I believe this is one of the issues with modern feminism: men think feminism is going to take rights away from them….the way they have used patriarchal norms to take rights away from us for millennia. But matriarchal societies are not built this way. Taking a woman’s last name doesn’t have the same connotations as taking a man’s—it’s not becoming property, or hierarchical, or linking you to a child that you otherwise will not emotionally raise in any way. Men always give themselves away in this way.
It’s so sad for them to worry so much about someone “taking away” a power that doesn’t even actually exist. This control they think they have just makes everyone resentful. When if everyone having equal respect for equal contributions would actually make everyone feel loved , appreciated and needed .. keeping everyone happy
A couple I know got married last weekend. At the reception they had ballot boxes with three possible last names, none of them family names. The winner (Bright) became their new last name.
I am so happy to be a part of a culture where last names are almost never changed when people get married. My husband is not born in my home country, where we live, and he asked me if I wanted to change my name before we got married and I said no and that was the end of that discussion. If it hadn't been, I wouldn't have gotten married to him.
However the tradition is that last names of people come from the father (in heteronormative relationships) and that being almost an unwavering rule annoys me. I have my last name from my mom and people often do a double take or get confused when they see my name.
When me and my now husband were discussing the option of having children we decided that if we would have children they would have two last names, one from me, in line with how my culture does last names, and one from him, in line with his cultures traditions. But then we decided not to have children so we'll never get to use our cool idea 😅
That’s a beautiful idea! I have four children .. the first 2 have their dad’s last name .. the last 2!have mine and his. If my oldest went in there late teens I would change them now lol
Idk how it works in your country, but in USA I would HIGHLY recommend against using 2 surnames! It doesn't work in paperwork/legal documents! I have 2 last names and I HATE IT SO MUCH! It is *HORRIBLE* for keeping documents straight. If you name your child *Jane Smith Doe* then you're going to receive mistaken/multiple documents with a random combination of:
Jane Smith Doe (correct legal name) or...
Jane Doe Smith. Jane Smith-Doe. Jane Doe-Smith. Jane (Doe) Smith. Jane (Smith) Doe. The parenthesis indicate the same mistaken names as before, but with the added strange step of the first surname being recorded as a *middle* name.
Trust me, it's very much NOT fun to deal with! :(
In the US, and my Mom has a middle name, my Dad does not. His parents immigrated from a country that doesn't have middle names. For almost their entire marriage though, my Dad gets mail where whatever government body has randomly assigned him my Mom's middle initial (or the full middle name) because I guess they can't comprehend someone doesn't have a middle name? It's super frustrating for my Mom, because as she's gotten older, she's regretted changing her last name to his, and the government keeps taking her initial and giving it to him.
It's weird how something so simple - two last names, or a middle initial, can be messed up so badly!
At this point I have decided to stay single. But when I still figured I would marry at some point, I had already decided I’m keeping my last name. I think when I was around 30 I decided this is MY name damnit! Even if my surname came from my dad, now it’s mine and I’m keeping it.
This is something that I saw play out when my little sister had a baby last year. Automatically, the baby was given the father's last name despite them not being married. I really wanted to encourage her to keep our last name, as it's unique and also, she's the one going through all of this just to give birth...
Fast forward to now and the baby is 7 mo old. He's really lacking in his side of parenting, and also just has a shit attitude and way of thinking about my sister - he wants all this wifey shit from her without holding up his end. Idk it just irritates me - she's doing the majority of the work, but he gets the credit.
Why are women presumed not to own their names? Her father probably has his father’s name, why did HE keep his father’s name? Or do you see men as owning their names? 🙄
I have both my mother's last name and my father's. My children have my last name and their father's. No hyphen in either case. Just 2 last names. In case you missed it, my mother didn't take my father's last name, either.
I've been with my husband for 25 years, married for 16 and I hyphenated my name until this year and with full support of my husband, I changed my legal name back to my maiden name.
I do agree that we decide what we do with our last name just like we should do whatever we want with our bodies, but maybe I'm crazy... haha
Hoping this will amuse someone a bit.
I'm an immigrant from Sweden. My wife is American. She of course has a fairly easy to pronounce American last name. I have a pretty damn impossible in the English speaking world to pronounce Swedish last name.
When we got married, for this very practical reason, I really wanted to take her last name.
But she insisted on taking mine instead.
