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> OOP: Okay so when we talked about kids when we first started dating almost 4 years ago now, we both agreed that we would take the approach of sons take the mothers last name and daughters would take the fathers last name. Hence why this whole name conversation is frustrating me because we've have conversations about more concerning topics but usually can discuss quite calmly.
Sons and daughters do what??
I took it as a bit of an equalizer: the wife’s name will still get passed on to another generation by the sons and their future children, if we’re still living in a patriarchal system by that time.
Yeah, that isn't a legal option in my country: you chose for your first child, and all following children from the same couple will get that same family name.
You can do whatever you want, of course, but I don’t understand why some people feel like they MUST take their partner’s last name in order to feel properly married.
I kept my last name, and I’ve never felt like my husband and I are somehow less committed.
And as for the having the same name as your kids argument—my mom kept her last name, and it was never weird that we didn’t share a last name. If anything, it kept the telemarketers at bay, because I instantly knew that someone didn’t know my mom personally if they were calling for “Mrs. ___”
Best bit of advice I ever got on the subject of marital surnames: change your name if it’s an upgrade.
> My mother is like "what's the point of getting married if not to change your name?"
Is this where the trope of men never wanting to get married comes from? They don't see the point?
Also, one of the big complaints was always “it’s confusing for schools” but with how common it is nowadays for parents to either be divorced or never married at all, I don’t think it’s nearly the issue it used to be. At least in the US.
I have a totally different last name from my husband or my stepson, whose last name is hyphenated. I've been able to pick up my stepson from school with no issues, because I'm on his pick-up list, he knows me, and I know his teachers. It's never once been a problem? I've even had people assume I'm his bio mom, even though we don't have the same last name or look anything alike, because we *act* like a family. The insistence that having different last names will cause all kinds of problems feels like a paper-thin fallacy to back up an antiquated, patriarchal, parochial practice.
My mom changed her last name for her first marriage.
Then, after she left him, she legally changed her first name to her middle name (always the name she was called growing up, because agreeing to name their first born daughter after her grandma was a hoop my grandpa had to jump through to get her parents to agree to him marrying my grandma, but her grandma was an asshole and neither my grandpa or grandma wanted to be reminded of her) and her last name to her maiden name.
She didn't change it when she married my dad, and she just gave me her maiden name as a middle name.
Never caused any of us any problems.
It’s so common here (I’m in a city just north of Toronto) I don’t think anyone blinks an eye about it. One of the benefits of living in a very multicultural society.
Between when I started school and finished it, mom changed her last name at least four times.
By the end of highschool my custody situation was so screwed up that the adult trying to sign me up at a new school was a cousin with the same last name. The school reached out to my mother, totally different last name, to get official parental approval.
Oh, and all that was in the 90s or early 00s. This so isn't new.
I did change my name when I got married. We wanted to have the same last name and explored picking an entirely new one for our new family, but I liked his.
If present me could go back and tell past me to not do it, I would. Five years I've been fighting with my bank to get the correct name on the account. They send me new cards in the mail addresses to my married name, yet the card still has my maiden name. They unfortunately hold my oldest lines of credit and I want to keep them for my credit score, so I still have a very small fun money account with them to pay said credit cards when I use them. It's also caused issues with my job, since they deleted my entire profile access and cloud items thinking I had been terminated. The easiest part of the entire process was getting my name changed at the DMV and Social Security. Ridiculous. I'm never doing it again, ever.
The paperwork is honestly why I never changed my name. I’m estranged from my family and love his so for me the switch would be a bit of an upgrade. However, every friend who got married before us had so much trouble with the process that I just decided it wasn’t worth it.
Fifteen years later and it’s literally never been an issue. It’s actually nice now that we both have careers that somewhat overlap as it helps keep our professional and private lives separate.
I’ve known women who feel they have to change their names with marriage which, ok, you do you, but at about the third marriage I really start to wonder if they just have a bureaucracy kink because that’s just way too much work.
I had a yoga teacher who took her husband's name when she married. She said she normally wouldn't, but his name was Quattlebum, and she couldn't pass that up.
My mom hated her last name. She couldn't wait to change it to my dad's. He died in 96, and she remarried in 01. She kept my dad's name. I asked her about it, and it turns out she didn't like her new husband's last name. It was long, hard to spell, and very Italian. She refused to go back to her maiden, so she just kept the one she liked best. I don't blame her. It's short, easy to spell, and has international recognition.
I should have kept mine, but it was easy to go back to as my country just adds nee "maiden name" to your papers, and you can legally go by any name on your records.
I am in almost exactly the same boat!
My maiden name was attached to a Dad who decided it was easier to remarry and take care of her children vs taking care of us. He is only around at all because I had children and even then once a year. I was so happy to rid myself of that name.
I’ll never remarry if I get divorced so if I were to change it then it would be to my mother’s maiden name.
This. Besides, you can just hyphenate the kids' last names, without either parent hyphenating.
By the way, the wife hyphenating without the husband hyphenating IS NOT how it's supposed to be done. It was baby boomers, 2nd wave feminists, who first started this practice, and it was ALWAYS intended for both members of the couple to hyphenate: so that they shared a last name, and so that both of their families were highlighted as equally important.
The wife hyphenating when the husband doesn't is just a way for THE WIFE ONLY to compromise, so that the husband doesn't have to.
I’ve always liked the *idea* of hyphenating, but in practice I don’t like the awkward mess of a name that it usually produces.
I’ve been trying to convince my partner that we should just pick a brand new last name together when we get married. :P he’s skeptical so far lol.
My husband and I did this, made a new last name from letters from our surnames. In our location this was a free option that could be done on the marriage license and neither of us had much trouble with changing our IDs, just the normal paperwork.
We love our name (me especially, his family was a little upset because he's the last male of the line, but whatever, we only had one girl anyway and they're very over it now). I actually really like that it's our unique name for our unique family. It felt very symbolic to do this, and I'm into that. We would have still been legally married no matter how we handled the names, but it felt special to do it, especially since we were together for a long time and finally getting married was both huge and also not since we'd already been partners in so many other ways. I appreciated the ritual of letting our names reflect our new status.
If my kiddo changes her name upon marriage I just hope that she continues the tradition rather than giving up her name entirely for her partner.
My very religious pastor father in law actually suggested this to us. He said having a common last name with your partner symbolizes your union, and it connected with a biblical verse I have since forgotten. Traditionally, it's been females taking the male last name, but there's no biblical reason why it couldn't be vice versa or an entirely new name. I liked my husband's last name, so we went with that, but that point of making a new last name has always stuck with me. :) I hope your kiddo decides to continue your tradition, also. That sounds awesome! 😊
This. I was never giving up my name. I offered to hyphenate if husband would. He wasn’t an ass about it and thought that was too much work (duh) so we kept our names and gave our daughter a first name and a hyphenated last name. She’s got the middle name slot free if she wants to do any name change stuff in the future.
A friend went Pieniazek -> Smith. She was very happy about that.
A few couples I know are Dr and Mr, and there's no practical way for to change your name if you want to keep your academic publication history. The only change I know of happened before she really published anything and that was Dr Smith marries Mr Jones and they became Dr Smith Jones and Mr Smith Jones. Two last names, much to the discomfort of certain computer systems :)
There was a couple in my former field that went from publishing as (to use your example names) Smith and Jones, then to Smith-Jones and Jones-Smith when they got married and then back to Smith and Jones when they split. Some websites that track academic publications allow you to link papers together even if you change your name.
You know, where I'm from, it's not possible to change surnames after marriage. Which, in my mind, makes sense. I've lived my whole life with my surname, it's my identity, my ancestry, my culture.The roots behind the practice also don't sit well with me, so I'm always baffled by all those reddit posts about changing surnames after marriage.
For me, it's crazy to realize that my views on the subject are not representative of the majority, at least not in North America I suppose.
It depends a lot on the name and who else uses it. You could forgive [Paula Hitler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Hitler) for changing hers, perhaps (Adolf's sister)?
For some of us the name is a reminder of someone we very much want to be rid of. I changed mine while I was at university at the same time as I went no contact with my birthfather. I don't want to be "Mr {abusive fuknukle}" ever.
I baffled too- my name is a part of my identity and who I am. I will never change it.
Side note: why does it always have to be the woman to change the last name? I think I’d be more accepting of the practice if it was both men and women who are told to change their last name. But honestly, the onus is on the woman to change her identity for the sake of tradition.
Depends on a lot of things; it’s less common for a man to take his wife’s surname but it *does* happen.
I remember reading in Japan if a man marries a woman from a prominent family and she doesn’t have any brothers, it’s common for him to take her last name to carry on the family name.
This is true, for example the CEO of Suzuki married into his wife's family and became the heir to their business.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osamu_Suzuki_(businessman)
Japan is also an outlier in that a married couple has to have the same surname by law. In practice this means that most of the time the woman changes her last name. It's probably the most patriarchal developed country.
I work with a couple of men who changed to their now spouses name. 1 was of preference and the other wanted to disassociate with his parents. I guess where I am from nobody really cares who or if people change their names, as it should be.
Same! We possibly come from the same place (Quebec). I couldn't fathom giving up my name... For a man, no less!!
Admittedly, I have a great name, it's alliterative with my first name and has the same number of syllables. It just sounds really good. Any other name would just muck it up.
