I kept my name. Deal with it.

dear god, you’re a Mrs.

So how did the dress go over? Did the tag folded up in the armpit itch like crazy?

I agree, I agree, I agree…

But I have to admit, I really got excited when you mentioned scallops wrapped in bacon. No matter how classy the party, bacon makes everything better.

I don’t really care about keeping or changing my name, for me, its really all about how the name sounds. I like my name, but if my future husband’s last names sound better - I’ll take it. Alison Cruise, not so much. Alison Clooney - now thats a great name.

However, I have always wondered about the kids. If you have them, do you want them to have your last name or Ben’s? Because you know those hyphen names are so annoying - for everyone! But I still want some of my kids to have my last name.

I settled on alternating. One kid takes my last name, the other my husband’s and so on. A little confusing, but at least the divorce will be easy - the last name can determine who gets custody!

I plan on giving my kids arbitrary last names like Klaxxon and Gogobladder

Alison - What if in the future you get divorced you get along better with the kid who has your husband’s name?

Sarah - My mom never changed her name, gave me her name and I don’t intend to change it. I’m the last Nye in our family, and I’m not going to let it die out!

Throughout the years, my parents have had to deal with people mistaking their last names. My dad, whose last name is Washburn, sometimes gets called Mr. Nye, usually by telemarketers. I think they like to deal with it at introductions if they can. They’ll introduce by full name, adding, “my wife” or “my husband”. It cuts down on the confusion.

I have always deeply regretted changing my name.

I’ve also talked to my daughters about keeping theirs for their entire life. One of them would actually like to change hers one day to my maiden name. It sounds better.

I have an old cookbook in which every single recipe credits a Mrs (insert husband’s first and last name here). It’s so disturbing and sad at the same time.

Well, I went from a name that I always had to spell and correct pronunciation (Doerr ~ prononuced Door) to another name that I had to speel and correct pronunciation. win-win ‘eh?

I had dated a guy with the last name Bell. I always joked that if we married, I’d have to hyphnate just for the fun of it!

My husband’s family joked that they should have gone with MIL’s last name… Reed.

I guess I can’t spell… Really I can. I’m typing with out my contacts in. ~Sigh~

the guy in the cubical next to me has a hyphenated name. I heard him explain on the phone one time that it wasn’t hyphenated because he took on both parents’ names, but that he and his wife thought it only fair that both of them be represented with their joint last names when they got married some 20 odd years ago. I thought that was so sweet.

I kept my maiden name as a second middle name. I couldn’t bear to let it go but to hyphenate would have been ridiculous (YOU know what my maiden name is!) but I still wanted Nate’s last name, too. It does makes filling out tax forms more complicated…they actually run my maiden name and last name together because there’s no field for a second middle name.

I ABSOLUTELY prefer Ms. as well. I guess I associate “Mrs.” with women my mom’s age or something…plus there are plenty of Mrs. Lloyds out there inc. my MIL and 2 sisters-in-law.

Nate’s older sister kept her last name and added her husband’s when she got married- and I think her husband did the same (though I don’t know if there’s a hyphen involved). He had a slightly difficult time of it, and I have read that it is often more difficult for a man to hyphenate or change his last name when he gets married- and more and more men are wanting that option and getting annoyed by this.

Lastly- oh how I HATE being called “Mrs. Husband’s first and last name.”
HATE. I’m still me! Sheesh!

Anyway. Good advice!

You would change it if the other person had an awesome/hilarious last name right? Like if it were Ben Plainandtall or something?

A few years ago (I guess it was actually about 10? god) I went to the wedding of a friend of my mom’s. He is a really cool guy who tests video games and welds steel for a living (not for the same company, sadly), and he & his wife decided that they would come up with & both adopt a brand new name.

Being who they are, they chose “Skellington,” which I think it awesome. However, even without a reference to Tim Burton I think it’s kind of a cool idea.

