What’s in a name? July 3, 2008
Adrienne blogged this week about her decision to keep her “maiden” (hilarious way we put that) name when she married. Of course, with a cool last name like “Martini,” who wouldn’t want to keep it?
I toyed with keeping my maiden name when I first married in 1990 (”Allison”), but my husband said he would really like it if I changed it, so I compromised, and legally changed it to “Allison-Granju”…for a time.
“Allison-Granju” became very unwieldy, plus once we had baby H. only 17 months after tying the knot, H’s last name wasn’t “Allison-Granju,” but “Granju.” So I eventually - some time between baby #1 and baby #2 - changed my last name to “Granju,” using “Allison” as a middle name when I write. I introduce myself in person as just plain old Katie Granju. My closest friends and fam call me Kate.
One bummer about this whole name changing thang was that my cool middle name - a family name - got totally lost in the shuffle. It’s “Brittain” - a lovely name. Now, however, baby C. has that as her middle name, so I like that.
Anyway, then I got divorced, but decided to keep Granju as my last name, mostly because I liked having the same last name as my children. As a smaller issue, I’d been writing and working under “Katie Allison Granju” for basically my entire adult life at that point, so I figured I had better not mess with that. Plus, I’d already changed my name twice, and I figured that no matter what happened going forward, I was just done with the whole name changing thing. I don’t really want to have a whole “name history” littering my past.
When I remarried, I sort of toyed with changing my name to Hickman, but it just felt right to remain who I was - who I’d been at that point for my entire adult life: Granju. Interestingly, Jon also came into our marriage with a name leftover from his first marriage. When he and his ex married, he took her maiden name as his new, legal middle name: Adair. And even though they broke up, he likes the name and doesn’t really feel like dealing with the hassle of another legal change, so he retains the name he took on via a woman he’s no longer married to.
In hindsight, I wish I’d just kept my name when I first married. That’s what I’ll enthusiastically suggest to my daughters should they ever tie the knot.
What a quandary. I changed my last name in college as this whole feminist reclaiming my identity point… anyway, when I married I chose to take my husband’s last name because we planned to do a lot of international travel and possibly live abroad. Traveling with a child whose last name is different than yours is very difficult and causes paperwork challenges that I would rather avoid. So I also took my already-changed last name as my middle name.
I know families who create a different last name entirely for their children (no questions asked in Oregon) but that creates more complications if deaths and divorces ensue. ANOTHER friend kept her “maiden” name and her children took her last name and not her husband’s.
I’m just curious what will happen when two hyphenated last name children marry…
I took my husband’s last name because it was way cooler than my maiden name. When we divorced, it wanted to be rid of his name, didn’t want my maiden name, so I picked a brand new last name. I love it (and my parents like it too).
We’re I to remarry, I would not change my name.
I didn’t change mine (more out of laziness and being in grad school than my attachment to my name). Plus, it just seems weird to change my name.
My daughter has my husband’s last name, though (although her middle name is my last name which really happened because on the way to the hospital to deliver we still hadn’t decided on a first name for her so the middle name wasn’t even in consideration at that point).
Sometimes I toy with the idea of changing mine so we all have the same last name but anything that requires my 1. finding my marriage certificate and 2. going to the social security office probably ain’t going to happen in this lifetime
I changed my name when I married - and walked around for seven years saying “who?” to myself when someone used it. It never felt like me. Changed it back after the divorce.
Kept it when I re-married. Not only was I adamant about it, my spouse was adamant about it.
We have some married friends with different last names whose daughter use their mother’s last name and whose sons use their dad’s. That seems like a reasonable solution to me (and gets rid of the clumsy hypens).
I’ll believe woman change their names purely for convenience when half of the couples use the woman’s last name. I often suggest this to female friends who are getting married. The response is pretty uniform - “oh no, my financee wouldn’t do THAT.” That tells me it’s still a male branding thing, even if it’s a subconscious one.
I kept my own name when I got married 7 years ago. My reason for doing so was because I have a beautiful ethnic last name and my husband does not. I wanted to maintain my ethnic identity. What made it easier was that I don’t like his family and neither does he so being identified with that family was very distasteful to both of us. He kept his name the way it was given to him.
Given that, I have received more grief over keeping my name than any other decision I’ve ever made — including the choice to never have children. For some reason a woman keeping her birth name seems more offensive to people than anything. I’ve been questioned by everyone on this decision and more often than not, people aren’t polite about it. When we first got married and the fact that I kept my name was a topic of hot conversation I was asked all the time “How does Husband feel about this?” or “Why would you reject your husband like that?” or “You’re starting your marriage off on the wrong foot by refusing your husband this way.” Meanwhile, he supported the decision 100%.
After all these years I still get mail even from my own family addressed to Mrs. John HisLastName. I’m not that person. I’m Ms. Jane MYLastName.