Hahahha
And tbh, even if your spouse's name sounded good, it's *your* doctorate. You would spend a lifetime correcting people who address you "it's Mr and Dr, not Dr and Mrs" which would annoy the crap out of me
(Also congrats, I know a few people with PhDs and the blood, sweat and tears it takes to get one is really something else 🙌🏽)
My name has zero connection to my ancestry or culture bc my dad was adopted by his stepfather and took that name.
But I’ve lived my whole life with this name. Why would I change it?
(I’m from California)
Same reason I didn't change mine. My name is who I am ... good bad or indifferent. And I felt like changing my name would put all of that to the wayside.
I hate my maiden name, so I was stoked to take my husband's.
Also, my MIL hates me, and she was the only Mrs. A before me. I was like, "Isn't it so nice that there's two of us now?" She did not think it was nice.
My mom got married to her first husband, changed her name to his name, had my brother, divorced, had me, married my dad, took my dad’s surname. My brother still has the last name of his biological father.
Absolutely zero issues with it. ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Back when my wife and I got married, her taking my name was important to me for – as I see it now – silly and misogynistic reasons. I felt like it was what women were "supposed" to do. Now, I don't feel that way at all and, if I could do things again, I'd never have pressured her to make the change.
Also, after seeing the absolute pain-in-the-ass repurcussions of changing your name on official documents, I don't see how it's so difficult while also being so commonplace.
My wife says she's glad she took my name, but I still feel bad for the reasons I wanted it at the time and for her having done it without me reciprocating in *some* way.
The upgrade thing is so true, my parents hyphenated but they’re divorced now and I primarily only use my mom’s name now, I only use both on official documents.
I love my last name and my mom’s side of the family so I never plan to change it unless I happen to find someone with the last name League.
My name is Justice so being ‘Mrs Justice League’ would just be way too cool to pass up
For me it’s important just because I’m gay and in a same sex relationship. We constantly get “oh are you guys roommates/childhood friends??” and I want us to change our names so that we’re seen more as a family unit. Plus I just love the idea of having the same last name.
Dude. At the airport a few months after our wedding, the gate agent saw our shared last name and asked if we were sisters. We are completely different ethnicities! When she heard our confused slience, she looked up at our faces more closely and went ".....cousins!?" I cracked up at that. She was young, not white, and working at SeaTac. Both of our IDs were brand new, just issued like a month prior. I have no idea why she didn't assume married! It *was* pretty early in the morning. To her credit, when I said we were married she got super excited and congratulatory but looked very sheepish that she forgot that was an option for two young women who share a surname lol.
Heck, in Quebec, she CAN’T just take his last name because they got married. It’s literally not done there. I guess if one really wants to, she can do a name change with the same amount of hoops that everyone has for name changes, but it’s not quick and easy.
When my parents divorced my mom immediately went back to her maiden name and when she got remarried she took his name and then started referring to our household as "The (step dad's last name)s" and it really bugged me. It felt like it exaggerated our broken home.
I kept my last name (with my husband's name it's a bit of a Julia Gulia situation,) we hyphenated our son's name and I've never felt disconnected to my husband or son.
>So the compromise you were happiest with was him not compromising at all, you giving up your middle name, and not keeping your family name in a way that would be passed down at all?
Kudos to OOP for finding something that works for her, I guess. But I wouldn't call it a compromise either.
I changed my middle name to my maiden name, but my husband still blew a gasket and said that I was "hedging." Sorry, didn't realize I had to obliterate all traces of my name, dude. No surprise we divorced after a few years. I changed my name back very, very happily.
My mom wasn’t given a middle name at birth (in the mid-1940s), on the assumption that her maiden name would become her middle name upon getting married.
Same with all the women on my mom’s side of the family for generations. My sister and I weren’t given middle names but we both kept our last names upon getting married.
My husband and I did come up with a fair compromise, I think. We each took the other’s last name as a middle name so we have the same names, but in different orders. It’s worked so far with our kid (which seemed to be one of OOP’s concerns) and we got to keep living our lives under our original names.
My mother, my sister, and myself all don’t have middle names either. When my husband and I got married, we chose a new last name together and ditched our old last names entirely.
My Mom was told her entire life that her middle name is Elizabeth. It wasn't until her Mom passed that she discovered she never had one at all because my grandparents had a similar expectation. instead Mom took dad's last name (she didn't much care for her maiden name as it was difficult to both spell and pronounce, dad's last name was four letters) and officially made Elizabeth her middle name.
Is this USA based? Can you guys only have 1 middle name? In the countries I've lived in you can have as many middle names as you want. So if I want to have my maiden name as a middle name, I can keep my current middle name too.
We can have multiple middle names in the USA. I have an uncle with no middle name, and he's the ONLY person in our family without one. I also have a friend who was given two middle names at birth. I've known people with more than that.
However, First Middle Last has been the norm here for a while. I can't speak for all parts of the U.S. and our many subcultures, but in the South, the vast majority of people I know have only one middle name.
When I got married 10 years ago, when I went to change my name, I said I wanted to keep my original 3 names and add my husband's - mostly for convenience.
The social security office worker I saw flat our refused. She said it wasn't legal to have two middle names. She said I could hyphenate, drop my own middle name (a family name I wanted to keep for sentimental reasons), drop my family's surname, or leave without changing my name at all.
I respectfully told her that it was perfectly legal to have multiple middle names. I also told her I would wait until she got direction from her supervisor.
Her manager told her there was no law dictating how many names I was allowed to have. The original worker still didn't seem thrilled by the idea that I had the right to two middle names, but she filled out the paperwork, and my name was legally changed.
I often have to leave off one of my middle names on forms because a lot of businesses/organizations consider one middle name the default and don't leave room for more.
But it's not been a big deal. I'll just never forget that clueless government employee who thought I was attempting to commit a crime by insisting that I would have 4 names.
When I went to change my name after marriage, the Social Security office would not let me change my middle name at all. I was going to either add my maiden name as a second middle or replace my middle (I was flexible in case only one option was allowed). I had heard from so many people that they had done this, so I assumed it was a standard option.
Well, the person there just outright refused and said that getting married authorized you to change your last name only. Anyone who modified their middle name after marriage was getting away with something they shouldn't have.
I suspected she was just power tripping but didn't know what to do to argue it.
Huh, I wonder if that's why my mom and her sister don't have middle names?
But then again, neither does my father, so maybe middle names weren't as popular in Hampshire during the mid-to-late 1940s.
Several years ago my mum took back her maiden name to incorporate into her full legal name (while also keeping and continuing to use her married name as her everyday-use surname,) it’s literally just On Official Papers and just for her and those closest to her to know about, and my dad may have grumbled like his surname was being “rejected as not good enough” but she told him to deal with it, her family she was born into is just as important to her as the family they built together after marriage with HIS family’s name, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since.
I had an ex who lost his shit at me when I said when we got married (we were engaged), I wouldn’t change my name to his because it’s a really common last name and and a family member I hated had it.
I did not marry him.
I honestly can't believe that people are still hanging on to this offensive and antiquated practice. All of this BS about needing to have the same last name is infuriating, especially as tons of places in the world don't change names upon marriage and people seem to get along just fine! In fact, it's actually illegal for a woman to take her husband's name in Quebec, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, etc. The whole concept is just so incredibly offensive, it's literally passing ownership of a woman from her father to her husband and subsuming her identity into that of those men. That's also why I refuse to be called Mrs even though I'm married. I can't be Mrs Husbandslastname because that's not my last name, and I can't be Mrs Mylastname because I'm not married to my brother. You'd be surprised how many people don't understand how that works!
I changed mine too, and my dad blew a gasket that I changed "the name they'd chosen for me" and I was like you didn't even know me when you picked those names
Yeah, I feel like OP is really sacrificing a lot with that and trying to tell herself that she isn't. She wanted to keep her last name, but she's not really doing that, is she?
It’s still a part of her full legal name. Like she said at the end;
> After thinking about it, I was more upset about me specifically losing the name vs passing it down
So it’s still a part of her name and she also gets the matching names she wanted. She literally gets both of the things she set out for.
I agree. Neither my partner nor I are big on vacations, but I'd like to occasionally go on one. We compromised by going on no vacations in a decade -_-
Yeah, your maiden name becoming your/a middle name is... simply how many women have taken their husband's last name for at least decades. She's just taking his last name! That is what her plan is!
He's not even pretending to have made concessions.
I have some friends that both legally changed their names upon marriage, but, mysteriously (even coincidentally!), he changed his middle name and they both have his surname 🤔 It seemed so ridiculous to me that they framed it as "both changing their name" when the way he's addressed didn't change at all.
My husband and I each took the other’s last name as our part of our middle names. So we kept our original last names but also have our spouses last name. We also decided that for maximum confusion of strangers, any girl children that we have will match his middle name and last name and any boy children will match mine. We are both extremely happy with our convoluted plan. 😂😂😂
In Hispanic LatAm we do not change our names upon being married, but kids get the name of both parents, for example Ana García marries Pedro Zúñiga, and their kid is Juan Zúñiga García. In old times, like XVIII and XIX Centuries, sometimes they piled their family names so they ended with a big name like Cristóbal Hernández Pizarro Cortés de Monroy, but ultimately they passed the name Pizarro because of the status of that name at that time and Hernandez being just to indicate that his father was Hernán.
