rid of this mess altogether and have a bunch of centrally issued unique identifiers. A 9 digit SSN is probably too much of a mouthful but I'm sure you could come up with something like 'Saturn 329'.

Posted by PizzaEagle | June 18, 2008 11:15 AM

Some misconceptions going on about Icelandic names. Check Wikipedia for an accurate (if badly written) article.

In Iceland there is no dilemma about name-changing for women. But for feminists there is a dilemma about the naming of children. Patronymics are predominant but matronymics are an option and the child can also have both.

It's less of an issue, though, because the patronymics/matronymics are not used so much. They are only used as parts of the full names, never alone.

Posted by Haukur | June 18, 2008 12:07 PM

A couple people mentioned Japan, but I'm surprised nobody mentioned the (more old fashioned) practice of introducing yourself as being possessed by your employer, as in "The Yankee's Matsui" or "The Atlantic's Matt" (Atlanta no Matt). They've been doing the "Jennifer Government" thing for a while (though with the decline of the salary-man, much less I hear)

Posted by aaron | June 18, 2008 12:35 PM

My wife kept her name when we got married. We have three kids, each of whom has my last name as theirs -- and her last name as one their middle names (they each have an individual middle name as well). It avoids cumbersome hyphenations, gives the kids "normal" names, and makes us all feel connected. Still probably an evil-patriarchy solution in some ways but it works for us.

Posted by John | June 18, 2008 12:47 PM

Here's how I think it should be:

John and Jane Smith have a child, Bob Smith.

Bob Smith gets married to Michiko Nakamura. They jointly decide on an all-new married name -- say, "Guiterrez."

Now, the deal is, it doesn't supplant any of their names. Instead, their names are now:

Bob Guiterrez Smith and Michiko Guiterrez Nakamura.

And when they have children, their kids names are:

Tetsuo Guiterrez and Mary Guiterrez.

And the kids then insert their married names as a middle name when and if they get married.

Advantages: It's gender-neutral and symmetric (and accomodates gay couples, and, indeed, polygamous unions), everyone in the nuclear family shares a name, nobody has to abandon any name that is part of their identity.

Disadvantages: No continuity for more than one generation (children don't share the name of any of their grandparents), people will choose silly married names (the aforementioned Martha Battlestar), and, of course, it will never, ever, ever, ever happen.

Posted by Michael B Sullivan | June 18, 2008 1:13 PM

To all those who "don't care" who takes (or doesn't) who's name in marriage - I say great. When I got married, I kept my "maiden" name because I didn't care for his and mine is short and unique, part of my sense of self (as someone said). It was also easier (less red tape). Of course, the pain came when well-intentioned people called him Mr.__ (my last name) or insisted on addressing me by his last name (as an aunt of mine did). It depends on your tolerance of levels of annoying, otherwise it's mostly minor.
At the end of the day, who really cares?

Posted by BxNY | June 18, 2008 1:16 PM

I had the conversation with my aunt a few years ago and she gave the it's a tradition reason. My response was why can't he change he. She responded well it is a new family unit. My response was then may be both last names need to be changed into some made up name or use both last names to come up with some unrecognizable hybrid.

Posted by ET | June 18, 2008 1:28 PM

The Supreme Court has ruled that states may legally devise draconian voter registration rules, requiring identification that matches your current legal name. Women, or anyone with a name change, will be refused ballots in some states if they don't produce the full legal paper trail of name changes. Be prepared for this before next November rolls around.

A state-by-state list of the voter registration and identification rules needs to be spread through communities and across the internet. Every state needs volunteers able to notify and help those who would otherwise be refused a ballot.

Valid photo ID with the current legal name needs to be provided by anyone wanting to vote in many states, so somehow we need to make this possible for those unable to obtain it on their own.