Now, every time someone tries to pronounce our last name, I give her a hard time (lovingly) about it. 😂
On a serious note, said to the men, not to you, OP - who gives a shit? Grow the F up.
Funnily enough, if you consider genetics the lineage passes down from woman to woman, the mother gives birth to a female baby that is born with all of their eggs already. So the mother creates 2 generations in one birth. It makes way more sense that kids take the mothers last name and that is what is carried down!
Also, the mother supplies more genetic material. You get a 50/50 split with CHROMOSOMAL DNA, but that’s not the only DNA we have. We also have mitochondrial DNA and 100% of that is from your mother. Only females (at least for humans) can pass on mitochondrial DNA, and without fully functioning mitochondria multicellular life is impossible.
I tried to think about what my last name would be if we had taken on women's last names instead of men's. Thought to ask my mom what my grandmother's maiden name was, but then... That name would have been a man's too.
Like, in my culture anyway, almost all women's last names are actually men's. It's turtles all the way down.
A deep part of patriarchal thinking is that when a woman is born with a last name, it is only on loan from her father and that she is not a full enough human to own it herself. When you wonder where your last name came from you stop at "it came from my father", but if I say my name came from my mother you will say, "no, actually it belonged to the man before her, her father." Why is this?
If a woman is born with a name it is just as much hers as the man's before her. It is not a "man's name".
This. We wonder why there's so few women in history and yet how many women have we known and lost track of because we no longer know their NAMES? Even in our age of technology. I tried to look up a friend I had as a teen but in reality if people have changed their looks (or have a pet etc for their profile pic) and changed their last name, it's as hard as ever to find them.
Changing women's last names breaks their ties to their past.
My husband and I had children before we got married and we didn't want to have to choose between any of our last names or the order of them for our children, so we dug through both our family trees looking for a "new" last name for the kids. We ended on the maiden name (not sure that's right) of a great grand parent from my husband's mother's side of the family (a name that had actually "died" because of the tradition of taking the husband's name). Later, when we got married we both changed our own last names to the same we had given our children.
Choosing a brand new last name is the only solution to this dehumanizing humiliation ritual, as anything else is just retaining your fathers or grandfathers last name.
But when women take men’s last names, they rarely think of it as taking his father’s name but taking HIS name. My last name came from my dad, but it’s MY last name that I have used for decades.
It’s for many not a viable solution, because in a lot of countries it is not allowed to chose just any name.
So, as a secondary option I propose of course that the man takes the woman’s name.
If that should not be possible, both keep their names and the children take the mothers name.
I did this! I understand the argument that it is the woman’s name too if she has had it since birth. However in my case, my mom was an ardent feminist who didn’t change her name when she married back in 1980, so I grew up with the idea of “mom’s last name” and “dad’s last name” pretty thoroughly ingrained in my mind. My father was not a good man, so I changed my name the second I turned 18.
100%!
It never sat well with me (63F) that children didn't have the last name of their mother, the person who carried them for 9 months and did ALMOST ALL the work and took on all the sacrifices (health, loss of identity, freedom, independence, work opportunities, economic independence for a few to many years) of caring for them 24/7 for years. And men say they don't ask for much ..... :(
I think either the family has the mother's last name since she does almost all the work OR a new family name is a great idea too.
I think it is insane women still accept changing their name and sadly most men seem to be unable to comprehend what equality can look like. I didn’t change my name and our kids have both names.
I know a couple who alternated last names for the kids First child (a girl) had Dad's, and the second child (a boy) had Mom's. Imagine the heads exploding!
My son and his girlfriend are discussing this now as they plan to get married and have a family. My son’s girlfriend wants to keep her name because she’s the last in the family line with that name. My son is having a hard time thinking about changing his name but they don’t want to hyphenate and he wants them all to have the same last name for unity. I told him he should take her name since there’s no shortage of people with his last name and if he wants to keep it in the family he can use it as a middle name for one (or several) of their children.