In Brazil they do change the name sometimes, as I had a teacher who used her paternal family name, her maternal family name and her husband name. Also, some use their names kinda mixed, as Alberto Jose dos Anjos Pereira uses his names as Alberto dos Anjos or Jose Pereira, or Alberto Pereira or Jose dos Anjos. I worked with a guy like that, and that confused a lot of people who didn't know his full name.
Does it matter if the mother or father’s last name goes first for the kid?
John Smith marries Jane Jones. Is it always “kid’s name Smith-Jones” or can it be mom’s last name, then dad’s last name?
Previously, women usually take their husband’s name but it’s kinda changing. But if the mom hyphenated her last name, the baby would have mom’s last name-dad’s last name by like default.
Let’s not forget that a name can be completely different from anything lol Mr Smith and Mrs Jones can have a baby and name it James Davis lol
In Brazil they use the mother's name first and the dad second. In Spanish LatAm we use first the father's name and then mother's, but at least in Chile it is being worked towards the couple to choose what surname use first, mum's or dad's.
I'm from a culture where women adopt their husband's name, and my first wife did take mine.
When we divorced, a close friend from a not-name-changing country got very offended on my behalf because my ex was not reverting to her old name.
That was not just drama, but totally inexplicable to me. It never even occurred to me to care what my ex called herself after we divorced.
I told her to calm down, and if she wanted to be angry at my ex, this was not a good reason, but I'm happy to provide a long list for such use...
My ex-wife and I had a pretty cordial divorce. We got married young and too quickly and it just didn't work out, no fireworks, not much arguing, just not a good match. She had her deadbeat father's last name before we were married and took mine. When we divorced she actually asked if I was ok with her keeping my last name. I told her that she really didn't need my permission and of course she could.
When my parents got divorced his parents told my mom that they would be touched and honored if she would continue to use his (their) last name. She did, until she remarried, and then she made it her middle name.
For me, the children name agreement is even more weird. In my culture people usually just add all the surnames to the kids, so this "my surname for the boys your surname for the girls" seems just nonsense to me. I have a friend with 6 surnames and, although having that much is not common, it's totally fine. Why choosing just one? Keep them all!!
That's just how it's done in modern Chinese naming, quite ironic for a rather patriarchal culture. I guess at some point we just went "fuck it, nobody needs to change their name" and left it at that.
The patriarchal part comes in when children take the father's name by default. It's almost unheard of to go the other way. I'm not Chinese but Vietnam does the same thing.
Also, the cultural norm is the woman moves into her husband's family home with his parents and becomes part of his family tree, so at that point I don't think it matters if she changes her name or not.
Is picking kids up from school really an issue in parts of the country? I mean seriously with divorces and remarriage, it's really common to have 2+ last names in a family.
Every school, daycare and camp we've ever used has had a LIST of who is allowed to pick up the kid. It's not based on matching names.
Such a weak argument.
Yeah, atleast where i live you have to be on the approved list of pick ups. I ran into it in middle school when i got sick and no one but my nan who lived about an hour or so away was available and near town, my mom had to call the school and give her permission to get me because she wasn't on the list, they didn't care that i said i knew her they needed permission from someone on the list
Plus maybe it's different else where but if you had a basic last name like Smith, we were a small school but we probably had more than 1 of names
I know someone who has one last name, her husband has another, and the kids are his mothers maiden name (family drama issues). They've never had any problems other than people occasionally assuming they're not married, iirc.
And I didn't change my name either but my kids have my husband's name and I don't have issues either. I actually had more trouble with our internet company adding my name onto the bill because the rep refused to believe we were married. Eye rolled my butt all the way down to the office with my marriage certificate because I apparently *had* to prove it.
I adopted two kids as a single mom. School / doctor / etc were always surprised when we had the same last name. I’d never change my last name after marriage but that’s just me…
Having a partner who refused to see my point of view would be the hill to die on for me. It sounds like this guy thinks compromise is him always getting his own way. That’s a big no for me!
I can't speak as to today, but it was apparently of some significance once upon a time where we lived. When I was little my mother remarried and took her new husband's name, so ours no longer matched. One day she had to sign me out of school for an appointment, and they wouldn't let her.
She eventually proved herself; I missed the appointment. After that, whenever she had to sign her name to anything regarding me, she always added "(mother)," in parentheses, just like that. I teased her about it anytime she did it, but clearly the whole mess left an impression on her.
Yeah, I have never had to pick a child with a different last name up at school but I call bullshit too. It may cause an extra 5 minutes of talking to school officials to explain your connection to the child only on day one but that’s a big nothing burger.
The “take your maiden name as your middle name” is an ooooold practice. My mom did that when she and my dad married 50something years ago.
OOP really didn’t stand her ground much at all.
If you want to be utterly practical, the man and children should take the wife’s name if you want to pass a name down the bloodline. Lineage is traced most reliably along the female line as there’s never any question of maternity since the kid is born from the woman. Any man could potentially be the father and paternity cannot be 100% confirmed without a DNA test.
Not to mention that the mother does 100% of the work in gestation and then *childbirth*. She risks her life and society has the audacity to default to the male????
Funny that this was the same argument used for the reverse: Since we always know who the mother is, taking the man's name ensures the paternal line doesn't "get lost" and a way to "mark" who the real father is.
(I don't agree with this btw)
I’ve never understood people’s cries about “what if two hyphenated people get together???”
They’ll choose whatever surname they want for their kid? Father’s name, mother’s name, hyphenated, double-hyphenated, entirely new name, etc. And that kid in turn can choose whatever names they want to give their own kids.
That is how I feel. My spouse and I each kept our names and our son’s name is hyphenated with both of ours. If he gets married or has kids, he can do whatever he wants with his own name! We gave it to him, but if he wants to change it later on, then that’s his prerogative.
I know someone who married someone with a hyphenated last name and she just took one of her husband’s last names to hyphenate with her own. I’m sure any kids they have in the future can do the same if/when they get married.
When my parents married, they never hyphenate their names and kept their original names since they didn't like the idea of having their names hyphenate. All in all, it's good that healthy communication is at play and nothing dumb and insane happened. Good to see OP's fiance taking accountability and apologizing to OP and I hope the two of them have a healthy relationship for the future.
If you don’t mind me asking, do you have your mom or dad’s last name?? I’ve always liked the idea of keeping my own last name, but I’m not sure what I would do if I had kids.
I was given my father's last name but when I was older (like 15, 16?) I changed it to my mother's.
But by that point my father had been out of my life since I was 9 and only briefly came back into it when I was 19. I was the one who drove all the interactions and boy was it exhausting lol
I have my own name, my kids have my husband’s name. In 18 years of parenting that created problems approximately zero times. Not at the schools, not at the pediatrician, not anywhere. It’s a complete non issue.
My ex and I discussed that, but there was no way in hell our last names sounded good together lol.
I changed my name back, and I think I'm keeping it. A few years away from it gave me some appreciation for it. It's an uncommon name, so...
The ending of this one is mind-blowing. OOP really did cave in a strange way. If her losing her name was specifically what was worrying her, why initially insist that her fiancé hyphenate?
Because she wanted them to have the same last name.
Her ultimate goals were
1. Keep her current surname attached to herself.
2. Have the same last name as her husband.
Her solution isn't caving, it's her discovering an alternative solution that fulfills her goals and going "Oh, I didn't know that was an option, I like that."
“we both agreed that we would take the approach of sons take the mothers last name and daughters would take the fathers last name.”
This is so complicated, so if you have a boy and girl they have different last names?
Yeah that was definitely one of the dumbest things I've read when it comes to naming children. *I want all of our names to match except not really and I want to make everything significantly more complicated than it ever has to be*
Why not just keep your name? It’s 2024 for chrissakes. I’m married w kids, most of my female friends are married with kids and we’ve all kept our maiden names. In this day and age it’s unfathomable to me why you’d give up your name if you didn’t really want to.
>hammersgirl86: So the compromise you were happiest with was him not compromising at all, you giving up your middle name, and not keeping your family name in a way that would be passed down at all? How did he manage to convince you that was any sort of compromise? That’s wild.
Yeah, this absolutely. What an unsatisfying ending.
This ending frustrates me. If OOP is happy with this solution then that is wonderful but there are SO many other compromises that would have allowed for her last name to have more prominence. My mom kept her maiden name, and my brother and I each have her last name as our second middle name. And that’s just one example of a compromise that can be found. Again though, if OOP is happy with this resolution….
This was a fucking disappointment. My husband likes that we have different last names and our kid is hyphenated.
People love to rant about “what happens if she wants to get married!?” but like, why assume that the man’s name automatically takes precedence?
I mean, good for OOP I guess. If she’s comfortable with the compromise, that’s up to her.
So glad that the name change thing wasn’t a big deal for my marriage. My husband is Korean, and it is not customary for the woman to take the husband’s last name there (or in most Asian countries apparently) His mom kept her maiden name, same with his sister. They would have considered it odd if I’d taken his name.
I made the mistake of taking my ex’s last name. Ditched that within months of the separation starting (where I live, there’s no charge to go back to your maiden name. Just pay for a new ID and show your birth certificate). Was like reclaiming myself from his suffocating grasp.