Posted by Edna Gardener | June 18, 2008 1:31 PM

What's the problem with "Ana Luisa Esteves de Barcellos Emery Pereira"? You can always call her Ana Pereira if you want (or Ana Luísa Emery if she likes it that way). But with the six names (four family names) all of her grandparents are represented, which is nice since usually they're still alive. And people who know can trace the origin of her names to several centuries ago and respective regions. It's a lovely name, it is not sexist (in fact, you can order it in any possible way) and gives her a lot to choose from when she grows up. Only rarely will she have to sign the entire name.

She can write her novels as Ana de Barcellos.
She can sign her checks as Luísa Pereira.
But friends will probably call her Ana Emery (or Luísa Emery) since it's the most unusual of her names, in a portuguese-speaking context that is.

Posted by rui tavares | June 18, 2008 1:47 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.

Uh no. It's just as difficult - at least in my state - for a woman to change her name. And in my case, after a divorce, I changed it back. I swore then I would never go through all that trouble again.

I've been happily remarried for 13 years, with my own name.

My husband, BTW, was horrified at the idea that I might change my name. He actually gets that the practice originated in the idea that women were the property of men.

There's a simple solution to the children's name thing - let girls take their mom's last name and boys take their dad's. And no, it doesn't matter if they're different - in these days of blended families people are used to it.

Whenever some young woman tells me she's taking her new husband's name "for convenience" I ask if he considered taking her last name. I usually get a horrified look and a "he would never do that." Until that changes, I don't buy the convenience argument.

Posted by gemini | June 18, 2008 1:55 PM

Actually we call her Ana Luisa, or if she's misbehaving, Ana Pintona. BTW, all four of her grandparents surnames are not represented. Her maternal grandfather is the Esteves, but de Barcellos is her paternal grandmother's father's surname and Emery Pereira is her paternal grandfather's mother's and father's names.

BTW, on a unrelated note, surnames such as Abelha, Oliveira, Pereira, Coelho and Carvalho, whcih mean bee, olive tree, pear tree, rabbit and oak, respectively, common in Portuguese speaking countries can often indicate Jewish ancestor forced to convert centuries ago and adopt Portuguese names. the story has it that they chose common sounding names of things with which they were familiar.

Posted by Randy Paul | June 18, 2008 2:40 PM

"Interestingly enough, in Japan it's not an option to have different names. A married couple MUST share a name." That doesn't mean the husband's name always prevails; if the wife's family is of higher rank (especially if she's an heiress) the man takes her name. My former uncle had to go to court to regain his birth name after my aunt died and he fell out with the rest of the clan.

If my father had agreed to move to Japan, we would all have taken that name as well, but since he was set on living in the US, my mother had no choice but to take his name (a legal requirement in 1960) and my sister and I have his name only because our mother didn't realize that the law did not require children to have the name of *either* parent. My mother obtained the legal right to reclaim her birth name in the late 70's, but decided not to since her citizenship papers wouldn't match (an unbelievable hassle to correct). My sister and I briefly considered changing our names to the ones our mother had intended us to have, but ultimately decided to stick with our birth names. FWIW, my mother-in-law was relieved that I wasn't going to take her son's last name, as she had never liked it much herself. My husband's last name is a woman's first name, and mine is a man's, so exchanging or combining them would lead to confusion about our first names.

Our cat has her own hyphenated last name, completely different from ours.

P.S. The name changing for important events applies to the personal name; the family name represents clan affiliation and is only changed by a form of adoption. My mother had the option to change her first name when she became a citizen, which would have been appropriate in both cultures, but refused to because she felt there was Anglocentrism at work. So she kept a name few can pronounce or spell, which worked out because she also dislikes the practice of salesclerks and the like first-naming their customers.

Posted by Sisi | June 18, 2008 2:52 PM

My mom threw a fit when I told her I was considering not changing my quirky maiden name to my husband's (Thompson).

Funnily enough, when my sister got married 2 years later and decided to keep her name instead of taking her husband's (Ramirez), Mom had no problem.

I wonder why?

*I did change my name, and regret it. You know how many Thompsons there are in this country?

