So, I never change my name when I get married. I quite like the sound of it, and I've been Christina Kelly for too long to start calling myself something else. This despite the fact that people persist in naming their children Christina Kelly, some of whom grow up to torture me.
It can be inconvenient, now that I have two kids in school. There's a sentence of explaining involved in phone calls on their behalf: "This is Christina Kelly, and I am the mother of Dale and Violet Ross." I blame the extra use of breath on my husband Dalton, who didn't expect that I take his name, and is a very enlightened man in most matters (except for he pretends he doesn't know how to do laundry). But Dalton got all patriarchal when I wanted to give my son the hyphenated last name "Kelly-Ross." What two names join together more felicitously, I ask you?
I had to compromise, so we named our son Dale Kelly Ross, without the hyphen. I tried to pretend that Kelly was part of the last name for years, writing the full name on every form and thank you note, until the impending birth of our daughter. I also wanted to give Violet the middle name Kelly. That's when Dalton wised up to the fact that in my "compromise" I was merely pretending to let the children have only his last name. So then I had to give her a different middle name. Drat.
Sometimes I get called "Mrs. Ross," which makes me feel like I'm playing house. I never correct people, and it doesn't bother me; it's just not my name.
Recently, Violet's piano teacher pulled me outside and asked dramatically: "Is her last name Ross or Kelly?" I explained that her name was Ross, like her brother and father, and mine was Kelly. He looked at me like I was insane. "Why?" he demanded. I explained that I did not change my name when I got married. "Why not?" he persisted. I resisted the urge to say, are you kidding me? and mumbled something about being a writer. This seemed to satisfy him; you know those writers, always trying to be different.
I thought my decision was commonplace, but apparently, 77 to 95 percent of married women do change their names.
Weird.
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I feel your pain. We gave our kids a two-word last name--no hypen. It's impossible to explain to pharmacists, school secretaries, etc. They insist on putting in a hyphen. I don't like hyphens!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny that this would bring any fuss, with so many blended families. My mother took my step dad's last name and had problems sometimes pulling my brother and I out of school for dentist appointments, etc., but that was back in the dark ages (80s).
ReplyDeleteWhen my husband and I got married I lobbied for us both to change our last name to Ramone (in NY state, you can both change your last name to anything you want when getting married! What an opportunity!) Alas, the husband, also being a journalist who needs the continuity of his name as it appears in print, objected to this scheme.
ReplyDeleteI am getting married this year and I want to change my name. Mostly because my last name isn't our real family name anyway, so I have no attachment to it. I can't get over how many people have given me a hard time for wanting to change it. Like I must not be a feminist if I would consider that. I thought we fought for the right to choose...regardless of what that choice was?!
ReplyDeleteI kept my name as well - Maude May. My husband's last name is Taylor and I didn't like the sound of the two names together plus it took me forever to embrace my name (I always have to spell it - and then people say, "Oh like the TV show.")
ReplyDeleteOur daughter is named after my dear grandmother - Hattie Amanda May Taylor - she uses the first and last names - but lots of people call her Miss Hattie May. I got a little grief during her elementary school days, but hey, I just smile and say I liked my name and didn't want to change it.
I figure if you're going to go to the trouble of legalizing the bond of marriage instead of merely living together committedly, why would you not change your name? The two changes go together. Sure, taking the husband’s name may have come from patriarchal, wife-as-property traditions, but so did wedding rings.
ReplyDeleteI thought of keeping my last name because when I married at the age of 34 I was so used to my name. That was until someone I knew that had kept her name for similar professional reasons (which I did not have) expressed regret that she didn’t change her name because of the lifetime of having to explain, as stated in this post.
I never understood changing last names. It's MY name, why do I have to change it? It doesn't mean I love my husband any less or make the marriage less valid.
ReplyDeletemy kids have my last name as their middle names and my husband's as their last names. it just seemed simpler for them to be "zoe high" and "isaac high," but as they've gotten older they've begun to embrace the "woodbury" in the middle, and both often write their entire names, either as two last names or hyphenated. it really doesn't cause much in the way of complication in our lives -- nor does the fact that my husband and i both kept our "maiden" names. i can't name one time in twenty years of being married to a guy with a different name that there's been some issue with it.
ReplyDeleteand i would ask j, why would your husband not change HIS name after going to the trouble of legalizing the bond of marriage? let's mix it up a little bit!
My mother never changed her name when she got married in '71. Me and my brother have our father's last name and our mother's last name as one of two middle names.
ReplyDeleteI'm nearly 30 now, and in my experience, having a family with different names has only ever been an issue to ignorant people. Stand proud of your name if that's what you choose and call people out if they pretend to be horribly confused. It's their problem, not yours (or your children's!)
And really, it sounds like your husband is being pretty lame about all this. Why does he find your desire to give your children your name as a middle name so threatening?
Aww, Gemma, don't get all down on Dalton.
ReplyDeleteI have many name issues. My line is, if his last name was "Smith", I would've changed mine. My own last name is so un-spellable, un-pronouncable, I don't even use it to introduce myself, so people know me for years and don't really know what it is. The greatest pick-up line I ever heard was a guy who guessed what nationality it was on the first try. But it's my mane and I kept it. We do have trouble getting seated together on an airplane. I could go on and wrote my own post on this topic.
