#MicroblogMondays 8: Last Name
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I read a bunch of stories last week concerning Amal Alamuddin taking her husband’s last name, as if this was earth-shattering news. For example, The Stir wrote, “She, arguably, has an even more successful and lucrative career than her new husband, but that hasn’t stopped newlywed Amal Alamuddin from changing her last name after marriage and becoming Mrs. George Clooney.”
Beyond the judgment in the author’s word choice (so if you have a high salary, you should keep your name, but if you’re a poor, unknown sales clerk, it’s understandable if you want to head on down to the social security office?), it made me wonder why anyone is astonished by anyone else’s choice of whether or not to change their last name. My friends are a pretty even mix of three options (keep last name, change last name, or create new last name that both people in the marriage use).
If you’re married, did you (or your partner) change your last name with marriage? If you’re not married, do you know what you would do?
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71 comments
I hyphenated. This came as quite a surprise to many, most of who, were puzzled by my failure to change my name to my husbands. In part it was to retain my identity. In another part it’s because my first name and my husband’s surname have the same starting sound, and it sounded silly. And the third bit, the snobby bit. I have a name that is common in Australia but unusual in the USA. That is part of my identity, and it has been a struggle to adapt ( imagine moving to a country where your name, previously unique, is the equivalent of Mary but with an extra connotation of not bright) to this. My surname was unique enough, my husband’s was not. To adopt it would place me in the ranks of the humdrum. Snobby I know. So I tacked it on the end. And I am unique in the world in my name. Plus my name in the middle takes the alliteration sting away.
ahh, i could write an entire post on this. in the south asian (patriarchal) world, it is a given that the woman must take her husband’s name. in india, there are even legal barriers to not doing this!! hyphenating is not an option here 🙁
🙂 I’ve practically been stalking your blog today to see this post go up, Mel! Somehow managed to miss last Monday’s posting. Ah well.
Yep, I changed my last name when I got married. I was happy to – seemed like fun. If I weren’t married – I guess I would have considered changing it depending on what that second name was. Does that sound frivolous?
It is common these days for women to keep their maiden names. Although, not so sure if the men are happy about it. I have a friend who has two daughters and they have their Mom’s first name as their last name. Find it cute!
When my parents got married, they kept both their last names, hyphenated. Which was a poor decision in my opinion, because both names were long, uncommon, and even when spelt, people still wrote them incorrectly. My parents divorced and each got their names back, and I was left with both. My entire life I had to spell my name, and both my conationals and foreigners got it wrong. Even when I hadn’t done something out of ordinary, I would be remembered because of my name. That is not always good.
Thusly, I was mighty happy to get to change my name. Now I have a easy name, and I hardly need to spell it, even to foreigners. Unique is not something I am looking for in names, but there are chances my children will feel differently, since their names are quite common and simple. And so the wheel turns.
I kept my name when I married Q. My last name is quite unusual, and I love it, and it is a huge part of my identity. I completed my master’s degree before I was married. Plus one of Q.’s sisters has the same first name as I do, so if I’d taken his name we would have had the same name. It just seemed silly to contemplate changing.
My mother went back to her maiden name when she and my father divorced, so I knew it was possible to grow up with a mother with a different last name and not have it be some contentious issue.
My last name will not hyphenate with anything without sounding ridiculous, so that was out of the question (it would also be equally ridiculous as a token middle name).
We gave E. Q”s last name. I regret that a little, because my last name is going to die out in our branch of the family (my father and his brother had five girls between them but no sons). But Q.’s last name would have died out in his family if E. had been given my name, as he’s the only son of an only child.
Q. moved to my country. I thought it was fair his son get his name. If we stayed in Oz, I probably would have fought harder to give our child (if we succeeded in having one) my name.
I changed my name to my husband’s when I got married and went from an easily spelled/pronounced name to a difficult to say/spell/ethnic sounding name. Honestly, I didn’t even think about it when I did it though because, to me, a name is just another word. Seriously, who cares (IMHO)? Whatever anyone wants to do with their name is their business. If they feel comfortable with it then all the power to them! 🙂
I took my husband’s name, never feeling a particular attachment to my own. We both hoped for children and I didn’t want to complicate things by hyphenating or having a different surname to my kids. My best friend kept her maiden name and I now see that having different names in the family isn’t a big a deal as I first thought, though I do like the fact that the five people in my immediate family share a name.