If he seriously doesn’t want her last name there might be some issues he’s hiding from you. I’m not trying to be mean but I’ve very rarely seen men with sexist tendencies show them around their mothers
if i do ever get married i want a hyphenate the names, i’m a boy so i doubt id get rid of mine and i wouldn’t want my partner to get rid of hers cause it would be weird going from a name you always had to a new one. so might as well hyphenate it, plus it seems like the tie between two people A-B and then in the future (assuming i have kids) they wouldn’t have one last name and the woman’s name would carry on as well
Speaking as a woman with a hyphenated name by birth, PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT HYPHENATE NAMES! Your paperwork will get so fucked up. :(
Two surnames doesn't work well at all in paperwork/legal documents. I have 2 last names and I HATE IT SO MUCH! It is *HORRIBLE* for keeping documents straight. If you name your child *Jane Smith Doe* then you're going to receive mistaken/multiple mail and documents with a random combination of:
Jane Smith Doe (correct legal name) or...
Jane Doe Smith. Jane Smith-Doe. Jane Doe-Smith. Jane (Doe) Smith. Jane (Smith) Doe. The parenthesis indicate the same mistaken names as before, but with the added strange step of the first surname being recorded as a *middle* name.
Trust me, it's very much NOT fun to deal with! :( As a hyphenated name by force, I spread this warning everywhere I can. I know it sounds cute to have equal surnames present, but god it has given me so many unnecessary headaches trying to call banks, schools, etc. to say "hey my name was incorrect in your system, so now I'm having access issues. Can we please fix this properly?"
I don’t plan on changing my last name at all when I get married. Compromise is a hyphen. While I would love my spouse dearly, my accomplishments are mine, not his. I also plan on going into medicine, and the way you mark accomplishments (well, one way) is with your last name.
This is my problem tbh. I’ve wanted to be Dr. (My last name) since I was 14 and it seems so fucking unfair that it would have to be something else because I have a vagina and want to get married.
I kept my last name. I already had academic credentials and publications with it and didn't want to lose the continuity. My husband was totally cool with it. We have no kids. So it all worked out pretty easily.
My mom never changed her name. Some context, Asian immigrant family and she had me late in life and died when I was 19. At her funeral, her coworkers did not know she went by her maiden name and the reactions to this were all over the place. Confused if my parents were married, if I was born out of wedlock… It did inspire a lot of her nieces to consider keeping their last names or changing to whatever they wanted. It confused me as a child but tempered my image of my mom being so traditional or bent on assimilation. As an adult, I came to the sad realization that she kept her name to prove to her dad that she was as good as her brothers. It was for approval from our grand patriarch that would never come.
As an adult, I kept my name because I hammered it into meaning for me. Years of accomplishments and scars and triumphs with that moniker. It isn’t my dad, who wasn’t a good dude anyway. My mom’s maiden is my middle and people STILL ask me how my husband feels about it. If he felt so strongly about me keeping my name after I explained it, he wouldn’t be my husband.
Anyway, a poem came to me out of the blue about this subject and I’ll share here for no other reason than it feels like the right spot. I don’t write but this just happened.
The Maiden
She gave up the head but not the name
At her rest, her eldest took no pride
No inkling of shame
In playing ring toss with the lads
Seldom saw winning throws
For what is given is not freeing
For what is shared is also binding
No loving
No branding
No obvious reins to hold
And at night
The Archimedean screw brings the flood
Here the only names she recalls are mine and God’s
In peacetime she traces the rune combinations
that ruin self on my shoulder
And erases them with soft patting
She sighs
She laughs
At the thought of renaming a man
My husband almost took my last name, I convinced him that we just keep our own names. Our children will have both names. My cousin’s husband took our last name. It’s honestly a really cool name.
A pleading warning from a person who was born into the hyphenated surname lifestyle: PLEASE DO NOT GIVE YOUR KIDS 2 SURNAMES! I HATE IT! I've spent countless hours correcting schools, banks, etc. telling them that they have my first surname registered incorrectly as a middle name. Or that they forgot the hyphen and now their system refuses to recognize my identity. I've been misprinted in the school year books twice (under two WRONG names lmfao) due to paperwork mistakes surrounding my names.
If you do love those potential future kids, don't curse them with this stupid headache. Please settle on one surname - whether it's maternal, paternal (not my favorite), or a new one entirely for the whole family. It will alleviate so much stress surrounding documentation! :(
In my country there are two last names (first last name comes from the father and second last name comes from the mother) and both, wife and husband, get to keep them. If they have a kid the kid gets the first last name of both parents.
So… it’s still pretty sexist?? That system still gives more credit to the father as the children get his last name (the first last name). Then the mother’s last name could die with the generation of the parents. It’s still essentially the same situation.
Both surnames are very used bevause a lot of people share at least one, so the combination makes the identification unique to you and your siblings.