ReplyDeleteOne of my kids has my last name and the other has my husband's. Some people seem to find this as horrible as cannibalism and feel we did this just to fuck with them, personally.
ReplyDeleteIn Quebec you CAN'T change your last name. If you want to, you have to use your husband's last name for like 5 years and then go to court showing how you have done that. I didn't get married there, so I had the option, but chose to keep my last name. I am SO SO SO glad I did. I have never ever regretted it. I don't even love my last name, but I will keep it forever. It's mine.
ReplyDeleteI would think that in the NYC area, it would be a non-issue. It seemed so common to me down there.
Tell the questioners (who are apparently unfamiliar with the modern era) that you never married the baby daddy and THAT's why you have different last names. The kids are bastards!
ReplyDeleteThat will give them something new to be scandalized by.
I didn't change my name either. People occasionally call my husband Mr. Brandes. He loves it.
Wow, that was one douche bag of a paino teacher.
ReplyDeleteI also go by my maiden name. The annoying hoops I sometimes have to jump through (our last insurance policy required both our signatures because of the different last names—what?) always surprise me. It's 2010, people!
ReplyDeleteSorry! That was unfair. Just trying to say that my mother's last name has been a great middle name for my brother and me.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Cara. The piano teacher's a d-bag.
ReplyDeleteBarry and I flirted with changing my last name to Waldorf and his to Astoria when we were getting married but decided against it. I *did* think Barry Rich had a soulful ring to it though...
What I think is weird is that women who will not change their own name, have no problem with giving the children the husband's name in almost every case.
ReplyDeleteMost of the women I know who have kept their names, are the only family members with that surname. The kids have their father's name (just as you have YOUR father's name.)
Same patriarchy, same issue. Why does the husband get the kids? Those are MY kids.
Oh, and one more thing, after working at the polls on election day yesterday--women, if you have decided to hyphenate or change your name, for heaven's sake, UPDATE YOUR DRIVER'S LICENSE.
ReplyDeleteDon't just assume that it will happen automatically, and that we'll understand that you don't ALWAYS use the hyphen, so you might be registered under your maiden name, or your married name, or your hyphenated name.
Pick one (any one!) and stick with it.
How fucking rude! I don't give a proverbial whether or not people change their names (ok, I do think it's kind of weird) but confronting someone about it? That's just embarassingly provincial.
ReplyDeleteI never changed my name, and most people don't seem to have a problem with that. In this day and age, they shouldn't! My kids have their dad's last name. It can be annoying when people never remember my last name is different from my kids, but on the other hand I can barely remember my kids' friends' last names, not to say 2 last names for their parents. So it's not worth getting worked up over. If, like 40 percent of Americans, you end up getting divorced, it's a lot easier if you never changed your name in the first place--then you don't have to change it back.
ReplyDeleteLadies, let's keep the discourse civil. This isn't Gawker. The piano teacher is a nice man, just old fashioned.
ReplyDeleteI agree with ACK's comment -- feminism is about having the choice, not the choice itself. I chose to take my husband's name, and I really can't even explain it properly. It was like the choice to get married, it felt natural and right for me. Both my sisters kept our maiden name and plan to use it as their children's middle name. Maybe by the time their kids are school-age, it will be less of a shock when their mother's last name is different?
ReplyDeleteI agree that women changing their last name when they get married is an outdated, patriarchal tradition. I'm always surprised at how many women still do it, without giving it a second thought.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to convince my partner to change *his* last name to mine. Villanueva is a way better last name than Leonard.
ReplyDeleteWait, I thought the names "Rachel-Ross" were the ones that joined together most felicitously. (HORRIBLE joke, I know.)
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised that people don't clue in to the fact that some women keep their maiden names in the day and age, but I'm also surprised at how many women who DO keep their maiden names judge woman who choose to change theirs. Does changing your name to match your husband's name make you any less of a feminist? I don't think so. I'm not married yet, but I expect I'll change my name if I do marry. My surname is not mine, it's my father's.
ReplyDeleteI kept my maiden name, and people often assume my husband and I are divorced. My kids have my husband's last name. I thought about hyphenation, but Spears-Jackson sounds too much like an unholy union of two unfortunate pop stars.
ReplyDeleteI kept my maiden name even though I have the most common name in the world. It wasn't even a question of changing it--getting married felt like convention enough. The weird thing is I still feel kind of insulted that my husband didn't and doesn't care about it. I think I sort of wanted him to get all patriarchal on me but he's never even noticed!
ReplyDeleteas someone who doesn't like their last name, i look forward to changing it if i marry.
ReplyDeletealso, as someone who worked at a primary care doctor's office, when children have different last names than their parents it's more time consuming when we're interacting with patients. i know you shouldn't make your choice based on that, but just know that's where we're coming from. we even had a case where each parent and the child (who seemed to have a sort of mix of the parents' last names) had a different last name.
i also have wondered what 2 people do when they both have hyphenated last names and how they decide which last name to give their kids.
I caved in to the name change - only because I shared my name with a freshly famous murder victim - I never liked his last name and now that I'm divorced I regret ever changing it. We change so much of ourselves for men - let's not change our identity
ReplyDelete