“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet; so Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d.” – Romeo and Juliet (2.2.47–49)
One of the very first things my then-fiance asked me after getting engaged was whether or not I would be taking his last name. This turned out to be a touchy subject for us. We were not of like mind on this particular point and we both felt strongly about our respective positions. In the end he agreed to respect my decision to keep my maiden name, but given his traditional background, I know it was a tough pill to swallow.
Don’t get me wrong! I adore my husband. He’s smart and handsome and talented and clever as hell. And I love his family. They are good people, warm and honest and loving and principled. I love being a part of their family and I appreciate the fact that they have welcomed me with open arms.
But I love my family too. And they are the ones who raised me, supported me and challenged me. They are the ones who helped shape me into the person I am today. I am a product of my family and giving up my surname felt like I was switching teams or something, like his family and background were somehow more important than mine. I wanted to respect and honor my heritage, especially my father’s… He is a devoted family man who only had daughters, and I am the eldest, his doppelgänger and beloved goofball, the one who drinks too much and swears too much and always ruins group photos by sticking out her tongue.
Most importantly, giving up my name felt like a betrayal to myself. I have a distinctive last name. And I am hardly what you’d call a wallflower (see aforementioned reference to drinking and swearing). My last name is a notable part of my identity as well as my personal and professional reputation. I worked hard to establish that identity and recognition. And as much as I wanted to be married to my husband, I didn’t feel that becoming his wife meant I had to give up that part of my life. True, the feminist in me felt uneasy about the origins of this tradition — women as property or dependents and all that and besides, it just seems so unfair that in this day and age it’s still automatically the woman who has to make that sacrifice — but when push came to shove it was more of an emotional and personal decision than a political one.
So that’s the reasoning behind my choice but one thing I truly appreciate about the circles in which I move is that there is no right or wrong answer to this question. I have many female friends who have decided to take their husband’s name and just as many who didn’t. And instead of simply wondering why they chose as they did, I decided to ask. Here’s what they said…
“I changed my name but kept my maiden name for professional purposes. It was a hard decision but I ultimately felt that taking my husband’s name was part of telling the world that we’re partners for the rest of our lives. That said, I had already been working for 10 years when I got married and I have many professional contacts so I didn’t want to lose the recognition of my maiden name.”
“I didn’t change my name because I had built a substantial body of work as L– O–. Plus, even though my last name has been mispronounced on just about major event of my life, I’ve grown weirdly fond of it.”
“For starters, I think at the time I was so excited to be married and be one of the first, or first few, among my friends to be married that I couldn’t wait to change my name so that people KNEW I was married. Feeds into that whole princess/prince thing that I grew up with, probably. But now that I’m a little older and marriage is now a familiar state of being – not that it’s lost its charm – I would still make the same decision. Part of it, for me, is that changing my last name is representative of starting a new family. The other, less romantic, part of changing my last name, is that it was in accord with the preceding traditions of marriage. Before my husband and I were married, we philosophically agreed that marriage – the license, the name changing, the shared bank accounts, etc. – was a legal institution and nothing more. Our love and dedication to one another transcends the law – law or not, we have a bound relationship because we’ve mutually decided so. But we’re human and we’re Americans so of course we want to be married so that others will recognize our commitment to each other. For some reason, that recognition is important in living life, and while I like rocking the boat, this is just one issue that doesn’t irk me. So along with deciding to wed under our Westernized culture of marriage, taking my husband’s last name was just another check on the list. I’ve heard some really cool stories about women who keep their name, and even men who have taken their wives’ family name. A sliver of me wishes I would have hyphenated mine, because my dad had no sons. And I really fucking love my dad. But I think in the end, when the cards all play out at the end of humanity or the world or whatever, my love for my family will live beyond whatever my last name is/was/will be. I guess I’m kind of a I’m-on-Earth-nothing-matters-but-love-because-time-is-long-and-humans-are-short kinda girl.”
“I kept my maiden name because I was attached to/identified with the name I had all my life until age 27, and because there aren’t that many N–‘s left in my family (just distant ones).”
“I honestly didn’t feel like it was a decision to keep my name — more like it would have been a decision to change it. I’m still me even though I got married, and I didn’t feel like taking his name would make me ‘more’ married. My sister & I are also the only remaining M–‘s — all of my cousins have taken married names, so there’s nobody to carry it forward. My husband didn’t mind at all – if it had been important to him, I probably would have changed it. He also said I could name our (nonexistent) kids M–. (Which is not enough incentive to have them.) Don’t know if you know this, but K–, my first name, is my mom’s maiden name — same situation… My grandpa was the only boy, and he had two girls, so no more K–s either! Funny story — I remember my grandma saying to me, ‘Well, nobody told me I could keep my name when I got married!’ “
“For me, I was excited to change boring ‘C–‘ to exotic ‘R–.’ I never thought of keeping C– and my reason for changing was just going along with the fact that when you get married that’s what you do. I have no strong feelings either way and I respect women that keep their name. I have a few co-workers that have done that. I think it is pretty cool. I also have heard of men changing their last name and I like that, too!”
“Over the years, my name has become an intrinsic part of my identity… kinda exotic and unique, and rolls off the tongue pretty easily. I just couldn’t wrap my brain around being called anything else! Luckily, it isn’t an issue with my husband.”
“For me, the reason to take my husband’s name was threefold. First, I had a brief, early marriage that was just bad news from the start, and I never wanted to take his name. So for me, wanting to take husband #2’s last name seemed like a good omen. Two, I wanted to have the same last name as his son from a previous marriage, and our future child. And three, his ex-wife kept his name. How weird would it be to have the ex-wife with the name, but not the new wife?”
“For me it’s a few things. When I was about 7 I found out that you didn’t have to change your name when you got married and that really appealed to me. Since then, I always felt I’m A– C– and I don’t ever want to change that. As I became an adult I felt that my last name isn’t a placeholder until a man gives me my last name. When I met my husband. we discussed it and he was totally cool with me keeping my last name which is good, as it would have been a deal breaker for me. He was very sympathetic to my feelings as in his native India husbands can change their wives’ first and last names, reinforcing the concept that you are their property. I am a wife, and that doesn’t change my identity, and an individual (I compartmentalize) and I feel if I were to change my name that it ‘might’ change my sense of individuality. That said, I was really surprised how many people weren’t supportive of me not changing my last name — most of all my parents. They felt that I was being ‘disrespectful’ to my husband. Meanwhile his parents haven’t said a peep EVER about it.”
So, that’s the skinny from my friends and loved ones! What I’m left wondering is how the responses would break down along socioeconomic, religious and geographic divides in an large, official study… And how do the men feel about this issue? Do their views alter once they have children, specifically daughters? What about gay couples, where the traditional roles of wife and husband are re-imagined according to what suits each pair? As our society accelerates toward an increasingly connected and global community, how will this tradition evolve? Guess we’ll have to wait and see!!