My last name is STRANGE and I grew quite attached to it over the years. I remember telling a college love-interest how I never wanted to change my last name and he said, “Then I guess we know this won’t work out.” How right he was.
Luckily, I suppose, I married a Spaniard, so it was a non-issue. Would have been strange to him for me to take his last name. And now our kids have both last names, as is standard here, and it makes me smile. 🙂
I would like to invent a new last name for our family. All three of us have different last names! 🙂
I took my husband’s name. We wanted to have the same last name, and we actually wanted it to be mine. But we were young (23 and 24) and broke (married during the height of the recession in 2008). Changing his name cost money, but changing mine was practically free with purchase of the marriage license.
I was very excited to take Nick’s name, so these articles implying she was doing something odd or wrong bothered me. She is smart and successful and can obviously make her own choices in all matters including what she wants to be called.
I took my husband’s last name after holding out for around a year to my own after our wedding. Mostly because I wanted to share the same names with our kids and it was easier if he and I had the same name (*sigh* – this in the day where I figured my fertility was guaranteed). At this point, I don’t think I could change it back even if I was so inclined, it’s part of my identity now. I did, however, keep my original surname as my middle name.
I changed my name because, well, I wanted to! I dislike my maiden name. It’s hard to pronounce and I was looking forward to having a name that is easy to spell and say 🙂
I changed my name, somewhat begrudgingly. I wouldn’t have minded keeping my maiden name because a) it was awesome b) my husband’s (and now my) last name, is not. But I know he would have been somewhat offended if I hadn’t taken his name. So I delayed for about a year after we were married. Now I have a ridiculously long name, with a hard to spell and pronounce last name. All in the name of love!
I kept my last name, but dropped my middle name and replaced it with my husband’s last name. People tease me about it, because my last name is long and difficult to pronouse (4 syllables), my husband’s is short and easy. But I love my long last name.
I changed my name because I didn’t want to figure out the etiquette on when you use your husband’s last name vs. your last name. I also didn’t want to have any issue once we had kids. So I moved my awesome last name to my middle name and took my husband’s more common last name.
I always wonder why it’s anyone’s business about what we do in this case. I remember a ‘friend’ telling me how shocked she was that I changed my name – she didn’t expect it of me! I was nice enough not to say that she probably felt that way after the trouble she had going back to her maiden name post divorce! 😛
Just to tell you of a custom in Maharashtra, India. Women were asked change their first names too after marriage! I’m glad to report this is changing.
I didn’t change my last name when we got married. But in my passport it is mentioned “wife of [my husband’s last name]” and in his it says “husband of [my last name]”. When I filled out the form no-one asked me about it, my husband did get some questions from the woman at the consulate… When we moved here I didn’t have a job yet so I had to be insured under my husband’s social security number – so I got a card with my first name followed by his last name… When I made my first doctor’s appointment under my own name, they said after the visit that I couldn’t do that because for the insurance I had my husband’s name, so I should be registered with them like that as well. So after that I was known at the doctor/RE/dentist/hospital under my husband’s name. Then I started my own freelancing business under my own name – which meant I had to change social security office (different for salaried employees and the self-employed), so I registered under my own name. And now all the medical professionals don’t know what to do with me anymore (my dentist started to present herself the last time I went there because she thought I was a new patient, then she saw me, and said “oh, but I know you” and then fumbled because she didn’t know how to address me anymore) 😉
Turned out I had a lot to say about this! Whodda thought! Thanks for this topic, Mel!
I admire Amal’s certainty in changing her name. I’ve been a back-and-forther ever since we got married. I essentially hyphenated my name with SS, then promptly only used S’s last name. That was ok until, at my current job, they insisted on using legal last names for our e-mail and on all official paperwork. I don’t want to go get a court order to drop one name from my last name, and the reason why I kept my maiden name is partly because that’s who I was for 28 years before getting married. So, now, I use both last names, usually with hyphen so as not to confuse people and have slowly transitioned everything to my legal last name. It’s been annoying. I wish I just changed it to S’s or kept mine instead of putting myself in name-limbo.
I changed my name, happily. My maiden name was impossible to pronounce and I thought my married name would be easier. (It’s not, not really – the second A throws people off.)
I did take my maiden name as my middle name, which bothered my mother; but I had more an attachment to that name than my middle name.
