According to an article in the Chicago Tribune today, 88 percent of women take their husband’s last name when they marry.
In a survey of 18,000 couples married last year, 88 percent of women reported changing their names, said Rebecca Dolgin, executive editor of theknot.com, a popular wedding Web site.
The practice may feel like an affront to women who endured years of raised eyebrows when they kept their names as a statement of equality. But modern brides and those who study women’s issues say it may actually be a celebration of strides women have made since the 1970s and early 1980s.
“I think that there was a point in time where women felt very strongly that they had to [keep their names] to assert their feminist leanings or to say that women are equal to men,” Dolgin said. “Now, women are a little more comfortable and it’s not as threatening to them.”
I am married, and I did not change my name. I didn’t even consider it—I figured that I already had a name and it was working fine for me. But about half of my women friends who are married have changed their names. I find it a bit baffling, but they do it for all sorts of reasons.
However, a recent study by the Center for Survey Research at Indiana University reports that 71 percent of Americans think women should take their spouse’s name after marriage. And not only that, but around half said there should be a legal requirement to do so. Yikes!
“The figures were a bit sobering for us because there seems to be change in so many areas. If names are a core aspect of our identity, this is important,” said Brian Powell, professor of sociology at IU Bloomington. “There are all these reports and indicators that families are changing, that men are contributing more, that we’re moving toward a more equal family, yet there’s no indication that we’re seeing a similar move to equality when it comes to names.”
Many people say that they are creating a family identity by everyone having one name. I respect that. The thing I don’t go for is the assumption that it is the woman who will change her name. What about men changing their names? Or both people changing their names? And I wonder if gay couples getting married in greater numbers will change this issue?
When my baby mama and I produced offspring, we shoved our last names together (no hyphen, the first letter of mine was the last of hers) to make a new name.
That’s how you make a family identity, not by shoving the woman into the man’s family.
if you’re last name was something like Hogg or Kuntz you’d consider it.
I think they should flip a coin when they get married: heads, she takes his name, tails he takes hers.
Oh wait, all the men are against it?
My cousin’s wife didn’t take his last name when they got married in the late 90s. Hoo-boy did that cause a rift when grandma asked everyone at the breakfast table (cousin and fiancee were not there) what the point of getting married was if the woman didn’t take the husband’s last name. Aunt and uncle were not amused.
When I discussed it with my fiance, I told her I thought she should keep her last name. I was surprised as all hell to find out that she was looking forward to being Mrs. Hernandez. Also, at one point Mr. Poe suggested that I take her last name, because then my name would sound cooler. I asked her about it, and she said hell no. Can there be a feminist exemption for women who want to change just because they hate their last names?
My ex-wife changed her name when we got married. I would have been cool with it either way. But what I’d really like to know is why the hell she kept the name after the divorce.
*speechless*
What century is this? They think women should be REQUIRED to change their names? To what, reflect new ownership?!
I never considered it, not for a second. a) it’s my NAME. That’s who I AM. and b) I’m lazy. Changing your name takes a lot of fucking work. And why does the woman always have to be the one to do it?
I took my husbands name for a lot of reasons:
1)I was proud to be his wife
2)Hyphens annoy me
3)It represented a change from my past to my future
4)I like Russell better than my old last name
Ironically..I am so lazy that even though we’ve been married almost 3 years.. only 1/2 of my IDs have been switched over..whoops
I’m with you, Gillian. I have an ungraceful last name but I didn’t consider taking my husband’s. The tradition stems from not so long ago when the woman became part of her husband’s estate at marriage (ownership transferred from father to husband). Eww.
One oft he first conversations I had with my fiancee was about how I thought women should not have to change their names at marriage – I always thought it was an outdated bigoted belief. 15 days to wedding day and she’s taking my name – not that she likes it, she’s not stoked about having the initials RR instead of RB – but she doesn’t want to have a different last name to any kids we may have.
Even though I have a difficult last name to pronounce and spell, and even though I’m a teacher and kids struggle with pronouncing and spelling it, I’m always proud to tell them I kept my original last name when I got married. When they ask me why I didn’t change it, I tell them the truth: It is my name and I like it.