Posted by slim | June 18, 2008 4:01 PM

I don't have time to read 200 comments, but I thought of a system to avoid some of the name problems. I have an unwieldy last name composed of two unusual last names that I inherited from each of my parents, and it's a pain in the ass let me tell you. My mother was motivated primarily by feminist concerns and although I understand her reasoning, it's not really any kind of solution because obviously I couldn't do it for my children, and even before then, I'd be hesitant to have a woman assume my name because, as I said, it's a pain in the ass.

My idea is basically that a child in a heterosexual marriage/partnership would inherit the name of their same gendered parent. If John Smith and Mary Jones have children named Jennifer and Biff, they would be Jennifer Jones and Biff Smith. Under this system, all names would have the potential to be passed on and everyone would get to keep their name for life.

A few obvious problems:
1) Homosexual couples would be on their own. They are already anyway so this wouldn't be a real change.
2) It could create a new kind of marker for children from single parent homes, specifically boys who don't know who their fathers are. By necessity they would have to take their mother's name. This could potentially end up with some kind of stigma.
3) Eventually the system could lead to having distinctly male and female last names, although if we were to start from the current distribution of names this wouldn't manifest for many centuries. If it were the case though the stigma I mentioned would be stronger.

Still, I think this would be a huge improvement over the current system, which seems to be leftover from the days when women were more like property, while preventing frankenstein names like mine.

Posted by Austen Lethbridge-Scarl | June 18, 2008 4:21 PM

I am personally aware of one instance in which a man took his wife's name after marriage (changed from Chomicki to Jones). He claimed it was because he was on the run for tax evasion in the 80s. Implied was the perceived security of relative anonimity that Jones would provide in the future. Of course, between the two, she's the only one with a real job. From a narrow "traditionalist" perspective, she is the man of the family.

Posted by scepticus | June 18, 2008 4:37 PM

Was adopted at age 10 by an asshole stepfather. Changed my name back to my father's at age 18. When I married at age 22, I had some sense of the hassle involved in a name-change, so I kept my (father's) name. We gave my daughter her dad's last name, my middle name, her own first name.

Advantages to keeping my last name: It affirms my close connection to my biological father, and it comes late in the alphabet. I'm co-editing the second edition of a book, and the fact that my name comes last alphabetically means that being the last name on the spine doesn't give away my junior status on the project. Also, no one pronounces my husband's name correctly.

Advantages to taking my husband's name: If he manages to gain citizenship in an EU country (patriliniarly, through his great-grandfather), we may find that it's easier for me to gain duel citizenship if I change my name to his. We'll see. It's a good escape clause; who knows what the USA's future holds?

Posted by AZ Escapee | June 18, 2008 4:45 PM

When we got married, we put a statement something like this on our wedding webpage: "John has decided to keep his own name. He has lived a large portion of his adult life (we married in our late 30's) and career and has published academic articles under his current name, so this makes the most sense for him. Mary fully supports him in his decision, and knows that if she were the one expected by custom to change her name, John would support her if she decided to keep her current name." Hoping we'd get people to think. Maybe, though my mother and sister in law continue to hyphenate my name with his, though I have never done that. Other relatives assume I took his name. Guess not everyone read that part of the webpage, or are actively choosing to ignore it (more likely).

As an academic, I have seen my share of CV's where women starting publishing under their original names, got married and changed them, and them split up and changed back to the original name. Makes for a rather fractured publication record and looks like you are fickle, AND I've never seen this on a male academic's CV.

Posted by kajey | June 18, 2008 5:04 PM

I wouldn't want a woman to change her name to mine if she married me. It would seem top weird, almost creepy.

Who the hell would want to marry someone who isn't a complete person with their own identity? Blech.

Posted by craig | June 18, 2008 5:13 PM

When we got married, we put a statement something like this on our wedding webpage: "John has decided to keep his own name. He has lived a large portion of his adult life (we married in our late 30's) and career and has published academic articles under his current name, so this makes the most sense for him. Mary fully supports him in his decision, and knows that if she were the one expected by custom to change her name, John would support her if she decided to keep her current name." Hoping we'd get people to think. Maybe, though my mother and sister in law continue to hyphenate my name with his, though I have never done that. Other relatives assume I took his name. Guess not everyone read that part of the webpage, or are actively choosing to ignore it (more likely).