So in that way, I still have both names, but I’m going by my married name.
I changed my name and I was excited to do so 🙂 I’m probably a little more old fashioned than other women in that way; it’s not that I didn’t have any success associated with my maiden name or that I dislike my family–just the opposite, actually. I have a very difficult, have to phonetically spell maiden name, and I have an equal difficult, have to phonetically spell married name. I dropped my maiden name completely because it was just to burdensome to be J-Reallyreallylongname Reallyreallyreallylongname.
I changed my name and I was excited to do so 🙂 I’m probably a little more old fashioned than other women in that way; it’s not that I didn’t have any success associated with my maiden name or that I dislike my family–just the opposite, actually. I have a very difficult, have to phonetically spell maiden name, and I have an equally difficult, have to phonetically spell married name. I dropped my maiden name completely because it was just to burdensome to be J-Reallyreallylongname Reallyreallyreallylongname.
sorry I just posted twice. stupid computer.
Kept my own name. I’d been using it for over 30 years, so I was used to it.
I do occasionally get called Mrs HisName. Most of the time I let it pass, unless it’s someone I’m going to spend a lot of time with and then I’ll politely correct them.
Initially, no. I kept my last name. That changed when we began looking into adoption as there was constant question about our marital status (and confusion from the agencies). So it seemed easier to take that out of the equation.
The issue now is that I decided to hyphenate my last name. Which makes it insanely long and confuses so many (German and French surnames don’t mix well). Still, this is me.
I applaud Amal for taking George’s last name! Think of the time she’ll save not having to spell her last name for various and assorted bureaucrats now!
I took my husband’s last name mostly for a similar reason, although I do have to spell it every time due to its similarity to another common word. But it’s 3 letters shorter than my maiden name. My oldest sister hyphenated (that was a really long one!) then changed to husband’s name and the next oldest kept her own (easier paperwork in the Air Force, I think). I don’t know if the third one is getting married or not – I don’t keep up on Florida’s laws.
I took my husband last name and made my maiden name my middle name. To him it was a deal breaker (I actually doubt it, meaning he would still have married me if I adamantly opposed to it). But it was under one condition. His name was messed up when he moved from India to the US. Whatever agency handled his passport mixed his name with his dad’s name. So on his passport, his first name was his dad’s last name. His last name was his first and last name plus his dad’s first name. It was crazy. So before we got married, I agreed to changing my last name to his if he straightened out his name for it to go back to the original name. It took a lot of months and effort involving many government agencies and newspaper in between. But it also showed how much he wanted to seal the deal with a marriage with me. 🙂
I kept my last name, in part because I have my paternal grandmother’s first name, so we match. It felt important to me someday to publish something under that name. I would have hyphenated names if he had agreed to do it as well but he didn’t. I would have considered taking his name if it were easier to pronounce and spell than mine in Spanish, but it’s not. I’ve never regretted keeping my name, and I LOVE that it was my decision, my choice – that I could keep it for reasons that were real and deep and meaningful to me, but that if I’d had real/deep/meaningful reasons to change, I could have done that too.
I was very excited to change my name when I got married. VERY EXCITED!!! My maiden name was long, hard to spell, and very uncommon. It was also hard to pronounce. My married name is common, easily spelled, and short…I can’t tell you how much I love my married name!!!
I’ve been married nearly 6 years. I always vowed that if I made it to age 25 unmarried (not sure why I picked that specific age–guess it sounded mature to teenage me?)–I would keep my own name for the rest of my life. That’s exactly what I did.
Some people refer to me by my husband’s surname socially, and I don’t mind. But legally and for all purposes, I maintain my birth/maiden name.
I should add. . . my husband told me before we married that he did not care one way or the other, and our children have his last name.
I changed my last name without much thought. But then, my Dad hasn’t been in my life since around the age of 7, so I had no huge attachment to the name other than the nickname I had through high school and college which was just an abbreviated version of it.
I really like the amalgamated-name idea (not hyphenated, but a sort of portmanteau). Unfortunately our names would have sounded plain silly like that. I just kept it and haven’t had many issues beyond some people insisting that they call me by my husband’s name anyway.
I don’t know. I’m a bit just-don’t-call-me-late-for-breakfast about it.