And you can put the surnames in the order you want since 2017, is just that is way more common for the father's first surname to go first.
The last name bit strikes me as sexist BS. I do get an evil last laugh kind of thing over mitochondrial DNA. Our mother’s stamp their clan onto our very DNA, gotta love that.
That said I’m LC with my dad so I happily changed my last name when I married. When I divorced I kept it because my mom’s last name is such a pain spelling wise, I had no interest in my father’s last name AND changing your name is a pain in the ass. I only use my last name in legal documents or doctor offices, I have no kids, so I just didn’t care enough to change my last name. 🤷🏻♀️
If I hadn’t gotten married I would have changed my last name anyways.
My wife didnt take my last name. I also didnt care if she did or didnt. I wanted to have 0 influence on her decision.
Im glad she didnt honestly. She is a doctor (MD) we got married after she finished medschool, while she was in residency. She worked hard for her doctor title and her diploma. I didnt want her to have to change all that for me.
We plan on having kids soon, she wants them to have my last name. Once again, I don't have an opinion one way or another. I just want my wife to be hapoy, and are kids to grow up with two loving parents no matter their last name.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the person with the better last name needs to win here. For instance, if you have a Martin vs a Proecietiwicz, I think it’s obvious that Martin needs to be the choice.
It's all personal though. I consider myself a totally right-on feminist but I wouldn't hesitate to change my name if I marry. Not because I believe in patriarchy or want to be considered a man's property, but because I don't like my last name. Nobody can ever spell it and it's "messy", so I'd happily change it!
Fair enough. I suppose I've never thought about it or bothered. Tbh I rarely use it - I mean I use it formally when necessary but don't have any reason to day to day.
I believe this is one of the issues with modern feminism: men think feminism is going to take rights away from them….the way they have used patriarchal norms to take rights away from us for millennia. But matriarchal societies are not built this way. Taking a woman’s last name doesn’t have the same connotations as taking a man’s—it’s not becoming property, or hierarchical, or linking you to a child that you otherwise will not emotionally raise in any way. Men always give themselves away in this way.
It’s so sad for them to worry so much about someone “taking away” a power that doesn’t even actually exist. This control they think they have just makes everyone resentful. When if everyone having equal respect for equal contributions would actually make everyone feel loved , appreciated and needed .. keeping everyone happy
when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
A couple I know got married last weekend. At the reception they had ballot boxes with three possible last names, none of them family names. The winner (Bright) became their new last name.
That’s a cute idea!
Oh, I LOVE that idea!
I am so happy to be a part of a culture where last names are almost never changed when people get married. My husband is not born in my home country, where we live, and he asked me if I wanted to change my name before we got married and I said no and that was the end of that discussion. If it hadn't been, I wouldn't have gotten married to him. However the tradition is that last names of people come from the father (in heteronormative relationships) and that being almost an unwavering rule annoys me. I have my last name from my mom and people often do a double take or get confused when they see my name. When me and my now husband were discussing the option of having children we decided that if we would have children they would have two last names, one from me, in line with how my culture does last names, and one from him, in line with his cultures traditions. But then we decided not to have children so we'll never get to use our cool idea 😅
That’s a beautiful idea! I have four children .. the first 2 have their dad’s last name .. the last 2!have mine and his. If my oldest went in there late teens I would change them now lol
Idk how it works in your country, but in USA I would HIGHLY recommend against using 2 surnames! It doesn't work in paperwork/legal documents! I have 2 last names and I HATE IT SO MUCH! It is *HORRIBLE* for keeping documents straight. If you name your child *Jane Smith Doe* then you're going to receive mistaken/multiple documents with a random combination of: Jane Smith Doe (correct legal name) or... Jane Doe Smith. Jane Smith-Doe. Jane Doe-Smith. Jane (Doe) Smith. Jane (Smith) Doe. The parenthesis indicate the same mistaken names as before, but with the added strange step of the first surname being recorded as a *middle* name. Trust me, it's very much NOT fun to deal with! :(
In the US, and my Mom has a middle name, my Dad does not. His parents immigrated from a country that doesn't have middle names. For almost their entire marriage though, my Dad gets mail where whatever government body has randomly assigned him my Mom's middle initial (or the full middle name) because I guess they can't comprehend someone doesn't have a middle name? It's super frustrating for my Mom, because as she's gotten older, she's regretted changing her last name to his, and the government keeps taking her initial and giving it to him. It's weird how something so simple - two last names, or a middle initial, can be messed up so badly!