As an academic, I have seen my share of CV's where women starting publishing under their original names, got married and changed them, and them split up and changed back to the original name. Makes for a rather fractured publication record and looks like you are fickle, AND I've never seen this on a male academic's CV.

Posted by kajey | June 18, 2008 5:16 PM

It seems to me that the connection to the patriarchy is the reason this issue has bite. And Matt gets it exactly-- it isn't name-changing per se, but that 95 percent of the time it's the woman who changes her name. You don't have to be a radical feminist to understand that this is a reflection of a sexist society where female identities are considered expendable and women are still symbolically their husbands' property.

As for individuals who changed their names and don't like to be criticized-- in the scheme of things, this is not a huge deal. I'd rather live in a society where we eliminated the pay gap and sexual harassment and rape even if women continued to disproportionately take their husband's names rather than a society where we solved the name issue and the real-world living conditions of many women continued to be awful. But it does seem to me that the "right" answer to this is to move towards a system where the burden and duty of name-changing falls almost exclusively on women.

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 18, 2008 5:19 PM

excuse me, that last sentence should read "to move away from a system"

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 18, 2008 5:26 PM

Not a single one about a man who adopted his wife's last name because he didn't like his "maiden" name.

And we're supposed to think that this "free choice" to take your husband's name comes from a context-free, gender neutral environment?

Actually. I didn't mention it, but 3 weeks before our wedding, my husband got all upset (for the 19millionth time) about some asshole miswriting or mispronouncing his very cool, easy name, with an odd letter in it. He decided that he wanted to change his name, maybe not to mine, but that we should pick our own. I has previously suggested this and he didn't like the idea. I had been waiting to change my boring ass, hole-in-the-ground name as long as I could remember. So, when he didn't want to make up a new name, I got all comfy with his name. Then he suddenly wanted to change his after I'd started working on learning new cursive letters? (I have a fine motor disability and writing is hard.) No, bitch.

I didn't mention it because I'd really quite forgotten. Who gives a fuck if the tradition is "context-free" or "gender-neutral"? No one forces me to do it, goddammit. Nothing is ever context-free. Pull your head out of your butt and wake up. You want gender-neutral? Change your DNA to XO and chop off your genitals.

Posted by brenna | June 18, 2008 6:12 PM

"But when I first heard women being addressed with their husband's first name, as in "Mrs. Albert Smith", I was pretty shocked."

This used to be standard. When I was a boy, it was how my mother signed her letters.

Posted by Bloix | June 18, 2008 7:17 PM

#####"But when I first heard women being addressed with their husband's first name, as in "Mrs. Albert Smith", I was pretty shocked."

This used to be standard. When I was a boy, it was how my mother signed her letters.#####

Standard and desirable. To sign yourself as “Mrs. Joan Smith” might mean you were that horrible thing, A Divorced Woman.

If you look at old newspapers, it’s very odd to see married women identified by their husbands’ names. I remember seeing an old Washington Post society page during the Kennedy Administration that ran like this: ‘Mrs. Robert Kennedy, Mrs. Dean Rusk, Mrs. Robert McNamara......’

In the long ago women were chattel, and the changing of the surname upon marriage symbolized the woman’s passage from being one man’s property to another’s. Different people may reach different conclusions, but this isn’t an argument about nothing, and the choice you make can certainly mean something.

Maybe more men would do it if government agencies weren't so discriminatory about it.

If more men did it, the agencies would be pressured to change their ways.

Posted by Hypatia | June 18, 2008 8:39 PM

Some confusion about Icelandic names up above. The Icelandic naming system is to give the child a first name (and perhaps a second given name) and a patronymic, composed of the genitive form of the father's name followed by either -dottir or -son.