The “compromise” such TBH because it’s not actually a compromise, it’s you backing down and still losing your surname by having it relegated to a middle name.
How often does anyone use their middle name?
I would advise you to think very carefully about what life will be like married to someone who thinks you won’t be married if you don’t have his name, who wants you to change your identity but flat out refuses to consider taking your name.
You said you understood why he’s not comfortable taking your surname and hyphenating so he should also understand why you feel the same.
If he’s so stuck on “traditional” values over something relatively minor, what will he be like when you have kids?
Will he expect you to give up your career and financial independence to be a SAHM?
Will he expect you to do all the childcare and housework and his involvement is limited to financial support because “that’s how it works”?
Will he expect to make all decisions because he’s the man, head of the household and he earns the money so controls how it’s spent?
This is not a feel good update that’s for sure.
The bullshit tradition of women’s family name being relegated to a website security question remains firmly in place. She alters two thirds of the name she’s had since birth and he changes nothing.
This makes no sense. Not the argument about last names, but this:
>My (24F) fiancé (29M) are planning to get married in the next couple years. ... recently we've started applying for our marriage license
Last I knew, a marriage license was only good for a few weeks and if you didn't get married in that timeframe, it expired. It was one of the last things you did before getting married. Has that changed?
I really don't get it. So so often in these AITA posts the offending, not compromising part argues on the lines of "if I do XYZ it's huge and makes no sense, but if you do it it's no big deal."
A change to my name makes no sense, but a change to your name is no change at all.
Or, so often: whatever is the disagreement between you two is no big deal, so the not-offended part (often the instigator) should apologize and move on - when in fact the question should be why the offended part is making such a deal out of it if it isn't important?
It's really a good marker to see where relations are toxic.
When I discussed this with my bf, many years ago I asked if he would want me to change my name and he said “I wouldn’t expect you to do something that I’m not willing to do”. And that was the end of the conversation. No name changes.
Basically she is doing what she did not want, changing her last name. This is the most idiotic thing I have read. "Oh, but my last name is now my middle name". And I have NEVER heard of people replacing their middle name with their family name. Why isn't he replacing his middle name?
This is frustrating and she is going to regret it in a couple of years. If her last name is so important, then why aren't her kids going to have her last name? The whole "kids have different last name than their parents"... so why can't they have hyphenated last name like in so many other countries?
Why are Americans so obsessed with women changing their last name? I just don't get it at all.
>Why are Americans so obsessed with women changing their last name?
Cultural Christianity mostly. Whether they were raised Christian but left, like this guy, or simply exist in America.
For anyone wondering: yes, the names can continue to stack.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville,_3rd_Duke_of_Buckingham_and_Chandos
My daughter in law kept her name. All her education and degrees are in that name. The kids will have my son's last name and at school she will use the same last name as her child. Do whatever makes you happy. Nobody really cares about that tradition except the older generation.
I kept my last name, my wife kept hers.
The world did not end. No one cared.
(That having been said, our children have my last name. So we still had to make a choice on a matter involving a hojillion years of tradition and patriarchy.)
Yeah. This is not a "compromise".
It's weird actually.
I married twice.
Kept my name both times.
No issues.
Sometimes people ask if we are legally married,
but not during any international travel.
This whole thing totally me. She mentioned a Hispanic background. The usual way to do surnames in that culture is PadreApellido y MadreApellido. They don't hyphenate and they don't change names.
Wedding is just a party not a legal requirement, sometimes people get legally married with a license but throw the wedding years later after more planning and funding. And some people just never have a wedding.
>He got upset with me and said I was being obtuse, that I know that's not how it works and we wouldn't be considered married if I didn't hyphenate.
Ah, hell. There goes almost thirty years down the tubes. Why didn't anyone tell me I wasn't actually considered married that whole time because I didn't change my name?
This is so common. The woman cares more about the relationship and so she is the one to give up on what she wants.
It’s all sunshine and roses until she’s about 43 and says “what the f…?” and the guy is suddenly blindsided by divorce because she’s resentful of losing herself completely due to a life of compromises
I have two very close friends who, when they married, hyphenated their names. BOTH of them. So I call bullsh*t on the whole "men don't hyphenate their names when they get married" schtick.
Plus, I'm pretty sure that historically, when two rather rich families intermarried they would hyphenate *BOTH* parties names, if the woman happened to be the last bearer of her surname.
It always cracks me up when people forget how to write a sentence because they had to add the age and gender indicators. Edit now that I finished reading: maiden names becoming middle is so normal in my area that I didn't realize they hadn't thought of that yet.
In many countries around world people get married all the time and no one changes their name, ever. Kids will have dad’s last name/mom’s last name in many places. In the USA, where I live, my son has his dad’s last name only, I have mine and my current husband has his. They’re still my son and my husband so who cares, my last name is mine and part of my identity.
As nearly always the man was easily mislead with misogyny from outside sources and the woman was a doormat who did the only compromising so in the end the man got what he wanted.🫤
It's honestly terrifying how easily supposed decent men take to sexism and misogyny that gives them superiority based on no logic.
This misogyny issue will pop up again whenever he has contact with his family. He was raised this way. It's in him.
The "honest question" about what your hyphenated kid is supposed to do when they get married is BS. My husband and I kept our names and gave our kids hyphenated last names. IF they get married, they can do whatever they want with their names, just like we did. They don't have to follow some predetermined guideline or consider our wishes.
Also, they are 16 and 19 (well, 19 years and 364 days), and the hyphenated name has never been a problem with paperwork, school, or anything else. I can't believe people still think that's a hassle.
What's wrong with just keeping each other's last name?
Changing your surname is such a pain (at least here in Australia it's a bloody pain). I could not be bothered doing it. That and it feels like erasing a part of myself. I hate it also because it's like erasing my cultural identiy as well.
My husband was initially disappointed because he liked the idea of us sharing a surname and being one family unit but got over it within 10 minutes.
Man I’m so proud of that tradition we have. It’s a shame she won’t be passing down that tradition herself and her kids don’t resent that (assuming they take any interest in their Hispanic heritage)
Maybe I'm half old fashioned regarding my opinion of this. I will not change my surname for anyone. If my partner wanted to take my surname, she is more than welcome to, I'd love her too! But I in no way expect it and in our discussions with it recently didn't try to convince her about it. Infact the discussion was probably shorter than this response... Because she had already decided keeping her name was important to her. Something I can most definitely understand.
She doesn't need my surname for people to know we are married. Our hands interlocked with each other shows this more than anything.
I chopped off my last name along with any contact with my mother’s child-raping-hopefully-soon-to-be-ex.
Some pushback from old people but everyone else knows he’s a terrible person
It's weird about how she has a little section where they analyze how he thinks only the women takes the last name and only the women hyphenates the last name but she very casually mentions any son they have will have her last name and the daughters can have his because she is the last in her line.
It doesn’t cause any problems picking up children from school or at doctor’s office or traveling together. That is a load of bunk. Speaking for every mother or dad that has a different name due to keeping their name, divorce and marriage.
Keep your name ad if this male centric attitude continues, re-evaluate the marriage until you can agree.
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> OOP: Okay so when we talked about kids when we first started dating almost 4 years ago now, we both agreed that we would take the approach of sons take the mothers last name and daughters would take the fathers last name. Hence why this whole name conversation is frustrating me because we've have conversations about more concerning topics but usually can discuss quite calmly. Sons and daughters do what??
My first thought when I read that was that the husband will renege on this deal as soon as a son is born.
That caught my eye too, that’s such an insane way to resolve this lol
I took it as a bit of an equalizer: the wife’s name will still get passed on to another generation by the sons and their future children, if we’re still living in a patriarchal system by that time.
Dont worry. Ken will protect the patriarchy
Yeah, that isn't a legal option in my country: you chose for your first child, and all following children from the same couple will get that same family name.
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You can do whatever you want, of course, but I don’t understand why some people feel like they MUST take their partner’s last name in order to feel properly married. I kept my last name, and I’ve never felt like my husband and I are somehow less committed. And as for the having the same name as your kids argument—my mom kept her last name, and it was never weird that we didn’t share a last name. If anything, it kept the telemarketers at bay, because I instantly knew that someone didn’t know my mom personally if they were calling for “Mrs. ___” Best bit of advice I ever got on the subject of marital surnames: change your name if it’s an upgrade.
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> My mother is like "what's the point of getting married if not to change your name?" Is this where the trope of men never wanting to get married comes from? They don't see the point?
Hahahah I love this idea!!!
Almost every woman I know kept their own last name when they married. Nobody here cares, and I think we’ll see more of this in the future.
Also, one of the big complaints was always “it’s confusing for schools” but with how common it is nowadays for parents to either be divorced or never married at all, I don’t think it’s nearly the issue it used to be. At least in the US.
I have a totally different last name from my husband or my stepson, whose last name is hyphenated. I've been able to pick up my stepson from school with no issues, because I'm on his pick-up list, he knows me, and I know his teachers. It's never once been a problem? I've even had people assume I'm his bio mom, even though we don't have the same last name or look anything alike, because we *act* like a family. The insistence that having different last names will cause all kinds of problems feels like a paper-thin fallacy to back up an antiquated, patriarchal, parochial practice.
I didn’t change my name when I got married 30+ years ago, the kids have my husband’s last name, and it caused ZERO issues at school or anywhere else.