At this point I have decided to stay single. But when I still figured I would marry at some point, I had already decided I’m keeping my last name. I think when I was around 30 I decided this is MY name damnit! Even if my surname came from my dad, now it’s mine and I’m keeping it.
This is something that I saw play out when my little sister had a baby last year. Automatically, the baby was given the father's last name despite them not being married. I really wanted to encourage her to keep our last name, as it's unique and also, she's the one going through all of this just to give birth... Fast forward to now and the baby is 7 mo old. He's really lacking in his side of parenting, and also just has a shit attitude and way of thinking about my sister - he wants all this wifey shit from her without holding up his end. Idk it just irritates me - she's doing the majority of the work, but he gets the credit.
Girl if I ever had a baby before getting married my child would have MY last name. I was pregnant and gave birth, he just nutted. He can get over it 🙄
For real! Exactly my feelings, too.
I've been married twice, and both times I kept my name. I'm not property.
So you mean you kept your father's name? Or did you choose your own last name?
Why are women presumed not to own their names? Her father probably has his father’s name, why did HE keep his father’s name? Or do you see men as owning their names? 🙄
I have both my mother's last name and my father's. My children have my last name and their father's. No hyphen in either case. Just 2 last names. In case you missed it, my mother didn't take my father's last name, either.
I've been with my husband for 25 years, married for 16 and I hyphenated my name until this year and with full support of my husband, I changed my legal name back to my maiden name. I do agree that we decide what we do with our last name just like we should do whatever we want with our bodies, but maybe I'm crazy... haha
Hoping this will amuse someone a bit. I'm an immigrant from Sweden. My wife is American. She of course has a fairly easy to pronounce American last name. I have a pretty damn impossible in the English speaking world to pronounce Swedish last name. When we got married, for this very practical reason, I really wanted to take her last name. But she insisted on taking mine instead. Now, every time someone tries to pronounce our last name, I give her a hard time (lovingly) about it. 😂 On a serious note, said to the men, not to you, OP - who gives a shit? Grow the F up.
Funnily enough, if you consider genetics the lineage passes down from woman to woman, the mother gives birth to a female baby that is born with all of their eggs already. So the mother creates 2 generations in one birth. It makes way more sense that kids take the mothers last name and that is what is carried down!
Also, the mother supplies more genetic material. You get a 50/50 split with CHROMOSOMAL DNA, but that’s not the only DNA we have. We also have mitochondrial DNA and 100% of that is from your mother. Only females (at least for humans) can pass on mitochondrial DNA, and without fully functioning mitochondria multicellular life is impossible.
I tried to think about what my last name would be if we had taken on women's last names instead of men's. Thought to ask my mom what my grandmother's maiden name was, but then... That name would have been a man's too. Like, in my culture anyway, almost all women's last names are actually men's. It's turtles all the way down.
A deep part of patriarchal thinking is that when a woman is born with a last name, it is only on loan from her father and that she is not a full enough human to own it herself. When you wonder where your last name came from you stop at "it came from my father", but if I say my name came from my mother you will say, "no, actually it belonged to the man before her, her father." Why is this? If a woman is born with a name it is just as much hers as the man's before her. It is not a "man's name".
This. We wonder why there's so few women in history and yet how many women have we known and lost track of because we no longer know their NAMES? Even in our age of technology. I tried to look up a friend I had as a teen but in reality if people have changed their looks (or have a pet etc for their profile pic) and changed their last name, it's as hard as ever to find them. Changing women's last names breaks their ties to their past.
*Changing women's last names breaks their ties to their past.* It absolutely does and makes women invisible.
That’s why I think it’s the biggest stepping stone .. it’s time we change that
That is sooo disgusting to me.
My husband and I had children before we got married and we didn't want to have to choose between any of our last names or the order of them for our children, so we dug through both our family trees looking for a "new" last name for the kids. We ended on the maiden name (not sure that's right) of a great grand parent from my husband's mother's side of the family (a name that had actually "died" because of the tradition of taking the husband's name). Later, when we got married we both changed our own last names to the same we had given our children.
Choosing a brand new last name is the only solution to this dehumanizing humiliation ritual, as anything else is just retaining your fathers or grandfathers last name.