Long, rambling story short, I think it’s great that you’ll encourage your daughters to keep their respective last names. But please warn them of the possible grief they’ll receive if they do and tell them to stay strong!
I never considered changing my name when I married; unlike in Smokey’s case, nobody gave me grief over it. (I’m trying to picture the family members or friends who would have deluded themselves that I was interested in their unsolicited advice …. nope, nobody’s coming to mind.)
My children have my husband’s last name. I know a couple of families where the children have a hyphenated last name, but it just sounds clunky to me. Plus, what happens when Nick Smith-Jones grows up to marry Susie Bosnia-Herzogovina? Are they going to become the Smith-Jones-Bosnia-Herzogovina’s?
Katie
A lot of good topics today!
Legally I added a hyphen and my husbands name.
I started using only my husband’s name about 15 yr ago (it is not legal, but i am known at the bank as both names).
So I have a very Jewish old testament first name and my husbands Irish last name.
Similar to having a name like
Yental O’Brien
I did change my name legally when I married, but have always written and published under my last name, Francis, which causes some confusion. In some ways it’s nice, though, writing under a different last name from my kids’–I don’t have to worry so much that they’ll be easily identifiable in my work.
It would never have occurred to me not to take my husband’s name. I use my maiden name as my middle name, so it is still a part of me. I like it that everyone in our family has the same name. I asked my 17-year-old daughter what she thinks about this issue and she says that she will take her husband’s name unless he has some kind of horrible name. She says that she doesn’t see the point of keeping her maiden name because her name is not her identity.
This has been a topic that almost everyone has strong feelings about. My decision wasn’t really much of one - with a last name like “martini” there was no way I was going to change it. My Hub briefly toyed with changing his last name but didn’t feel strongly enough to deal with the legal bits.
The kids have his last name. My oldest has Martini as her middle name, which causes no end of questions at first. The only one who has a problem with this is, oddly, my mother, who address her mail to me as “Mrs Adrienne Husbandslast name” or, on occasion, “Mrs Husbandsfirstname husbandslastname.” Go figure.
Both of my kids have my last name as one of their middle names. We just didn’t go the hyphenation route. I doubt it occurred to my husband that I might change my name to his; at any rate, he never mentioned it.
Name game:
I was born with the name Whitmore and legally changed it to Brown when I was adopted by my steddad (though since I never knew my bio-dad, I’ve never thought of Dad as ’step’).
Since we got married, Becky goes by Napier-Brown. It only seems to cause confusion at places where we pick up orders of things, like a prescription or something. They like to look for someone named “Brown, Napier” when Becky is actually giving her last name. So she ends up saying “Napier-hyphen-Brown” to clarify.
Meanwhile, our son’s last name is White. I think this sort of thing is pretty common these days, with the way marriages go. I think it is probably more common that second marriages “take.”
I took my husband’s name in my first marriage. We had a daughter, who was given his surname. (When she married, she took her husband’s name.) When we divorced, I didn’t want his name and I didn’t want to go back to my birth surname because my parents were abusive. So I took the birth surname of my wonderful maternal grandmother. Wanted to keep it when I remarried, but my husband wanted a way for our names to indicate that we were married, so we both hyphnated our names: Our surname, and that of our sons, is O’Moore-Klopf. We’ve told our sons that they can do whatever they like with their surname if they marry one day but that they should thoroughly discuss this with their partner-to-be.
When we got married, although I really liked my maiden surname (Lopater), I wanted our last names to indicate that we were a family. However, my husband’s surname couldn’t be more bland and generic: Smith. So I proposed that I take his last name (and go by my full name — Emily Lopater Smith — as often as possible, including professionally) and he change his middle name to my maiden name. His name change would just be a formality, mostly. His response was NFW, and he didn’t really care if I changed mine or not. It was my hangup because I wanted to have the same last name as my husband and kids… sigh. As an aside, I will never get divorced, because that would mean another visit to the sordid, depressing hole that is the Houston Social Security office.
Emily: See, I agree completely with your husband. No way I would change my name. That just wasn’t up for discussion. If my husband had cared whether we had the same last name, he was more than welcome to change his name to mine.
I wish I had never changed mine the first time around. I got my maiden name back after the divorce. I’m glad I took Scott’s last name, but now on job applications they ask “other names you have used” so it gets a little burdensome and kind of embarrassing having to write the names down. I really don’t think it’s any of their business.
1st marriage I used first-maiden as middle-his last name. I changed back when we split. 2cd time around I used MY FISRT_ MY MIDDLE_his last because I missed my middle name and thought it was chosen for me that was. Back to Maiden Name AGAIN, if there is a next time I’ll prolly just not change anything-…..a guy in our office took his wife’s name, he’s not close to father & wife is a published Author - Doctor and didn’t want to mess with that.