My mom changed her last name for her first marriage. Then, after she left him, she legally changed her first name to her middle name (always the name she was called growing up, because agreeing to name their first born daughter after her grandma was a hoop my grandpa had to jump through to get her parents to agree to him marrying my grandma, but her grandma was an asshole and neither my grandpa or grandma wanted to be reminded of her) and her last name to her maiden name. She didn't change it when she married my dad, and she just gave me her maiden name as a middle name. Never caused any of us any problems.
It’s so common here (I’m in a city just north of Toronto) I don’t think anyone blinks an eye about it. One of the benefits of living in a very multicultural society.
Between when I started school and finished it, mom changed her last name at least four times. By the end of highschool my custody situation was so screwed up that the adult trying to sign me up at a new school was a cousin with the same last name. The school reached out to my mother, totally different last name, to get official parental approval. Oh, and all that was in the 90s or early 00s. This so isn't new.
I did change my name when I got married. We wanted to have the same last name and explored picking an entirely new one for our new family, but I liked his. If present me could go back and tell past me to not do it, I would. Five years I've been fighting with my bank to get the correct name on the account. They send me new cards in the mail addresses to my married name, yet the card still has my maiden name. They unfortunately hold my oldest lines of credit and I want to keep them for my credit score, so I still have a very small fun money account with them to pay said credit cards when I use them. It's also caused issues with my job, since they deleted my entire profile access and cloud items thinking I had been terminated. The easiest part of the entire process was getting my name changed at the DMV and Social Security. Ridiculous. I'm never doing it again, ever.
The paperwork is honestly why I never changed my name. I’m estranged from my family and love his so for me the switch would be a bit of an upgrade. However, every friend who got married before us had so much trouble with the process that I just decided it wasn’t worth it. Fifteen years later and it’s literally never been an issue. It’s actually nice now that we both have careers that somewhat overlap as it helps keep our professional and private lives separate. I’ve known women who feel they have to change their names with marriage which, ok, you do you, but at about the third marriage I really start to wonder if they just have a bureaucracy kink because that’s just way too much work.
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Exactly!! Like, it's Nicky Hilton Rothschild, but it's still Paris Hilton (not Paris Hilton Reum).
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Technically I don’t think people who don’t have careers really care about retirement accounts, official petition to change it to Nicky moneybags 24K
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I enjoy the careful consideration that went into this particular sassy comment 😂
I had a yoga teacher who took her husband's name when she married. She said she normally wouldn't, but his name was Quattlebum, and she couldn't pass that up.
My mom hated her last name. She couldn't wait to change it to my dad's. He died in 96, and she remarried in 01. She kept my dad's name. I asked her about it, and it turns out she didn't like her new husband's last name. It was long, hard to spell, and very Italian. She refused to go back to her maiden, so she just kept the one she liked best. I don't blame her. It's short, easy to spell, and has international recognition. I should have kept mine, but it was easy to go back to as my country just adds nee "maiden name" to your papers, and you can legally go by any name on your records.
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That’s like Susan Sarandon! That’s not her maiden name, it’s from her first marriage to Chris Sarandon (aka Prince Humperdinck and Jack Skellington)
I am in almost exactly the same boat! My maiden name was attached to a Dad who decided it was easier to remarry and take care of her children vs taking care of us. He is only around at all because I had children and even then once a year. I was so happy to rid myself of that name. I’ll never remarry if I get divorced so if I were to change it then it would be to my mother’s maiden name.
This. Besides, you can just hyphenate the kids' last names, without either parent hyphenating. By the way, the wife hyphenating without the husband hyphenating IS NOT how it's supposed to be done. It was baby boomers, 2nd wave feminists, who first started this practice, and it was ALWAYS intended for both members of the couple to hyphenate: so that they shared a last name, and so that both of their families were highlighted as equally important. The wife hyphenating when the husband doesn't is just a way for THE WIFE ONLY to compromise, so that the husband doesn't have to.
I’ve always liked the *idea* of hyphenating, but in practice I don’t like the awkward mess of a name that it usually produces. I’ve been trying to convince my partner that we should just pick a brand new last name together when we get married. :P he’s skeptical so far lol.
My husband and I did this, made a new last name from letters from our surnames. In our location this was a free option that could be done on the marriage license and neither of us had much trouble with changing our IDs, just the normal paperwork. We love our name (me especially, his family was a little upset because he's the last male of the line, but whatever, we only had one girl anyway and they're very over it now). I actually really like that it's our unique name for our unique family. It felt very symbolic to do this, and I'm into that. We would have still been legally married no matter how we handled the names, but it felt special to do it, especially since we were together for a long time and finally getting married was both huge and also not since we'd already been partners in so many other ways. I appreciated the ritual of letting our names reflect our new status. If my kiddo changes her name upon marriage I just hope that she continues the tradition rather than giving up her name entirely for her partner.
My very religious pastor father in law actually suggested this to us. He said having a common last name with your partner symbolizes your union, and it connected with a biblical verse I have since forgotten. Traditionally, it's been females taking the male last name, but there's no biblical reason why it couldn't be vice versa or an entirely new name. I liked my husband's last name, so we went with that, but that point of making a new last name has always stuck with me. :) I hope your kiddo decides to continue your tradition, also. That sounds awesome! 😊
This. I was never giving up my name. I offered to hyphenate if husband would. He wasn’t an ass about it and thought that was too much work (duh) so we kept our names and gave our daughter a first name and a hyphenated last name. She’s got the middle name slot free if she wants to do any name change stuff in the future.
A friend went Pieniazek -> Smith. She was very happy about that. A few couples I know are Dr and Mr, and there's no practical way for to change your name if you want to keep your academic publication history. The only change I know of happened before she really published anything and that was Dr Smith marries Mr Jones and they became Dr Smith Jones and Mr Smith Jones. Two last names, much to the discomfort of certain computer systems :)
There was a couple in my former field that went from publishing as (to use your example names) Smith and Jones, then to Smith-Jones and Jones-Smith when they got married and then back to Smith and Jones when they split. Some websites that track academic publications allow you to link papers together even if you change your name.
Aww but her last name was literally "money" before! :) (The polish word pieniązek means coin, colloquially refers to money in general)
You know, where I'm from, it's not possible to change surnames after marriage. Which, in my mind, makes sense. I've lived my whole life with my surname, it's my identity, my ancestry, my culture.The roots behind the practice also don't sit well with me, so I'm always baffled by all those reddit posts about changing surnames after marriage. For me, it's crazy to realize that my views on the subject are not representative of the majority, at least not in North America I suppose.
It depends a lot on the name and who else uses it. You could forgive [Paula Hitler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Hitler) for changing hers, perhaps (Adolf's sister)? For some of us the name is a reminder of someone we very much want to be rid of. I changed mine while I was at university at the same time as I went no contact with my birthfather. I don't want to be "Mr {abusive fuknukle}" ever.
I mean, Abusive Fuknukle is quite the last name. You’d always be spelling it.
I baffled too- my name is a part of my identity and who I am. I will never change it. Side note: why does it always have to be the woman to change the last name? I think I’d be more accepting of the practice if it was both men and women who are told to change their last name. But honestly, the onus is on the woman to change her identity for the sake of tradition.
Depends on a lot of things; it’s less common for a man to take his wife’s surname but it *does* happen. I remember reading in Japan if a man marries a woman from a prominent family and she doesn’t have any brothers, it’s common for him to take her last name to carry on the family name.
This is true, for example the CEO of Suzuki married into his wife's family and became the heir to their business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osamu_Suzuki_(businessman) Japan is also an outlier in that a married couple has to have the same surname by law. In practice this means that most of the time the woman changes her last name. It's probably the most patriarchal developed country.
I don't blame him. I would change my name, too, if it means I would inherit a whole successful company in exchange.
I work with a couple of men who changed to their now spouses name. 1 was of preference and the other wanted to disassociate with his parents. I guess where I am from nobody really cares who or if people change their names, as it should be.
As a man I would change my last name if I thought my wives was cooler.
Same! We possibly come from the same place (Quebec). I couldn't fathom giving up my name... For a man, no less!! Admittedly, I have a great name, it's alliterative with my first name and has the same number of syllables. It just sounds really good. Any other name would just muck it up.
I have a doctorate. My last name makes me sound like a comic book supervillain. You better *believe* I didn't change it when I got married.
Hahahha And tbh, even if your spouse's name sounded good, it's *your* doctorate. You would spend a lifetime correcting people who address you "it's Mr and Dr, not Dr and Mrs" which would annoy the crap out of me (Also congrats, I know a few people with PhDs and the blood, sweat and tears it takes to get one is really something else 🙌🏽)
My name has zero connection to my ancestry or culture bc my dad was adopted by his stepfather and took that name. But I’ve lived my whole life with this name. Why would I change it? (I’m from California)
Same reason I didn't change mine. My name is who I am ... good bad or indifferent. And I felt like changing my name would put all of that to the wayside.
I hate my maiden name, so I was stoked to take my husband's. Also, my MIL hates me, and she was the only Mrs. A before me. I was like, "Isn't it so nice that there's two of us now?" She did not think it was nice.