I’ve always been Ms. Beth Ziesenis, and I always will be. I’m certainly glad I didn’t change it when I got married because it would have been one more complication of the divorce. But the main reason I keep my name is that there are so few people with my last name in the world (and most of them are in Kansas) that I felt obligated to keep it going.

My sister kept her name, and her kids have the last name of her husband’s grandparents. That I don’t get. Oh well.

Sarah-

In the post I can’t find the offending comment. Unless the offending comment is itself “Mrs. Ben” where you infer that they are implying all the negativity associated with keeping/not changing your name.

Without the follow-up “Oh you didn’t change your name?” said with incredulity all you are doing is putting the words in their mouth, and the opinions in their head.

I mean, I figure your serious and logical (with the last two at their heavy handed best) reasons that one invokes when choosing not to change names with the paltry, petty, almost rationale-less reason to change your name simply for convenience is for the purposes of humor (and regularly I think you are hilarious) but in this case I don’t see it. What it does is put down every woman who is successful, doesn’t cower to the male-centric society, and thinks themselves independent and strong who just so happens to choose to change their name also.

You very clearly do care. I find it increasingly annoying that in general (and I am guilty of this too) people say we don’t care about something when we take great pains to mock it.

P.

Just for the sake of disclosure, “Mr and Mrs First Name Last Name” is outdated and should die. And Erin and I discussed the name issue for hours and days and weeks before we got married with all options on the table. My favorite, but denied by Erin was “Willlyng”

I couldn’t wait to change my last name because I hated it, so when I got married, I changed it as fast as I could. Even with all my art up to that point reflecting my initials with my maiden name, I couldn’t wait to change it. I even “gave” myself away during the “ceremony”.

For what its worth, I still don’t like my *first* name, but my husband said that the main character in most of the short stories he wrote growing up had my name, so I’m leaving it for now. I guess I’m not really sure *if* it really matters anymore if I take my husband’s name, or whether or not I can justify it. I just think its awesome you found someone you could marry because that part is really hard with so many people in the world and the multitudes of “almost rights”, and I hope you are (all) as happy as we are.

I think in the “general population” a lot of questions like that are going to be asked. I mean it’s equally off putting when people ask Erin, “You didn’t change your name did you?” in that snide way that indicates disapproval for having done so.

The projection of values onto another, or normative judgments one makes about someone in all these kinds of contexts. This one is just a really good one for highlighting gender inequality and “traditional” values that the flouting of which is seen as tantamount to accepting repression by some and by others the acceptance of which is a knife in the back of feminism.

As long as we are happy with our husbands/wives/life partners/SOs, that’s the important thing. I wish more people considered that when being snarky (like apparently these people were to you or non-traditionalists are to Erin, or people who thought it laughable I considered taking Will) to happily married people. I mean, ought not that to be the point? We are so ridiculously happy that everyone should be happy for each other and not quibble over titles?

So on that, I agree it is good to care.

I hope that one’s decision to change or not change one’s name is not a reflection on their independence etc.

For me, my last name had nothing to do with my identity, and in fact the extended family it represents, I don’t really want to be associated with it. I didn’t even keep my last name as a middle name and was glad to be rid of it. Plus, my married name is so much cooler than my maiden name.

I think that a name is seperate from an identity and in this day and age is not a feminist issue; my husband doesn’t know own me because we share a name.

I hope that one’s decision to change or not change one’s name is not a reflection on their independence etc.

For me, my last name had nothing to do with my identity, and in fact the extended family it represents, I don’t really want to be associated with it. I didn’t even keep my last name as a middle name and was glad to be rid of it. Plus, my married name is so much cooler than my maiden name.

I think that a name is seperate from an identity and in this day and age is not a feminist issue; my husband doesn’t know own me because we share a name.

Honestly, the real reason why I’d never change my last name is out of pure laziness.

And thankfully I see the humor in my e-mail address, aswartz@etc.

Butts are universally funny and I’d like to think I am, too.

You’re right. I thought about changing my name, just for a second, and I got a good chuckle.

