Maiden Names/Married Names as Identity

[Deleted]

I'm curious: Western custom, for the last few hundred years or so, has dictated that a married woman adopt her husband's name. Obviously, this is not the hard and fast rule for other cultures, or even for Western women for the past 50 years or so. And then there is the complication of divorce/widowhood - should your surname reflect that reality?

I would love to hear Anyporters' perspective on this. Now, some would argue that your family name is merely your father's name, thus perpetuating the patriarchal structure. My mother, of the Donna Reed generation, adopted my father's name. I, on the other hand have kept my family name. (Admittedly, I got married for the first time after the age of 50 and there was no way I was going to change then. Plus, my husband's last name is reminiscent of a rather obscure and bizarre sexual practice - even he doesn't want his last name). Many women, but not all, of my age who got married in the 80s and 90s kept their last name. However, I notice the trend is reversing.

I've been mystified by how many young women in their 20s wouldn't dream of not changing their names. Personalities are forged in the first decades of life, and I couldn't imagine switching to something else just as I was becoming someone, no matter how much in love I was. Then again, many women dislike their fathers so much they can't wait to "ditch the bastard". I've considered all the permutations, including the naming of children and how that thorny subject is handled (I know Iceland has a method as do, I'm sure, many other cultures that I'm ignorant of.)

So I'd like to ask - what did you, or your mother, or your daughters do? And this is not open just to the women here, I would love to know what the gentlemen think as well. After all, they're involved 50% in this .

(I attempted for formulate a poll for this question, but it simply got too unwieldy).

[questa]

lizzy...you have opened a can of worms in my case. At birth I was given the names A.. L.. with surname W.. My careful parents did not want me to have LAW written on everything, however I was always called by my 2nd name (L)This causes complications galore...parents make the name you call your child the first one.

When I was 12 my parents died and my brother and I went through a plethora of surnames as different friends and relatives cared for us, enrolling us at different schools.

At 14 I was legally adopted and we had the surname E...This lasted until at 16 I took to the court and got adoption annulled. Now I had NO legal surname. I was trying out a few with my brother when he said he was tired of explaining to people why all his school gear had different labels. So we went back to our birth surnames..

I changed my name again when I married and kept it after the divorce as it was easier for the kids. Then I wanted a new surname, not my parents' names, not any common name, it had to start with 'A' (I was tired of being last in line)It had to be short and easy to spell and have a nice meaning. Checked phone books etc., then remembered the name of an old Zen poet whose name meant 'cold mountain' - Hanshan. I removed the H and now I am the only "ANSHAN" in the phone book. People still stuff up the spelling though!

[bjd]

I got married in 1978 and first thought about hyphenating my name with my husband's. But as my name is Polish and his is French, as someone told me "you are forcing people to make a cross-cultural leap in the middle of a word"!

We moved to France at that point, and I spent quite a lot of time arguing with banks, the post office, the prefecture and other official bodies that it was legal for me to keep my maiden name. I even had the number of the official reference. This in a country where your maiden name is your official one on all papers!

But, our kids have my husband's name and generally I accept the use of my married surname to simplify things. Most French people are still completely incapable of pronouncing a name that is not French, so I am used to having my name massacred when I use it.

My son married a few years ago and his wife kept her own name, although their children have his name. My daughter is not married but living with someone. I think if they do make it "legal", she will keep her family name rather than take his.

As to what some gentlemen think -- even back in 1978, when it was considered unusual, my husband thought it normal and natural that I should retain my own identity by keeping my surname.

Just adding that in doing genealogy these days, I notice that in Polish records from the 19th c, women were known only by their husband's name, even under death records. In comparison, in French records, they are recorded under their birth name.

And I'm about to go downtown to renew my passport, which will be, as is legal in France, in my maiden name, and I can choose to have "épouse X" added or not.

[Deleted]

It's true that in France women keep their birth names forever but can use their married name if they want, appearing on their identity card as "spouse of". I believe that in the last decade or so it has become possible to men to take their wife's name, so I imagine that their identity papers could conceivably also carry the indication "spouse of." In reality, I think that practically nobody has done this because the patriarchal tradition is still too strong.