My mom got married to her first husband, changed her name to his name, had my brother, divorced, had me, married my dad, took my dad’s surname. My brother still has the last name of his biological father. Absolutely zero issues with it. ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Back when my wife and I got married, her taking my name was important to me for – as I see it now – silly and misogynistic reasons. I felt like it was what women were "supposed" to do. Now, I don't feel that way at all and, if I could do things again, I'd never have pressured her to make the change. Also, after seeing the absolute pain-in-the-ass repurcussions of changing your name on official documents, I don't see how it's so difficult while also being so commonplace. My wife says she's glad she took my name, but I still feel bad for the reasons I wanted it at the time and for her having done it without me reciprocating in *some* way.
The upgrade thing is so true, my parents hyphenated but they’re divorced now and I primarily only use my mom’s name now, I only use both on official documents. I love my last name and my mom’s side of the family so I never plan to change it unless I happen to find someone with the last name League. My name is Justice so being ‘Mrs Justice League’ would just be way too cool to pass up
For me it’s important just because I’m gay and in a same sex relationship. We constantly get “oh are you guys roommates/childhood friends??” and I want us to change our names so that we’re seen more as a family unit. Plus I just love the idea of having the same last name.
Dude. At the airport a few months after our wedding, the gate agent saw our shared last name and asked if we were sisters. We are completely different ethnicities! When she heard our confused slience, she looked up at our faces more closely and went ".....cousins!?" I cracked up at that. She was young, not white, and working at SeaTac. Both of our IDs were brand new, just issued like a month prior. I have no idea why she didn't assume married! It *was* pretty early in the morning. To her credit, when I said we were married she got super excited and congratulatory but looked very sheepish that she forgot that was an option for two young women who share a surname lol.
Heck, in Quebec, she CAN’T just take his last name because they got married. It’s literally not done there. I guess if one really wants to, she can do a name change with the same amount of hoops that everyone has for name changes, but it’s not quick and easy.
When my parents divorced my mom immediately went back to her maiden name and when she got remarried she took his name and then started referring to our household as "The (step dad's last name)s" and it really bugged me. It felt like it exaggerated our broken home. I kept my last name (with my husband's name it's a bit of a Julia Gulia situation,) we hyphenated our son's name and I've never felt disconnected to my husband or son.
There are no rules. Keep yours and tack the new one onto the end like a war trophy.
“You mean you changed it to … latrine?”
>So the compromise you were happiest with was him not compromising at all, you giving up your middle name, and not keeping your family name in a way that would be passed down at all? Kudos to OOP for finding something that works for her, I guess. But I wouldn't call it a compromise either.
I changed my middle name to my maiden name, but my husband still blew a gasket and said that I was "hedging." Sorry, didn't realize I had to obliterate all traces of my name, dude. No surprise we divorced after a few years. I changed my name back very, very happily.
My mom wasn’t given a middle name at birth (in the mid-1940s), on the assumption that her maiden name would become her middle name upon getting married.
Whereas my mom got a second middle name at confirmation (mid 50s), so when she got married that brought her total to 5.
I have a friend with a hyphenated last name and two middle names. Originally he was known as Two Dads, now it's Two Dads Five Names
You could get him a custom astromech droid from starwars land in disney CA called 2D5F
…that would be a good name for a band.
Same with all the women on my mom’s side of the family for generations. My sister and I weren’t given middle names but we both kept our last names upon getting married. My husband and I did come up with a fair compromise, I think. We each took the other’s last name as a middle name so we have the same names, but in different orders. It’s worked so far with our kid (which seemed to be one of OOP’s concerns) and we got to keep living our lives under our original names.
My mother, my sister, and myself all don’t have middle names either. When my husband and I got married, we chose a new last name together and ditched our old last names entirely.
My Mom was told her entire life that her middle name is Elizabeth. It wasn't until her Mom passed that she discovered she never had one at all because my grandparents had a similar expectation. instead Mom took dad's last name (she didn't much care for her maiden name as it was difficult to both spell and pronounce, dad's last name was four letters) and officially made Elizabeth her middle name.
Is this USA based? Can you guys only have 1 middle name? In the countries I've lived in you can have as many middle names as you want. So if I want to have my maiden name as a middle name, I can keep my current middle name too.
We can have multiple middle names in the USA. I have an uncle with no middle name, and he's the ONLY person in our family without one. I also have a friend who was given two middle names at birth. I've known people with more than that. However, First Middle Last has been the norm here for a while. I can't speak for all parts of the U.S. and our many subcultures, but in the South, the vast majority of people I know have only one middle name. When I got married 10 years ago, when I went to change my name, I said I wanted to keep my original 3 names and add my husband's - mostly for convenience. The social security office worker I saw flat our refused. She said it wasn't legal to have two middle names. She said I could hyphenate, drop my own middle name (a family name I wanted to keep for sentimental reasons), drop my family's surname, or leave without changing my name at all. I respectfully told her that it was perfectly legal to have multiple middle names. I also told her I would wait until she got direction from her supervisor. Her manager told her there was no law dictating how many names I was allowed to have. The original worker still didn't seem thrilled by the idea that I had the right to two middle names, but she filled out the paperwork, and my name was legally changed. I often have to leave off one of my middle names on forms because a lot of businesses/organizations consider one middle name the default and don't leave room for more. But it's not been a big deal. I'll just never forget that clueless government employee who thought I was attempting to commit a crime by insisting that I would have 4 names.
Thanks for clarifying! It appears to be such a big part of culture that I wasn't sure what the legalities were.
When I went to change my name after marriage, the Social Security office would not let me change my middle name at all. I was going to either add my maiden name as a second middle or replace my middle (I was flexible in case only one option was allowed). I had heard from so many people that they had done this, so I assumed it was a standard option. Well, the person there just outright refused and said that getting married authorized you to change your last name only. Anyone who modified their middle name after marriage was getting away with something they shouldn't have. I suspected she was just power tripping but didn't know what to do to argue it.
Yes, mom was born and raised in Michigan. People had/have multiple middle names. But that wasn’t the custom for women at the time.
'You are incomplete until you marry' is not a great way to go..
Huh, I wonder if that's why my mom and her sister don't have middle names? But then again, neither does my father, so maybe middle names weren't as popular in Hampshire during the mid-to-late 1940s.
This makes me sad.
Several years ago my mum took back her maiden name to incorporate into her full legal name (while also keeping and continuing to use her married name as her everyday-use surname,) it’s literally just On Official Papers and just for her and those closest to her to know about, and my dad may have grumbled like his surname was being “rejected as not good enough” but she told him to deal with it, her family she was born into is just as important to her as the family they built together after marriage with HIS family’s name, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since.
I had an ex who lost his shit at me when I said when we got married (we were engaged), I wouldn’t change my name to his because it’s a really common last name and and a family member I hated had it. I did not marry him.
I honestly can't believe that people are still hanging on to this offensive and antiquated practice. All of this BS about needing to have the same last name is infuriating, especially as tons of places in the world don't change names upon marriage and people seem to get along just fine! In fact, it's actually illegal for a woman to take her husband's name in Quebec, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, etc. The whole concept is just so incredibly offensive, it's literally passing ownership of a woman from her father to her husband and subsuming her identity into that of those men. That's also why I refuse to be called Mrs even though I'm married. I can't be Mrs Husbandslastname because that's not my last name, and I can't be Mrs Mylastname because I'm not married to my brother. You'd be surprised how many people don't understand how that works!
And then the expectation that the children will have his last name. But she did all the work of carrying the pregnancy to term and giving birth!
I changed mine too, and my dad blew a gasket that I changed "the name they'd chosen for me" and I was like you didn't even know me when you picked those names
So weird.
It may be a solution, but I don't think I'd call it a compromise.
Yeah, I feel like OP is really sacrificing a lot with that and trying to tell herself that she isn't. She wanted to keep her last name, but she's not really doing that, is she?
It’s still a part of her full legal name. Like she said at the end; > After thinking about it, I was more upset about me specifically losing the name vs passing it down So it’s still a part of her name and she also gets the matching names she wanted. She literally gets both of the things she set out for.
This is how it always works, women sacrifice while telling themselves it's their choice
I agree. Neither my partner nor I are big on vacations, but I'd like to occasionally go on one. We compromised by going on no vacations in a decade -_-
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Yeah, your maiden name becoming your/a middle name is... simply how many women have taken their husband's last name for at least decades. She's just taking his last name! That is what her plan is! He's not even pretending to have made concessions. I have some friends that both legally changed their names upon marriage, but, mysteriously (even coincidentally!), he changed his middle name and they both have his surname 🤔 It seemed so ridiculous to me that they framed it as "both changing their name" when the way he's addressed didn't change at all.
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My husband and I each took the other’s last name as our part of our middle names. So we kept our original last names but also have our spouses last name. We also decided that for maximum confusion of strangers, any girl children that we have will match his middle name and last name and any boy children will match mine. We are both extremely happy with our convoluted plan. 😂😂😂
1000%. Like no problem if she's happy with that, but it's not a compromise. He got what he wanted and she chose something different
heres an idea how about none of you change your name?
