user names

[southendmd]

I agree with everything you just said Bud.  I wonder if anyone here has heard of an example where a husband has entirely changed his name to take his wife's last name (not hyphenated).  I'm sure it's probably happened at some point, but I honestly can't think of an example that I've encountered personally.

I haven't encountered that, but I have a friend who changed his name to Joe Hername-Hisname, with hers first! So, he's not known as Joe Hisname anymore.

[Penthesilea]

I agree with everything you just said Bud.  I wonder if anyone here has heard of an example where a husband has entirely changed his name to take his wife's last name (not hyphenated).  I'm sure it's probably happened at some point, but I honestly can't think of an example that I've encountered personally.

I know a guy who took the name of his wife. Not hyphenated, just her name and abandoned his former last name completely. But I have to say that he had gotten his last name from his step-father and he hated the man's guts. He was very happy to not longer share the name with that man.

My husband would have taken my name. I completely agree with everything said. We both would have liked to create a new name out of our two last names, it would have fitted good. But that's not possible in Germany. So it was either his or my name. Our last names were both male first names and I personally really didn't care whether my name is Walters or Stephens (just making up the examples, but it was similar, only with German names of course).

Just for principle I acted up a bit and insisted on my name. He agreed. Then I offered him a deal: I would take his name, but therefore I have the right to name our child (I was pregnant then) however I want.
And that's the way we did it.

[serious crayons]

I know a guy who took the name of his wife. Not hyphenated, just her name and abandoned his former last name completely. But I have to say that he had gotten his last name from his step-father and he hated the man's guts. He was very happy to not longer share the name with that man.

I bet when it does happen, there's often a reason like that. Or else the man's last name is unattractive -- John Buttface or whatever -- and he wants to change it. Though sometimes I've seen women change THEIR names to their husbands' unattractive last names, which particularly surprises me.

[MaineWriter]

I agree with everything you just said Bud.  I wonder if anyone here has heard of an example where a husband has entirely changed his name to take his wife's last name (not hyphenated).  I'm sure it's probably happened at some point, but I honestly can't think of an example that I've encountered personally.

The guy who fixes my computer is Michael Thompson-Brown. He used to be Michael Thompson; his wife was Brown. When I asked about the order, he said they both agreed that "Thompson-Brown" sounded better than "Brown-Thompson." There a practical approach to the name thing! I haven't looked in his wallet to see if his license is changed, but everything I see with his name: email, listing in the phonebook, has "Thompson-Brown" as his last name, so I suspect it is a total (legal) change.

When a friend of mine got married, she and her new husband took HIS mother's maiden name as their new last name. It was a situation where his father had walked out when he was very young, so the name he had grown up with had negative associations for him. My friend had a long Italian name with lots of syllables and she didn't want to hyphenate that to anything, so they just started fresh with a whole new (meaningful) name. Note: in this situation, they did need to go court, since the man was legally changing his name.

And I think I mentioned before, I kept my name, and my children have my last name. My son has the sort of unique situation of no middle name--just two names, first and last, since that was the family name. He says in some ways, that causes more problems than not having his father's name, since everyone is "supposed" to have a middle initial. LOL

L

[injest]

I think it's so revealing of major cultural attitudes and of how ingrained certain conventions are in society... to realize how incredibly rare it is for a husband to take his wife's name.  In fact, I think many men would find the idea insulting or laughable.  It does happen once in a while (my parents have friends whose son took his wife's last name in a hyphenated way).  But, the fact that the burden is always, or almost always, placed on the woman to have to deal with the pressures about changing names is just really depressing to me.

This convention I think really reveals how ingrained patriarchal traditions are in society still to a large degree.

Why does creating family unity always have to come at the expense of a woman's identity?

why does she feel that her identity will be lost if she changes her name? You are who you are....married, single, whatever your last name. A rose is a rose...

[serious crayons]

why does she feel that her identity will be lost if she changes her name? You are who you are....married, single, whatever your last name. A rose is a rose...

That's funny, Jess! I was going to say "a rose is a rose" when I responded to your last post, the one about why it's better if all people in a family share the same last name. But I didn't, because on second thought I decided it's not that simple. You rightly made the point then that sharing a last name gives family members a sense of unity -- that is, an identity as a family. But identity works on an individual level, too.

Or consider the reverse: If you are who you are, married, single, etc., then why should a woman bother to change her name? Especially because that entails many more hassles (changing driver's license, etc.)? The reason many women do it is because they want their name to reflect their identity as a wife.

[Brown Eyes]

The name issue is certainly not necessarily an issue of deeply ingrained personal identity.  Yes, I agree that changing a name doesn't fundamentally change a person's "real" identity. 

This is more a question of symbolic identity.  And, I think for some people, there's a deep attachemnt to a name and for others it's not such a big deal. 

To me, the situations where women entirely subsume their name/symbolic identities into their husband's names in cases that have been mentioned before... where a woman's name would be written "Mrs. John Doe" are actually sort of sad.  It just seems to be an unpleasant reminder of old-fashioned aspects of marriage... when the word "obey" was in marriage vows and when there was a large degree of subservience implied within marriage as an institution (of couse circumstances like this still persist in lots of current cultures and individual circumstances).

I had a a friend once who loathed her father and couldn't wait to change her last name when she got married.  She's divorced now.  So, in a way she's in a real bind in terms of a last name... either she had to choose to go back to a disliked paternal last name or to  keep divored-married last name.  She was only married for about 2 years and has no children.  She kept her divorced husband's last name, but in a way there's something sort of odd about that.

Women really are often stuck when it comes to having "names of their own".  It's usually one kind of paternal/patriarchal option or another.  Lesbian couples wrangle with this dilemma a lot.

For me personally, I have my father's last name and my mother's "maiden" name as my middle name (which of course is really her father's last name).  So, even my middle name isn't truly a name of female origins (meaning it doesn't reflect anything about my mother's maternal line).

Also, the whole issue of tracing a family lineage can be just so difficult for women compared to men (based on constant name changes through multiple generations).  In a way it obscures female lineage to a degree that doesn't seem fair.

And, I still think the fact that men are usually so reluctant to change their last names is very telling about the cultural implications of a last name.

[CellarDweller]

When the day is over (work/gym/dinner) I take a quick shower and go to the cellar where the TV, phone, DVD/VCR, CD player, CDs and DVDs and computer all are.  I stay there until bedtime.

[Katie77]

When the day is over (work/gym/dinner) I take a quick shower and go to the cellar where the TV, phone, DVD/VCR, CD player, CDs and DVDs and computer all are.  I stay there until bedtime.

And when you are asleep, the boogy man lives down there........

[CellarDweller]

And when you are asleep, the boogy man lives down there........

Oh puhlease.

I killed him a long time ago!