Matronymics are not unheard of, but neither are they that common (they're not new, either; there are personages in the sagas with matronymics and it's been a valid if rare option throughout the history of Iceland, and prolly goes back to Proto-Germanic times). Some people use both matronymics and patronymics (with the matronymic as a middle name), but that's somewhat ungainly (since the -son or -dottir element is repeated twice). Others use matronymics if they and/or their mother are estranged from the father, to make a feminist statement or because they think the matronymic sounds better. (There are family names in Iceland,btw, (American 'last' names); I'd guess about 5%-15% of Icelanders have them, and ofc foreigners have them). However, since Icelanders use their given name in all situations, including formal and governmental ones, 'last' names aren't the issue they are in America; you'd never address someone as Ms. Jonsdottir, rather you'd call her Gudrun or Gudrun Jonsdottir.

The patronmyic system can cause issues with children of Icelanders born in other countries, where the notion of the child having neither the father's nor the mother's name is too much to comprehend. I married an Icelandic man, and when our children were born (in the states), we gave them the patronmyic as a middle name and my last name (my maiden name, which I've kept my entire life) as their last name. So in Icelandic contexts, they use the patronmyic, and in English contexts, they use my last name, which I think works very well (my husband, btw, also uses my last name, though he never formally changed it).

Posted by undercat | June 18, 2008 9:28 PM

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."

No. This apparently depends upon your US jurisdiction, but in mine I was able to change my name when I married just as a woman normally does.

Both my wife and I hyphenated our names.

Incidentally, during our marriage, I used that hyphenated without exception. I was addressed by people many times a day, every day, as "Mr. McIntyre-Ellis".

And, when we divorced, the divorce decree changed our names back. Which is all that is required for social security, driver's license, etc.

Unlike Matt and others here, I think all members of a family having the same surname is desirable and important.

I also think that having an ancestral surname identity is also desirable and important.

Therefore, I came up with a scheme that satisfies these requirements and is gender-neutral. In short, all members of the family have the hyphenated names of the two partners. Later, when the children are adults and marry, they drop the opposite-sex portion of their hyphenated name and take on their partner's in its place. Thus, had my ex-wife and I had children, and they used this system, then all female descendants of ours would have been "McIntyre-Something", while all male descendants would have been "Something-Ellis".

As mentioned above by the commenter who posited a gendered system, this has the one disadvantage of not accounting for homosexual couples. In this case, not in the immediate family, but down the line when it comes time to lose a portion of the hyphenated name and take a partner's.

However, I think a good enough solution is just for those individual to choose whichever name they like.

I think this system solves most problems and is admirably gender neutral. I especially like the fact that women will have the exact same sort of ancestral identity that men currently have...without denying it to men, of course.

Posted by Keith M Ellis | June 18, 2008 10:56 PM

"No. This apparently depends upon your US jurisdiction, but in mine I was able to change my name when I married just as a woman normally does."

I should make clear that in my decision all that involved was the marriage certificate showing my new surname and then presenting that to the DMV and social security.

Posted by Keith M Ellis | June 18, 2008 11:06 PM

My wife did not change her name because 1) hers is a beautiful and alliterative three words, 2) my surname is very common and 3) because she knew I would go along with whatever she decided.

Now, thirty-five years and two children later I believe she would have changed to my surname just not have to deal with the questions, at the PTA, when you are picking your kids up at school, having to explain to our kids why she didn't change to their surname and any number of snafus and mix-ups (all innocent enough, but irritating nonetheless) that have occurred over the years.

My daughter (just married) was thrilled to change to her husbands surname because she is now at the beginning of the alphabet and not at the end, and because she was around to experience the endless explanations her mom had to make.

Posted by Craig Wilson | June 19, 2008 12:36 AM

It's not a dumb thing to worry about. Half our society is casually assumed to give up part of their identity when they get married, and the other half isn't. And in general, I like to help make society gender-equal.

Almost everyone posting in this thread saying "it's no big deal, who cares" is describing a situation where the woman sacrificed her name.

Posted by Shock Mouse | June 19, 2008 10:46 AM

Obviously Matt wants to keep his name but is being pressured to change it. I think Sullyglesias is the way to go.

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