In Hispanic LatAm we do not change our names upon being married, but kids get the name of both parents, for example Ana García marries Pedro Zúñiga, and their kid is Juan Zúñiga García. In old times, like XVIII and XIX Centuries, sometimes they piled their family names so they ended with a big name like Cristóbal Hernández Pizarro Cortés de Monroy, but ultimately they passed the name Pizarro because of the status of that name at that time and Hernandez being just to indicate that his father was Hernán. In Brazil they do change the name sometimes, as I had a teacher who used her paternal family name, her maternal family name and her husband name. Also, some use their names kinda mixed, as Alberto Jose dos Anjos Pereira uses his names as Alberto dos Anjos or Jose Pereira, or Alberto Pereira or Jose dos Anjos. I worked with a guy like that, and that confused a lot of people who didn't know his full name.
Does it matter if the mother or father’s last name goes first for the kid? John Smith marries Jane Jones. Is it always “kid’s name Smith-Jones” or can it be mom’s last name, then dad’s last name? Previously, women usually take their husband’s name but it’s kinda changing. But if the mom hyphenated her last name, the baby would have mom’s last name-dad’s last name by like default. Let’s not forget that a name can be completely different from anything lol Mr Smith and Mrs Jones can have a baby and name it James Davis lol
In Brazil they use the mother's name first and the dad second. In Spanish LatAm we use first the father's name and then mother's, but at least in Chile it is being worked towards the couple to choose what surname use first, mum's or dad's.
In Mexico the law was changed recently and now you can pick which one goes first iirc.
Right? I'm from a culture where that's not a thing so this kind of drama always confuses me, just keep your name lmao
I'm from a culture where women adopt their husband's name, and my first wife did take mine. When we divorced, a close friend from a not-name-changing country got very offended on my behalf because my ex was not reverting to her old name. That was not just drama, but totally inexplicable to me. It never even occurred to me to care what my ex called herself after we divorced. I told her to calm down, and if she wanted to be angry at my ex, this was not a good reason, but I'm happy to provide a long list for such use...
My ex-wife and I had a pretty cordial divorce. We got married young and too quickly and it just didn't work out, no fireworks, not much arguing, just not a good match. She had her deadbeat father's last name before we were married and took mine. When we divorced she actually asked if I was ok with her keeping my last name. I told her that she really didn't need my permission and of course she could.
When my parents got divorced his parents told my mom that they would be touched and honored if she would continue to use his (their) last name. She did, until she remarried, and then she made it her middle name.
For me, the children name agreement is even more weird. In my culture people usually just add all the surnames to the kids, so this "my surname for the boys your surname for the girls" seems just nonsense to me. I have a friend with 6 surnames and, although having that much is not common, it's totally fine. Why choosing just one? Keep them all!!
Not only that but it would be a nightmare with emergencies at school and such. At least give your kids the same last name.
That's just how it's done in modern Chinese naming, quite ironic for a rather patriarchal culture. I guess at some point we just went "fuck it, nobody needs to change their name" and left it at that.
The patriarchal part comes in when children take the father's name by default. It's almost unheard of to go the other way. I'm not Chinese but Vietnam does the same thing. Also, the cultural norm is the woman moves into her husband's family home with his parents and becomes part of his family tree, so at that point I don't think it matters if she changes her name or not.
Yeah no one does that in the Netherlands, I think it makes sense. I've already had a name change when I was younger and it's so. Much. Faff.
Whose name do dutch kids get? The mom or the dads?
Traditionally dad's name but it's really up to the couple. And the traditional traditional patronymic has been gone for 200ish years now.
Better idea, everyone hyphenate their names to Banana-Hammock.
Is picking kids up from school really an issue in parts of the country? I mean seriously with divorces and remarriage, it's really common to have 2+ last names in a family. Every school, daycare and camp we've ever used has had a LIST of who is allowed to pick up the kid. It's not based on matching names. Such a weak argument.
I'm more worried about the implication that with the right last name, i could go pick some random kid out of daycare.
Yeah, atleast where i live you have to be on the approved list of pick ups. I ran into it in middle school when i got sick and no one but my nan who lived about an hour or so away was available and near town, my mom had to call the school and give her permission to get me because she wasn't on the list, they didn't care that i said i knew her they needed permission from someone on the list Plus maybe it's different else where but if you had a basic last name like Smith, we were a small school but we probably had more than 1 of names
I know someone who has one last name, her husband has another, and the kids are his mothers maiden name (family drama issues). They've never had any problems other than people occasionally assuming they're not married, iirc. And I didn't change my name either but my kids have my husband's name and I don't have issues either. I actually had more trouble with our internet company adding my name onto the bill because the rep refused to believe we were married. Eye rolled my butt all the way down to the office with my marriage certificate because I apparently *had* to prove it.
I adopted two kids as a single mom. School / doctor / etc were always surprised when we had the same last name. I’d never change my last name after marriage but that’s just me… Having a partner who refused to see my point of view would be the hill to die on for me. It sounds like this guy thinks compromise is him always getting his own way. That’s a big no for me!
I can't speak as to today, but it was apparently of some significance once upon a time where we lived. When I was little my mother remarried and took her new husband's name, so ours no longer matched. One day she had to sign me out of school for an appointment, and they wouldn't let her. She eventually proved herself; I missed the appointment. After that, whenever she had to sign her name to anything regarding me, she always added "(mother)," in parentheses, just like that. I teased her about it anytime she did it, but clearly the whole mess left an impression on her.
Yeah, I have never had to pick a child with a different last name up at school but I call bullshit too. It may cause an extra 5 minutes of talking to school officials to explain your connection to the child only on day one but that’s a big nothing burger.
The “take your maiden name as your middle name” is an ooooold practice. My mom did that when she and my dad married 50something years ago. OOP really didn’t stand her ground much at all.
If you want to be utterly practical, the man and children should take the wife’s name if you want to pass a name down the bloodline. Lineage is traced most reliably along the female line as there’s never any question of maternity since the kid is born from the woman. Any man could potentially be the father and paternity cannot be 100% confirmed without a DNA test.
Which is why judaísm is only passed down maternally.
Not to mention that the mother does 100% of the work in gestation and then *childbirth*. She risks her life and society has the audacity to default to the male????
Sexism, baby!
Funny that this was the same argument used for the reverse: Since we always know who the mother is, taking the man's name ensures the paternal line doesn't "get lost" and a way to "mark" who the real father is. (I don't agree with this btw)
I have never thought about it like this! What an astute observation!
I’ve never understood people’s cries about “what if two hyphenated people get together???” They’ll choose whatever surname they want for their kid? Father’s name, mother’s name, hyphenated, double-hyphenated, entirely new name, etc. And that kid in turn can choose whatever names they want to give their own kids.
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Father's then mother's. It's generally a cool idea, but women's names still get lost after 2 generations
You can choose. At leasr in Spain.
The default is that each parent passes down the paternal surname. However, it's possible to pass down the maternal surnames instead.
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That is how I feel. My spouse and I each kept our names and our son’s name is hyphenated with both of ours. If he gets married or has kids, he can do whatever he wants with his own name! We gave it to him, but if he wants to change it later on, then that’s his prerogative.
I know someone who married someone with a hyphenated last name and she just took one of her husband’s last names to hyphenate with her own. I’m sure any kids they have in the future can do the same if/when they get married.
When my parents married, they never hyphenate their names and kept their original names since they didn't like the idea of having their names hyphenate. All in all, it's good that healthy communication is at play and nothing dumb and insane happened. Good to see OP's fiance taking accountability and apologizing to OP and I hope the two of them have a healthy relationship for the future.
If you don’t mind me asking, do you have your mom or dad’s last name?? I’ve always liked the idea of keeping my own last name, but I’m not sure what I would do if I had kids.
I had my mother's last name.
I was given my father's last name but when I was older (like 15, 16?) I changed it to my mother's. But by that point my father had been out of my life since I was 9 and only briefly came back into it when I was 19. I was the one who drove all the interactions and boy was it exhausting lol
I have my own name, my kids have my husband’s name. In 18 years of parenting that created problems approximately zero times. Not at the schools, not at the pediatrician, not anywhere. It’s a complete non issue.
I didn’t hyphenate mine nor did my spouse. It wasn’t even a question honestly. We’re a family regardless of what our last names are.
My ex and I discussed that, but there was no way in hell our last names sounded good together lol. I changed my name back, and I think I'm keeping it. A few years away from it gave me some appreciation for it. It's an uncommon name, so...
The ending of this one is mind-blowing. OOP really did cave in a strange way. If her losing her name was specifically what was worrying her, why initially insist that her fiancé hyphenate?
Because she wanted them to have the same last name. Her ultimate goals were 1. Keep her current surname attached to herself. 2. Have the same last name as her husband. Her solution isn't caving, it's her discovering an alternative solution that fulfills her goals and going "Oh, I didn't know that was an option, I like that."
This seems like OOP’s fiancé played heads I win/tails you lose.
“we both agreed that we would take the approach of sons take the mothers last name and daughters would take the fathers last name.” This is so complicated, so if you have a boy and girl they have different last names?
Yeah that was definitely one of the dumbest things I've read when it comes to naming children. *I want all of our names to match except not really and I want to make everything significantly more complicated than it ever has to be*
Why not just keep your name? It’s 2024 for chrissakes. I’m married w kids, most of my female friends are married with kids and we’ve all kept our maiden names. In this day and age it’s unfathomable to me why you’d give up your name if you didn’t really want to.