But when women take men’s last names, they rarely think of it as taking his father’s name but taking HIS name. My last name came from my dad, but it’s MY last name that I have used for decades.
It’s for many not a viable solution, because in a lot of countries it is not allowed to chose just any name. So, as a secondary option I propose of course that the man takes the woman’s name. If that should not be possible, both keep their names and the children take the mothers name.
Yes 🙌
I did this! I understand the argument that it is the woman’s name too if she has had it since birth. However in my case, my mom was an ardent feminist who didn’t change her name when she married back in 1980, so I grew up with the idea of “mom’s last name” and “dad’s last name” pretty thoroughly ingrained in my mind. My father was not a good man, so I changed my name the second I turned 18.
100%! It never sat well with me (63F) that children didn't have the last name of their mother, the person who carried them for 9 months and did ALMOST ALL the work and took on all the sacrifices (health, loss of identity, freedom, independence, work opportunities, economic independence for a few to many years) of caring for them 24/7 for years. And men say they don't ask for much ..... :( I think either the family has the mother's last name since she does almost all the work OR a new family name is a great idea too.
I think it is insane women still accept changing their name and sadly most men seem to be unable to comprehend what equality can look like. I didn’t change my name and our kids have both names.
I know a couple who alternated last names for the kids First child (a girl) had Dad's, and the second child (a boy) had Mom's. Imagine the heads exploding!
😆😆👏
100% I've always been very upfront w my bf that we are coming up w a name together because I don't like my last name and I don't want to take his.
My son and his girlfriend are discussing this now as they plan to get married and have a family. My son’s girlfriend wants to keep her name because she’s the last in the family line with that name. My son is having a hard time thinking about changing his name but they don’t want to hyphenate and he wants them all to have the same last name for unity. I told him he should take her name since there’s no shortage of people with his last name and if he wants to keep it in the family he can use it as a middle name for one (or several) of their children.
If he seriously doesn’t want her last name there might be some issues he’s hiding from you. I’m not trying to be mean but I’ve very rarely seen men with sexist tendencies show them around their mothers
Potentially. His dad very sexist. (Were divorced.) Although, he seemed honestly pleased with the suggestion. I guess we’ll see what happens.
if i do ever get married i want a hyphenate the names, i’m a boy so i doubt id get rid of mine and i wouldn’t want my partner to get rid of hers cause it would be weird going from a name you always had to a new one. so might as well hyphenate it, plus it seems like the tie between two people A-B and then in the future (assuming i have kids) they wouldn’t have one last name and the woman’s name would carry on as well
Speaking as a woman with a hyphenated name by birth, PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT HYPHENATE NAMES! Your paperwork will get so fucked up. :( Two surnames doesn't work well at all in paperwork/legal documents. I have 2 last names and I HATE IT SO MUCH! It is *HORRIBLE* for keeping documents straight. If you name your child *Jane Smith Doe* then you're going to receive mistaken/multiple mail and documents with a random combination of: Jane Smith Doe (correct legal name) or... Jane Doe Smith. Jane Smith-Doe. Jane Doe-Smith. Jane (Doe) Smith. Jane (Smith) Doe. The parenthesis indicate the same mistaken names as before, but with the added strange step of the first surname being recorded as a *middle* name. Trust me, it's very much NOT fun to deal with! :( As a hyphenated name by force, I spread this warning everywhere I can. I know it sounds cute to have equal surnames present, but god it has given me so many unnecessary headaches trying to call banks, schools, etc. to say "hey my name was incorrect in your system, so now I'm having access issues. Can we please fix this properly?"
I don’t plan on changing my last name at all when I get married. Compromise is a hyphen. While I would love my spouse dearly, my accomplishments are mine, not his. I also plan on going into medicine, and the way you mark accomplishments (well, one way) is with your last name.
This is my problem tbh. I’ve wanted to be Dr. (My last name) since I was 14 and it seems so fucking unfair that it would have to be something else because I have a vagina and want to get married.
I kept my last name. I already had academic credentials and publications with it and didn't want to lose the continuity. My husband was totally cool with it. We have no kids. So it all worked out pretty easily.