Strange tradition, for sure.

Just no hyphens, please. You made the right choice.

I knew a couple once who took each other’s last name as second middle names.

Example:

Jason Michael Alba MacLeod & Jessica Marie MacLeod Alba.

Just as long as people don’t bite off each other’s fingertip as a sign of true love. Oh, wait . . .

http://www.bmezine.com/news/pubring/20050401.html

Good for you. I kept my last name too. My family still sends my birthday cards addressed to Amy Pickett (my last name is Gesenhues, my husband’s last name is Pickett).

I think I’m going to borrow your topic idea for my post tonight…hope that’s not cheating. Thanks for the inspiration.

I hate it when people use “Mrs. His Full Name” . Perhaps people are a bit put off when you tell them you aren’t “Mrs. His Full Name” because they’ve already decided your name is unimportant.
I’m not planning on changing my name when I get married next month. I probably won’t correct people if they say “Chris and Anna Zelenak”, and won’t bother to correct people at a party if they called me “Anna Zelenak” unless I thought that they were people I’d see regularly.

We decided to give our kids the middle name Carey.

Think like a mathematician! The problem with hyphonating names is that they become exponentially long: When Andrew x-y marries Heather xx-yy, the kids will be soandso x-y-xx-yy?

p.s. I think I just gave far too much of my identity away. (and I therefor had to replace things with x’s and y’s because I think “what is your mother’s maiden name” is the secret question to AT LEAST one of my hotmail accounts.)

I have this dream for my eventual marriage and family, and it goes like this - I keep my last name, which happens to go with my first two, thank you very much. My husband can do whatever he wants. Then the two of us pick out a totally ridiculous new last name for our kids. But I have a feeling this won’t actually happen.

Another option is to go Scandanavian. Like name your kids of the same sex according to your name (i.e., Jorth Fjordsson or Helga Jemmasdaughter).

Mike also gets female product ads addressed to Ms Aswell, which I find hilarious. The unknown perils of Ms.

Hi Sarah,

When my husband and I married 9 years ago we exchanged names, meaning we combined both names together. You would think we had committed a crime! People could not deal with it. After many difficult applications and mean people at the DMV we had enough.

About 4 years ago we changed it to his last name after much thought. The world wasn’t ready for it! Plus I wasn’t quite sure what our future kids would do with two last names.
I am not sorry I took his name because I didn’t really want my Father’s name either. A name is just a name, but I feel it is a VERY personal decision and I think my hubby did a wonderful thing taking my name for a while.

It is a strange world we live in isn’t it? I HATE when they stop using the wife’s first name!

I really believe you have touched a sensitive subject that so many women (and men) deal with at some point in their lives. Thank you for your insights.

I once knew a couple who both changed their last names to “Hawke” when they got married, which was the third syllable of her last name.

When we got married, we both changed our names, to a name that had died out in the family when no sons carried it on. Now, two generations later, it will die again with us childless yuppies. It was more important to my husband than me to have the same last name– but by the same token, he had no attachment to his own name, good egg that he is. But we both feel like we are each other’s closest family in a sickeningly sweet/annoying kind of way, so it is nice to have the same last name. But I see your point, totally.

I love this post. So well put! I have been fascinated with the whole name issue since I got married and took my husband’s name and so many of my friends seemed to think it was so backwards of me and a semi-betrayal of our modern feminist ideals.

Last names mean exactly nothing to me. I have had three of them before getting married because of my parents getting divorced and remarried. It is more meaningful for me to take my husband’s last name than my father’s last name, or my step father’s last name, or my maternal Grandfather’s last name.

I don’t actually care if other women choose differently but I can’t claim to have no curiosity about it. I am always interested to know why they made their own different decisions and being a debating sort of idiot, I am always ready for a nice cozy debate about all the options we have, over just as many beers.

It bothers me that people do get defensive over this issue. Why defensive? Isn’t it cool that we have so many choices?