I took dh’s name. Keeping your own name was still a pretty radical thing to do 30 years ago, although it was becoming more common — most of my friends who were getting married around the same time were taking their husbands’ names. I did NOT want to hyphenate — my Ukrainian surname & his Italian seemed an odd combination (although I’ve heard stranger in the years since then). The deciding factor for me was my fairly traditional Italian FIL… he was very kind & welcoming to me (even though I was not the Italian daughter-in-law he had expected for his son…!) and I could not imagine trying to explain to him that I would not be taking his family’s name & why. I do use my maiden name with my married name as an identifier on Facebook, etc. Funnily enough, when I started working, most of the women I worked with at the time had kept their names, & I (like Amal) found myself defending my choice to go the traditional route.
My college roommate changed her name when she got married, but when they got divorced, she changed it back to her maiden name. It was relatively expensive at that time & place (she was still a student) and a lot of hassle & paperwork. Not long after everything was finalized, her wallet was stolen & she had to go through the whole rigamorole of getting all her ID reissued, again. Needless to say, the next time she got married, she kept her name. 😉
One more name story: one of my friends (a former coworker) took her husband’s name when she got married. She kept that name when she found a new love, since she was well established under that name, but her new partner was annoyed when he would be addressed as Mr. Ex-Husband, lol. She recently retired and changed her name to a hyphenated combination of her maiden name (which she never particularly liked) & her mother’s maiden name, which she always liked.
I took my husband’s last name. It made sense to me for married people to share the same last name, not that it is some big deal either. However, part of the reason I was OK to do that is because he has an “interesting”, i.e. somewhat unique last name. I grew up with a unique last name too and although I was always having to spell it and correct pronunciation, it is definitely part of my identity to have a unique name. If my husband’s name had been “Smith” or “Jones” (no offense to anyone with those names!) I may well have not changed it, since it would just be too weird to go from being Turtle Last-name-of-many-syllables to Turtle Smith. 🙂 If I had a name like Amal Alamuddin I would also be very tempted to keep it, since it has beautiful sound, much more musical to my ear than Amal Clooney. But to each their own. (Or to someone else’s).
Kept my unique ethnic hard to spell/zero ounce name. I was 27 and felt I had been me do long why change? Already had degrees career etc. DH’s name is somewhat ethnic and would’ve been ok too. I don’t think having a hard to spell or pronounce name is any reason to change it. I feel it’s other people!s problem not mine.
Kind of surprise do many responses here went the traditional route.
Funny– I got married in1995. A friend from college who got married a few years earlier had kept her name too. So I was surprised to get a congrats card addressed to “mr & mrs (DH last name).
I changed my name nearly a year into my marriage. I should have realized then my hesitation to change my name was more than just about having a new last name. Fast-forward several years, and I opted to keep my ex’s name following our divorce, so my kids (4 and 7 at the time) didn’t have to learn a new last name. And now, over 5 years later, I have this name that doesn’t feel like mine.
I didn’t want to change my name, everyone around me made me feel like I had to. Now I want to change my last name, but I also don’t think I would change it if (and that is a big IF haha) I were to get married again. So, I’m contemplating giving myself a whole new last name…
Bottom line: everyone can do what they want. Change it, don’t change it, create a new one. Let’s support people with whatever decisions they want to make.
When I was younger, I couldn’t wait to change my last name. People made fun of it and no one pronounced it correctly. Then I went to college where people didn’t make fun of it and professors actually knew how to pronounce it. By the time I graduated, I had pride in it.
I just added my husband’s last name to my name, making my maiden name a second middle name. It’s made filling out paperwork a headache, and I have a number of a/k/a’s now 🙂 Sometimes I wish I had just kept my name the same because when people call me “Mrs. {last name}” I want to say, “Uh, no, that’s my mother in law.” 🙂
I took my husband’s name. I kept my maiden name as my middle name (got rid of my old middle name). I am surprised by how much confusion it has caused.
I took my new husbands last name…Even though my children have my ex’s last name.
To me, it’s an honor to have my husbands name. I am very proud to be a ‘Davis’ now.
Every woman is different. It’s like picking baby names-NO ONE should offer an opinion unless it’s solicited. 🙂
This topic is always one where people have strong opinions – on both sides -perhaps because, whatever our decision, it is a very personal decision. And we want to defend those decisions.