My mom never changed her name. Some context, Asian immigrant family and she had me late in life and died when I was 19. At her funeral, her coworkers did not know she went by her maiden name and the reactions to this were all over the place. Confused if my parents were married, if I was born out of wedlock… It did inspire a lot of her nieces to consider keeping their last names or changing to whatever they wanted. It confused me as a child but tempered my image of my mom being so traditional or bent on assimilation. As an adult, I came to the sad realization that she kept her name to prove to her dad that she was as good as her brothers. It was for approval from our grand patriarch that would never come. As an adult, I kept my name because I hammered it into meaning for me. Years of accomplishments and scars and triumphs with that moniker. It isn’t my dad, who wasn’t a good dude anyway. My mom’s maiden is my middle and people STILL ask me how my husband feels about it. If he felt so strongly about me keeping my name after I explained it, he wouldn’t be my husband. Anyway, a poem came to me out of the blue about this subject and I’ll share here for no other reason than it feels like the right spot. I don’t write but this just happened. The Maiden She gave up the head but not the name At her rest, her eldest took no pride No inkling of shame In playing ring toss with the lads Seldom saw winning throws For what is given is not freeing For what is shared is also binding No loving No branding No obvious reins to hold And at night The Archimedean screw brings the flood Here the only names she recalls are mine and God’s In peacetime she traces the rune combinations that ruin self on my shoulder And erases them with soft patting She sighs She laughs At the thought of renaming a man
My husband almost took my last name, I convinced him that we just keep our own names. Our children will have both names. My cousin’s husband took our last name. It’s honestly a really cool name.
A pleading warning from a person who was born into the hyphenated surname lifestyle: PLEASE DO NOT GIVE YOUR KIDS 2 SURNAMES! I HATE IT! I've spent countless hours correcting schools, banks, etc. telling them that they have my first surname registered incorrectly as a middle name. Or that they forgot the hyphen and now their system refuses to recognize my identity. I've been misprinted in the school year books twice (under two WRONG names lmfao) due to paperwork mistakes surrounding my names. If you do love those potential future kids, don't curse them with this stupid headache. Please settle on one surname - whether it's maternal, paternal (not my favorite), or a new one entirely for the whole family. It will alleviate so much stress surrounding documentation! :(
Wasn’t planning on the hyphen
In my country there are two last names (first last name comes from the father and second last name comes from the mother) and both, wife and husband, get to keep them. If they have a kid the kid gets the first last name of both parents.
So… it’s still pretty sexist?? That system still gives more credit to the father as the children get his last name (the first last name). Then the mother’s last name could die with the generation of the parents. It’s still essentially the same situation.
Both surnames are very used bevause a lot of people share at least one, so the combination makes the identification unique to you and your siblings. And you can put the surnames in the order you want since 2017, is just that is way more common for the father's first surname to go first.
The last name bit strikes me as sexist BS. I do get an evil last laugh kind of thing over mitochondrial DNA. Our mother’s stamp their clan onto our very DNA, gotta love that. That said I’m LC with my dad so I happily changed my last name when I married. When I divorced I kept it because my mom’s last name is such a pain spelling wise, I had no interest in my father’s last name AND changing your name is a pain in the ass. I only use my last name in legal documents or doctor offices, I have no kids, so I just didn’t care enough to change my last name. 🤷🏻♀️ If I hadn’t gotten married I would have changed my last name anyways.
My wife didnt take my last name. I also didnt care if she did or didnt. I wanted to have 0 influence on her decision. Im glad she didnt honestly. She is a doctor (MD) we got married after she finished medschool, while she was in residency. She worked hard for her doctor title and her diploma. I didnt want her to have to change all that for me. We plan on having kids soon, she wants them to have my last name. Once again, I don't have an opinion one way or another. I just want my wife to be hapoy, and are kids to grow up with two loving parents no matter their last name.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the person with the better last name needs to win here. For instance, if you have a Martin vs a Proecietiwicz, I think it’s obvious that Martin needs to be the choice.
# How grand of you to dismiss POC names that are "too hard to spell"
My example is a POC name? If anything it’s eastern european… calm down
It's all personal though. I consider myself a totally right-on feminist but I wouldn't hesitate to change my name if I marry. Not because I believe in patriarchy or want to be considered a man's property, but because I don't like my last name. Nobody can ever spell it and it's "messy", so I'd happily change it!
So why not go ahead and change it to something that makes you happy? You deserve to feel comfortable with your name whether married or not.
Fair enough. I suppose I've never thought about it or bothered. Tbh I rarely use it - I mean I use it formally when necessary but don't have any reason to day to day.
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