Last names post marriage

One of my coworkers and myself are both engaged and we were discussing how both of our fiances will be hyphenating their last names after marriage. One of our other coworkers said that he thought it was a "slap in the face" and it was "unnatural."

Unnatural? What way of naming people is "natural?" And what makes my name more important than her name? Why should she be forced to adopt my family name but not the other way around? Quite frankly the whole discussion has made me consider hyphenating my last name as well. I won't, but that's just me stubbornly adhereing to tradition for no real reason.

Of course (iminent horrible generalization alert!) my offended coworker is catholic, right down to no meat on fridays (except for fish because fish don't have souls or feel pain ). He said that it just goes against everything he was raised to believe. What do you believe? That men are naturally dominant over women? That women don't have the same rights as men? That after marriage she's my property and having my last name is a way of branding her?

In the case of my fiance, she is her father's only child (has a half sister on her mom's side) and has no cousins so she's the last person with her last name. She also grew up with that name, is rather fond of it, and as such she want's to keep it. I have no problem with this.

Part of me likes Jason Segel's joke in How I Met Your Mother. "Why don't we just come up with our own last name? Have you met the Awesomes? Their daughter Totally and their son Freakin'?" :laugh:

It struck kind of an odd nerve with me that I wouldn't have expected. I guess that it's his insinuation that she's insulting me by wanting to have her own name and his use of the word "unnatural."

Anyway, thoughts?

Goken wrote: Part of me likes Jason Segel's joke in How I Met Your Mother. "Why don't we just come up with our own last name? Have you met the Awesomes? Their daughter Totally and their son Freakin'?" :laugh:

Seriously, this is actually my 'plan' for when/if I get married. I like double-barrelling in principle, but there are some names it just doesn't work with (mine, for instance) and it's only really good for one generation. What happens when Jane Smith-Johnson marries Henry Davis-Pilkington? Do we end up with Jane and Henry Davis-Pilkington-Smith-Johnson???

I've never liked the idea that one part of the couple has to 'sacrifice' their name whilst the other keeps theirs, and as someone who would almost certainly be marrying someone of the same sex, I don't know how that would work. I wouldn't want someone to take my surname - it would make me feel uncomfortable (as in a selfish sort of uncomfortable).

I have genuinely been saying for a while now that I like the idea that a couple would choose a new name that has meaning to both of them, to mark their new life together.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." - William Shakespeare (somewhere in Romeo and Juliet...)

The family name I got when I was born was seven characters long. I took my husband's name at 13 characters long. It's a lot of fun doing my security clearance because his dad's last name is five characters long, his moms is the same as ours, my mom has a different name than mine or my madden name (hers is five characters...is her's not the proper word? LOL) and his brother has his dad's name...yeah...they were confused....ANYWAYS!

My husband told me that I didn't have to take his classic polish name. It was a decision I thought about because being military, my family name IS my name. But it was always a childhood dream of mine to love someone so much that we would become a family to the point of becoming 'one'. Including sharing a name. The reason he has his mom's name and not his dad's is because the generation prior had all females so there was no one left to carry the name. So they decided my husband, as the oldest, would. Since I do love tradition where I can sensibly apply it, I took his name.

But I wouldn't think anything of someone keeping their madden name, or a husband taking the wife's name, or both or either hyphenating (I teased about hyphenating mine and what that would look like on my name tapes!). Today in the US, it is tradition for the wife to take the husband's name. But in other places they hyphenate names and if I remember right, in medieval Europe it was common for the more influential family to accept the less influential member in. So a man could easily change his name and coat of arms to his wife's family if they were that much more influential.

There's just a lot of people who are hide-bound in tradition and can't (won't?) understand anything different.

I love the idea of making a new family name can you imagine trying to trace back family trees though? hahahha

I don't think there's anything wrong with making a new last name or hyphenating or accepting one or the other. But I can totally understand how a man raised in our culture would come to expect their last name to be taken. When a woman says "No, I don't think I'll be doing that," he thinks to himself, "Really? Why? This is something which is expected and most other people I know do it this way -- have I done something wrong, which makes me somehow less of a man?"

Yet another instance of attachment bringing about suffering.

in some cultures it's natural to hyphenate a name at marriage...

in philipino culture when a male child is born they often are named after the father's father and grandfather as well as the mother's father and grandfather...it's considered normal to do so, which is why so many philipinos have names that are 5 names long...the younger generations are moving away from this tradition...and of course the older generations view this as a slap in the face....

personally a name is just a word on paper...i've been called all sorts of things...the name is not who you are...it's only how you are identified...

I changed my name to my husbands, it didn't bother me. My husband wanted me to change my name because he is a bit old fashioned but I really didn't mind. I do have to hyphenate it for college work because of the undergraduate education was all done under my maiden name. So when colleges are looking for my transcripts and such I have to use the hyphen. Personal preference I guess, I really had no attachment to my maiden name otherwise.

I don't know if I'll ever get married, I've kind of got a lot of political reasons for not getting married... However...

If I were to get married, I wouldn't change my name. My understanding is that among European Western cultures, the tradition of changing the last name was the final step in transferring property. What property? The wife, of course. Women were considered property and changing last names was an ancient equivalent to changing the title on a car.

I have friends who have kept their own name. A few who have hyphenated. Two couples where the groom took their wives names.

And most amusingly, one of my closest friends who swore she would never get married, or have kids, and would never consider changing her last name because it was an outdated symbol of the patriarchy and station of women as chattels to be passed from father to husband.

Shes done all three :woohoo: and I tease her mercilessly about it.


Names are part of our identity. And identities change. Many of us have taken names on here because our "inner" identities are not adequately covered by a name we were born with. Some because we wish to hide our true identity. Some because we aspire to be different to what we are.

Does it really matter what people think these days about the name changes? And is it really anyone's elses business? I don't think that it has any more connotation any more than picking a handle to use online.

I'll change mine, I've never really been fond of my own anyway. and I think its symbolic of becoming one family. Though, I doubt my husband to be would raise an eyebrow if I wanted to keep mine. I dont think hes read the thread yet.... so I may be wrong

Perhaps each partner can take the other's, AB + CD = AD CB :lol:

Dunno about kids, use middle names to include, perhaps, and let them choose whichever they like or both... though I tend to prefer the idea of matriachal lineage since the mother does most of the work pre-birth
:pinch:

in some cultures the name of the more prominent family is taken....sometimes that's the wife's family name sometimes the it's the husband's....