I didn’t expect my wife to change her name when we got married because
1. She’s not my property
2. There is no way in hell I would change my name for her (I really love my last name)
She says she’ll change it when the bean is born, but I secretly doubt her.
I’m gay, and when we got married, my husband changed his name and took mine. It wasn’t just that we were creating a family unit, but also that he had a lot of distaste for his father, who walked out on his family when he was a year old. His mother had remarried, his sisters had married, and his brother shunned him for being gay, so the two people he was related to with that name were douches. He found it liberating. It helps that my last name is cool.
My wife kept her name when we got married, and we agreed that our kids would take gender-matched last names. As it turned out, our boy has my last name, and our daughter has hers.
I somehow doubt the kids are going to wonder whether we’re really a family.
I like my wife’s name just the way it is/was. That’s part of the whole package that attracted me to her in the first place.
After close to 20 years though my mother in-law still sends all mail to our house as if my wife changed her name.
@9..I get annoyed with “feminist” women who make this argument. Using the same logic, you could say wearing an engagement ring brands a woman as a mans property (the guy doesn’t wear a ring until after the ceremony..yet the woman wears a ring showing that she is “taken” while they are engaged).
Still, most “feminist” women have no problem flashing the engagement ring without feeling “owned”…how is this different from the name thing, really?
I know two couples where, upon marriage, both bride and groom changed their names to something different altogether.
1. None of my “property” has my last fucking name either. I don’t give “property” names.
2. Wife doesn’t want to have different last name from children? She doesn’t have to–they can have her last name. Oh wait, the men are getting upset again.
I like the idea of being the “so-and-sos” but I was 32 when I married and my identity was too wrapped up in my name by then. My husband was an established artist so needed to keep his name, so we have our own names and it’s no biggie. My friends are about half and half on this issue also, funnily not depending on whether they are reproducing at all.
I know that the tradition of name changing is fraught, but I think we’ve come to a time when this is an area where women have more freedom than men. We can change or not; it’s a lot weirder for a man to change his name for any reason than for a woman to not change her name. I like the idea that if I’d felt weighed down by my name I could take another, any other, still could at any time.
I think if any last names are to be changed, it should affect both parties to create a new family unit. If i do get maried and my partner doesn’t want to change theirs, that’s also cool but you bet mine will not stay the same nor will I take theirs.
When I got married a couple years ago, I never considered asking my wife to take my last name. Not that there would be anything wrong with that – Her original just sounds better for her.
This year, however, an idea suddenly occurred to me. Now I’m thinking of taking her last name to use as an occasional penname.
I didn’t take my husband’s name when we got married. I don’t have any problems with anyone else doing so, but it wasn’t right for me. It wasn’t a feminist statement, really, it just sort of seemed silly and pointless. I have no idea what we’ll do when/if we have kids though…
My brother and sister-in-law both changed their names when they married.
That worked fine.
I changed my last name when I got married, dropping my middle name and keeping my original name that way. I like having the same last name as my husband, but I hate the “Mr. and Mrs. Husband’s Name”. That seems to negate my individual existence more than most.
This just the sort of dumb thing they shouldn’t even poll about, because it gets everyone worked up.
Even in the dark ages of the early 20th Century (and undoubtedly before that, in certain instances) there were women who didn’t take their husband’s names, for a variety of reasons. It may have raised a few eyebrows, but no one really cared then, so why even ask about it now? It’s like doing a poll on whether people approve of “inter-denominational dating” or whether they think mixed race babies should be called “Mullatos” or just “high yellow”
Ha-Rumphh!
I know a couple that rock-paper-scissored for the last name at the alter. He lost and took her name.
When I married my wife, I married her for who she was, identity included. We like to have our autonomous identities not absorbed into some abstract concept like a family or a marriage. Legally, it wasn’t the PITA it might have been 40 years ago. For us, it was more annoying having to tell friends and family who knew her for all these years her name was actually still the same one they already knew. I can only imagine what our friend who took his wife’s name had to go through :).
When our child was born, we gave her the last name we both hated least. It happened to be my name. It wasn’t because I was the “Man Of The House” or any horse shit like that.
I’m not planning on getting married any time soon but I won’t be changing my name. I like my name. I have a very uncommon last name and my father, sister, and I are the only ones left. Interestingly, my father calls himself a “radical feminist” and has told me that I must keep my name when I get married and give my kids my name.