I kept my name (it is not my maiden name, just my name) when I married 30 years ago. I was the first person I knew personally to do this. Almost all my current (IRL) friends have kept their names too – or are in long-term (20-30 year) relationships so it’s effectively the same . I could never (and still can’t) understand (besides patriarchal tradition that is) why it was (and still is) expected that a woman should change her name, not the man. To me, it is a very feminist issue. So I will say, even though it is none of my business, that I was disappointed when I heard that Amal Alamuddin was going to become Mrs. Clooney. I feel as if it is an outward sign that we as women still struggle to be seen as equal. I wrote about this some years ago. http://aseparatelife.wordpress.com/2009/04/10/the-feminist-series-no-2-living-it-in-the-80s/
One of my sisters changed her name twice. The first of these names – combined with her own first name – made her sound like a race horse! Her daughters are now in relationships and getting married. I teased one about changing her name and she laughed and pointed out, “Mali, we’re Xxxxs! Of course we’ll change our names.” She has a point I guess.
Mm, I think in the Netherlands traditionally women take a double last name with the husbands last name first and the man just kept his own name. Changing a middle name to a last name is not allowed (but you can have as many given names as you like, having 3 or four is quite normal)
These days men can change or double their name too after marriage, but I don’t know if that happens.
When I met DP he already had children with his (short) last name. Now that we have our baby girl I’m happy she has my last name, so in our combined family the males have single short names and the females have long(er) and more names.
Agree with Mali.
Also strange–in my field (law) some of my coworkers changed their names and use married name professionally, but it seems most use their original name for work. Not sure how they do this…california bar must allow it.
This is my second marriage, and when I divorced my first husband, I kept his last name. When I got remarried, I changed my last name from my ex-husband’s last name to my maiden name hyphen husband’s last name.
I had to go to a judge for that, because it was just too weird. But it feels GREAT to have my maiden name back. I missed it a lot.
I kept my name, but only because I had publications in that name that were linked to my professional profile and I didn’t want to confuse people or become hard to locate. In the end, I’ve branched into another career focus, while my husband has since changed his (back to the surname he had at birth, which his parents changed for reasons of inheritance when he was seven). Baby girl has a hyphenate of our two last names.
Really though, I don’t have strong opinions either way and think it’s just what feels right for the individual.
When I married the first time, I was adamant about keeping my name–and given that it was nearly 30 years ago, and I lived in a fairly conservative area of the US, I often felt judged for the decision. Relatives of his would routinely address mail to us using only HIS last name, or they would fail to remember my last name and address mail to him with an “and Heidi” tacked onto his name. For me, it was a feminist issue, and my blood boiled at the lack of consideration. For my second marriage, I chose to change my last name, though I do use my original last name as a middle name for most purposes, and I even maintain a listing in the telephone book under my former name, just in case anyone’s trying to get in touch with me. Reasons for the change: my husband and I desperately, desperately wanted children, something that wasn’t on the horizon in the first marriage (and, in fact, was the main reason the first marriage ended). For me, there was a sort of deeper meaning in changing the name; it represented a hope for family. It was a leap of faith. [Note: Let me stress that of course family members having different last names makes them no less family.] I think it was also, for me, an acknowledgement that feminism–like the decision to have children or not have them–takes many forms and is about thoughtful choice, rather than following a party line. Plus, my original last name was one of the most common surnames in the country; my second husband’s last name was one that I found historically interesting; and I felt fully embraced by my 2nd husband’s family in a way that I never was by 1st husband’s.
My husband took my name. We were living in the U.S. at the time and it would have cost a lot of money to get all of my documents changed (passport, visa, work certifications, etc.). He liked my last name because it was different and ethnic (Welsh) and I’m close to my Dad. We tried on various combined names, hyphenated names and new names but none seemed right to us.
His family gave him an enormous amount of grief on the issue. It went on for months until he added up all of the money it would cost to get all of my documents issued in a new name and told them they could put up double that money (for being annoying and intrusive) or they could shut up – either way the discussion was over.
They chose to shut up. 😉
I took my husband’s last name – after 32 years with the same name, it felt like it would be fun to change!
I’m also astonished that the media is astonished. Who cares?! There are much more important things going on right now.
I support people changing or not as they see fit.
For me personally, I have this very traditional side that feels warm fuzzies about having the same last name as my husband and about that name being linked back to family history. On a practical level, going from my super common name (4 people at my university had my exact first, middle, and last name) to his often-mispronounced one seemed like a good tradeoff.