More common (but still rare) is the combination of names in whichever order is preferred: Martin-Dupont or Dupont-Martin. It is not rare for the children to have double names like in Spain now, but the order cannot be changed once it has been set. If the first child was registered with the name "Martin-Dupont," all of the subsequent children should have the same name and cannot suddenly switch to "Dupont-Martin." When children with double surnames get married, only one of the surnames can be carried forward to be combined with the spouse's name. In a few generations, I suppose it would not be rare for just about every family member to end up with a different surname. By then, people will have probably decided that surnames have become meaningless and that it would be easier to go back to the old system...

[bjd]

Just looking at the passport form, it is indeed possible to check a box saying whether the name is of a male or female spouse.

I think there was talk of encouraging men to take their wives' names a few years ago because there were fewer and fewer names being used, but, indeed, it doesn't seem to have gone very far.

The most common surname in France was Martin.

Just to go off-topic, at the city hall, I had a nice bureaucrat deal with me. What a change from years ago! This guy looked at my papers and said, "Your parents were born in Poland, they have Canadian citizenship, and you have French citizenship. What an interesting mixture."

[Deleted]

Martin is supposedly the most common surname in Spanish and English as well.

[questa]

K2...that astounds me...does Martin outdo the Smiths and Browns? I think I heard that Smith, Oz's most occurring surname, has been replaced by Nguyen

[lagatta]

In Québec, our maiden names (which, in most cases, are our father's names) are our only official names, on passports, healthcards, university diplomas etc, even if we are married. I don't know what will start happening now, as we have a good generation at least of mothers who have either kept their "own" names, or simply not got married - we have the highest conjugal cohabitation rate in the world. There are a lot of young adults with double-barrelled names.

I'm not at all close to my father's family; I'd rather take my mother's name, but it is all very complicated.

[mich64]

I can remember being in high school, when I began my relationship with my future husband, practising writing his surname, dreaming of the day we would be married. A few years later when I was attending College many women were proclaiming they would hyphenate or keep their name when they married. I remember hearing disagreements between groups of people and even divisions in friendships as some were very passionate about their position. In the end a few did hyphenate that I know but not many. The majority took their husband's name. For me it was never a question and I was proud to accept my new surname. I am also very proud of my birth name.

My sister-in-law has changed her name many times. It seems a simple procedure as long as you have all your paper work and pay the fee.

[Deleted]

I love my Dad's surname, my own, because it's unusual and vaguely French. My mother's maiden name was Irish, but I would have loved to have her mother's Quebecoise name. I thought early on that I might change my name, for "professional" reasons, but by the time I got to my twenties it seemed superfluous.

I have friends who combined their last names artfully for their kids, not hyphenated but something else. Perhaps if women gave their names to their daughters, and the men to their sons, some names would eventually be exclusively male or female. Anyway, I find it an interesting speculation.

[htmb]

When I got married I took my husband's last name. It's very easy to pronounce and quite common. His father was born on the way to the US from England, so it's a "good, proper English name." It would have been considered quite scandalous if I had not changed to my husband's name, but many years after the fact I had regrets.

We divorced after thirty-four years, but I decided to wait to drop my married name. However, I've been known by my married name for so long I later figured it would be confusing on a professional level to make a change now. It would also be quite difficult and time consuming to make drivers license and passport changes. Officially I use my first, maiden and last (ex husband's) names, so it's a combination, no hyphen.

To further add to the mix, I have my mother and grandmother's first name. It's a French name and is quite uncommon in the US; it's almost always mispronounced here. I even had a Londoner mispronounce it when he called my office last week. Ever since I was an infant I've been called by a nickname to distinguish me from my mother and grandmother. That name is repeatedly misspelled here. What's a girl to do!

Now when I travel I use my real first name and occasionally my maiden name, which gives me the name for which I knew my mother. And I love being in France where no one ever mispronounces or misspells my first name.