When i got married, my wife and i took both our last names, wrote all the letters down on little pieces of paper and threw them in a hat. We drew out each letter and in the order they were removed we spelled out our new last name. Our new last name is now: Ryglafraanzo
Whatever. I just despise hyphenated names. Silly and pretentious. Doesn’t sound like a family. It sounds like a department store: Cain-Sloan, Neiman-Marcus, Dayton-Hudson.
I have known a few couples who came up with brand new last names when they got married, which is kind of cool. (one couple in particular created a name based on an animal they are both fond of)
I took my husband’s name as I wasn’t terribly fond of my surname. Much of it was out of extreme disdain for my estranged Father -who actually picked that particular surname in his twenties. There is kind of a history of people in my family changing their surnames for all kinds of entertaining reasons.
Though taking my husband’s name has created some minor hilarity when you match it with my first name. I like to think of it as a good conversation piece.
It is a bit wack-a-doo to think that many people think it should be a legal requirement for ladies to take their husband’s names upon getting marriage. One of the delightful aspects of feminism is that a person is free to make choices about how the live their life -right down to having the surname of their choice.
I’d be proud to be Mrs Jon Hamm…
or, even Michael Strange-Hamm
Why this is anyone else’s business is a mystery to me.
When I got hitched, my ex hyphenated. I always liked her last name and thought she should just keep it. We stayed married for years after we split for insurance reasons. By the time we finally signed the papers she was moving out of town to avoid a ex boyfriend/stocker. She decided to drop her name (which she had been using since we split) and kept mine to make her harder to track down.
Mrs. Fnarf wasn’t too happy about taking the name “Mrs. Fnarf”, but she sucked it up and did it anyways, because I AM THE BOSS.
No, wait, she not.
Which, since our wedding certificate is buried in a file somewhere, raises an interesting question about the, er, sanctity of marriage. If I can avail myself of some of that sanctity just by saying “but we’re married” even though our last names are different, and no one ever wants to see, you know, PROOF, or anything, what’s to stop us from lying about it? Maybe there IS no Mrs. Fnarf, and she’s just some woman I’m trying to check into the motel with?
Fnarf, I won’t believe a word of it until WE SEE THE LONG-FORM CERTIFICATE!! Oh sorry, wrong topic…
@29, have you ever seen Uncle Buck?
When my wife confirmed during our engagement that she was keeping her name (no surprise here) I told her that’s good, because I think it’s stupid for women to change their names when they get married, and if she wanted to there’s no way I could stop her.
Our daughter has my last name, mostly because the only in-law who cares is my dad. So the only way the name survives another generation is for my daughter to keep her last name if/when she gets married.
My wife and I threatened to hyphenate our names when we got married. Since her name is already so long that no form can contain it, and both of us have strange last names that nobody knows how to pronounce, we got great glee over the prospect of confusing people even more. We still giggle over the thought from time to time.
Ultimately we kept our own names. The reason was a mixture of: we both have professional recognition with our names; we couldn’t think of an exciting alternative; most importantly, we couldn’t really think of a compelling reason to change anything.
As the owner of a penis and 2 testicles, I’ve always viewed the issue thusly: I’m not changing my name or hyphenating shit, so why would I expect anyone else to do the same? And to be honest, I find it hard to not think less of my female friends who change their name upon getting married. It’s a held over tradition from when marriage was all about property ownership.
I now have two last names, without a hyphen. My maiden name is rare, and supposedly I’m genetically related to everyone on the planet who shares it, so I kept it. Adding the husband’s last name made it easier when lil kim in portland 1 & 2 came along, for boring practical reasons. I hate the Mrs., because it is a condensed form of Mr.’s, most people know me as either Kim, Ms. Kim or Kimi or Kimmie.
Fifty-Two-Eighty,
It makes perfect sense to me why she’d keep the last name. It’s a sign that although the relationship didn’t make it to the aspired morbid measure of success, that it was successful none the less.
keeping names like Anderson Johnson Davidson Williamson Jefferson Thomson Johnson
= very feminist.