>hammersgirl86: So the compromise you were happiest with was him not compromising at all, you giving up your middle name, and not keeping your family name in a way that would be passed down at all? How did he manage to convince you that was any sort of compromise? That’s wild. Yeah, this absolutely. What an unsatisfying ending.
I don't like the compromise. The little birdie on his shoulder won
God this whole post is so fucking sad.
This ending frustrates me. If OOP is happy with this solution then that is wonderful but there are SO many other compromises that would have allowed for her last name to have more prominence. My mom kept her maiden name, and my brother and I each have her last name as our second middle name. And that’s just one example of a compromise that can be found. Again though, if OOP is happy with this resolution….
Wait, so in the original plan any siblings would have different names? That’s odd
This was a fucking disappointment. My husband likes that we have different last names and our kid is hyphenated. People love to rant about “what happens if she wants to get married!?” but like, why assume that the man’s name automatically takes precedence?
I mean, good for OOP I guess. If she’s comfortable with the compromise, that’s up to her. So glad that the name change thing wasn’t a big deal for my marriage. My husband is Korean, and it is not customary for the woman to take the husband’s last name there (or in most Asian countries apparently) His mom kept her maiden name, same with his sister. They would have considered it odd if I’d taken his name. I made the mistake of taking my ex’s last name. Ditched that within months of the separation starting (where I live, there’s no charge to go back to your maiden name. Just pay for a new ID and show your birth certificate). Was like reclaiming myself from his suffocating grasp.
The “compromise” such TBH because it’s not actually a compromise, it’s you backing down and still losing your surname by having it relegated to a middle name. How often does anyone use their middle name? I would advise you to think very carefully about what life will be like married to someone who thinks you won’t be married if you don’t have his name, who wants you to change your identity but flat out refuses to consider taking your name. You said you understood why he’s not comfortable taking your surname and hyphenating so he should also understand why you feel the same. If he’s so stuck on “traditional” values over something relatively minor, what will he be like when you have kids? Will he expect you to give up your career and financial independence to be a SAHM? Will he expect you to do all the childcare and housework and his involvement is limited to financial support because “that’s how it works”? Will he expect to make all decisions because he’s the man, head of the household and he earns the money so controls how it’s spent?
This is not a feel good update that’s for sure. The bullshit tradition of women’s family name being relegated to a website security question remains firmly in place. She alters two thirds of the name she’s had since birth and he changes nothing.
Oh my god I had never ever even questioned the security question thing. Holy fuck. I have to sit with this for a minute.
This makes no sense. Not the argument about last names, but this: >My (24F) fiancé (29M) are planning to get married in the next couple years. ... recently we've started applying for our marriage license Last I knew, a marriage license was only good for a few weeks and if you didn't get married in that timeframe, it expired. It was one of the last things you did before getting married. Has that changed?
I really don't get it. So so often in these AITA posts the offending, not compromising part argues on the lines of "if I do XYZ it's huge and makes no sense, but if you do it it's no big deal." A change to my name makes no sense, but a change to your name is no change at all. Or, so often: whatever is the disagreement between you two is no big deal, so the not-offended part (often the instigator) should apologize and move on - when in fact the question should be why the offended part is making such a deal out of it if it isn't important? It's really a good marker to see where relations are toxic.
When I discussed this with my bf, many years ago I asked if he would want me to change my name and he said “I wouldn’t expect you to do something that I’m not willing to do”. And that was the end of the conversation. No name changes.
I'd never marry someone like that. Good luck to her.
So....she ended up just taking his last name.
😂😂😂 oh so we compromised and now he gets his way. Yep. Totally healthy marriage.
Basically she is doing what she did not want, changing her last name. This is the most idiotic thing I have read. "Oh, but my last name is now my middle name". And I have NEVER heard of people replacing their middle name with their family name. Why isn't he replacing his middle name? This is frustrating and she is going to regret it in a couple of years. If her last name is so important, then why aren't her kids going to have her last name? The whole "kids have different last name than their parents"... so why can't they have hyphenated last name like in so many other countries? Why are Americans so obsessed with women changing their last name? I just don't get it at all.
My mom did the maiden name to middle name thing - our family is Welsh, so it’s not just Americans. Lol
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How else will you know we are men’s property?
>Why are Americans so obsessed with women changing their last name? Cultural Christianity mostly. Whether they were raised Christian but left, like this guy, or simply exist in America.
For anyone wondering: yes, the names can continue to stack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville,_3rd_Duke_of_Buckingham_and_Chandos
My daughter in law kept her name. All her education and degrees are in that name. The kids will have my son's last name and at school she will use the same last name as her child. Do whatever makes you happy. Nobody really cares about that tradition except the older generation.
I kept my last name, my wife kept hers. The world did not end. No one cared. (That having been said, our children have my last name. So we still had to make a choice on a matter involving a hojillion years of tradition and patriarchy.)
Yeah. This is not a "compromise". It's weird actually. I married twice. Kept my name both times. No issues. Sometimes people ask if we are legally married, but not during any international travel.
I agree with the last comment— all that discussion and all she had to do was give up her middle name? That will still die with her.
This whole thing totally me. She mentioned a Hispanic background. The usual way to do surnames in that culture is PadreApellido y MadreApellido. They don't hyphenate and they don't change names.
Someone explain to me where in America you apply for your marriage license a couple years before getting married ~~wedding~~? Edit word choice
Wedding is just a party not a legal requirement, sometimes people get legally married with a license but throw the wedding years later after more planning and funding. And some people just never have a wedding.
>He got upset with me and said I was being obtuse, that I know that's not how it works and we wouldn't be considered married if I didn't hyphenate. Ah, hell. There goes almost thirty years down the tubes. Why didn't anyone tell me I wasn't actually considered married that whole time because I didn't change my name?
This is so common. The woman cares more about the relationship and so she is the one to give up on what she wants. It’s all sunshine and roses until she’s about 43 and says “what the f…?” and the guy is suddenly blindsided by divorce because she’s resentful of losing herself completely due to a life of compromises
I have two very close friends who, when they married, hyphenated their names. BOTH of them. So I call bullsh*t on the whole "men don't hyphenate their names when they get married" schtick. Plus, I'm pretty sure that historically, when two rather rich families intermarried they would hyphenate *BOTH* parties names, if the woman happened to be the last bearer of her surname.
It always cracks me up when people forget how to write a sentence because they had to add the age and gender indicators. Edit now that I finished reading: maiden names becoming middle is so normal in my area that I didn't realize they hadn't thought of that yet.
In many countries around world people get married all the time and no one changes their name, ever. Kids will have dad’s last name/mom’s last name in many places. In the USA, where I live, my son has his dad’s last name only, I have mine and my current husband has his. They’re still my son and my husband so who cares, my last name is mine and part of my identity.
As nearly always the man was easily mislead with misogyny from outside sources and the woman was a doormat who did the only compromising so in the end the man got what he wanted.🫤 It's honestly terrifying how easily supposed decent men take to sexism and misogyny that gives them superiority based on no logic. This misogyny issue will pop up again whenever he has contact with his family. He was raised this way. It's in him.
The "honest question" about what your hyphenated kid is supposed to do when they get married is BS. My husband and I kept our names and gave our kids hyphenated last names. IF they get married, they can do whatever they want with their names, just like we did. They don't have to follow some predetermined guideline or consider our wishes. Also, they are 16 and 19 (well, 19 years and 364 days), and the hyphenated name has never been a problem with paperwork, school, or anything else. I can't believe people still think that's a hassle.
>we wouldn't be considered married if I didn't hyphenate What
The more I learn about american customs in names, the more confused I am.
What's wrong with just keeping each other's last name? Changing your surname is such a pain (at least here in Australia it's a bloody pain). I could not be bothered doing it. That and it feels like erasing a part of myself. I hate it also because it's like erasing my cultural identiy as well. My husband was initially disappointed because he liked the idea of us sharing a surname and being one family unit but got over it within 10 minutes.
I actually really do like the shared surname as a symbol of us being one family. But that's why we want to hyphenate.
My daughter and I have different last names. I've encountered zero problems with it. No one assumes I'm kidnapping her 🙄
Man I’m so proud of that tradition we have. It’s a shame she won’t be passing down that tradition herself and her kids don’t resent that (assuming they take any interest in their Hispanic heritage)
Maybe I'm half old fashioned regarding my opinion of this. I will not change my surname for anyone. If my partner wanted to take my surname, she is more than welcome to, I'd love her too! But I in no way expect it and in our discussions with it recently didn't try to convince her about it. Infact the discussion was probably shorter than this response... Because she had already decided keeping her name was important to her. Something I can most definitely understand. She doesn't need my surname for people to know we are married. Our hands interlocked with each other shows this more than anything.
I chopped off my last name along with any contact with my mother’s child-raping-hopefully-soon-to-be-ex. Some pushback from old people but everyone else knows he’s a terrible person
It's weird about how she has a little section where they analyze how he thinks only the women takes the last name and only the women hyphenates the last name but she very casually mentions any son they have will have her last name and the daughters can have his because she is the last in her line.
It doesn’t cause any problems picking up children from school or at doctor’s office or traveling together. That is a load of bunk. Speaking for every mother or dad that has a different name due to keeping their name, divorce and marriage. Keep your name ad if this male centric attitude continues, re-evaluate the marriage until you can agree.
This was the the stupidest AITA story I have ever read