The people who think that a woman should be legally required to take her husband’s name are full of shit. Families can lobby for it if they want, but ultimately it is up to the couple to decide what they want to do about names when they get married.
Besides, whether to change surnames at marriage shouldn’t have to be so controversial. It’s only 1/2 to 1/4 (or less, if you had weird parents) of your full name anyway, which is a small part of your total identity. I’d say that your identity changes more just by getting married than it does by changing your last name.
My husband didn’t care, but I hyphenated my last name. So it works because some of my things are still in my maiden name and my id shows both last names. Plus, my maiden name rhymes with a bodily function, so I was kinda happy to change it. When we have kids, they will take his last name. Frankly, I don’t care if people call me by his last name or by my hyphenated name.
I’m a woman born with a name. A man is born with a name. Yet, I get married and I’m supposed to lose my name and family identity? Screw that.
I had considered a hyphen for our names but we have long last names (and how would that be for the kids).
I did consider a new name that co-joined our names (hence Westello – kind of WASPy yet ethnic) but my husband said nah.
So we have different last names. Twenty-five years later, it still works. (Although my mom still addresses letters to me with my husband’s last name. Sigh.)
bitch better be changing her name!!! I didn’t give her dad those handsome goats and that fine fine poultry for nuthin. shit.
Funny enough, this is the first place I’ve lived in where a large segment of the female population wouldn’t automatically change their surname once married, or at least tacked it onto their maiden name with a hyphen. Everyone I’ve known everywhere else I’ve lived did it without a second thought. If anything, I’m surprised the number of those who don’t is as high as 12%. It’s a worldwide tradition that even the law backs. Since moving here, I’ve not only run into a fairer share of those who don’t but have even run into couples who adopt both surnames. Seattle’s like that, to call this sort of traditional practice into question, and that IMO isn’t a bad thing at all.
As for legally requiring it, well… that’s obviously not necessary.
I told my missus: feel free to keep the last name honey, just don’t ditch the blowjobs after we get married.
20 yrs later she has my name AND I get my blowjobs. LOVE!
@34 – I know, you guys really confused Dawn when she was patrolling for hookers on Aurora – she thought you guys weren’t married.
Bygones. And I’ll have you know I dropped one hyphen when I moved back to America, so stop with all the hyphen hating, you meanies.
It’s baffling how many woman in 2009 take the man’s name—although I can understand if they really hate their family, their past, or their father’s name, and want to break from it. In other cases I think the message a woman sends by doing so is just kowtowing to misogyny and bigotry (including “making it easier for the kids” or for family unity. Why can’t the kid’s have her name?) . Women won’t be taken seriously until the develop their own identities exclusive to men, including owning their own histories rather than adopting a man’s.
I forget which 70s feminist said: “Of course I’m keeping my own name. He’s marrying me, not adopting me.” I feel the same way. Taking his name signifies you as his property—although no longer literally (though it was so a short time ago), but certainly does so socially and psychologically.
@10 No judgment here, but I do find it interesting that you think it’s outdated and bigoted for a woman to take a man’s name but then go on to say “she’s not stoked about having the initials RR… but she doesn’t want to have a different last name to any kids we may have.”
Why can’t your children have her name in that case? Or is that going too far?
When my wife and I got married I never pressured her to take my last name; my older sister didn’t change her name so I was already used to the concept. Anyway, my wife decided to keep her last name as a middle name and then take my last name. Well, that caused problems because legally, at the time of marriage, she could either keep her name unchanged, hyphenate, or take my name and drop hers but NOT just add my last name, unhyphenated, to hers. So she had to have a legal name change after the wedding to get what she wanted, and pay the court fee to do so.
That said, I don’t know why people are surprised by the poll results. Get out of the urban core and most people are pretty traditional.
“It’s baffling how many woman in 2009 take the man’s name”
What’s baffling is the only people who ever said anything about my wife’s last name (10 yrs with hers, 10 yrs with mine: changed after kids) were angry feminists. MY old fashioned, Republican mom didn’t say a peep for 10 yrs.
Move to Seattle though and the womyn are up in arms (which, btw, they need to shave under occassionally). Of course, these also look like the kind of womyn who don’t give blow jobs either.
Thank God I married a smart, hard working, successful, independent Asian-american woman with none of these stupid hangups.