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Marriage: The Adult Name Change Game!

Discussion in 'Tilted Life and Sexuality' started by Plan9, Nov 24, 2012.

  1. Plan9

    Plan9 Rock 'n Roll

    Location:
    Earth
    Pretty sure I did this thread on 4.0...

    Howdy, folks! I'm your host, Plan9. You may have seen me on other popular programs such as Mail Order Divorce Court and This One Time in Afghanistan.

    Good evening and welcome to another exciting episode of...

    ...

    Marriage: The Adult Name Change Game!

    ...​

    Tonight's show? The topic of women changing their surname upon marriage and all the crazy fun that goes along with it!

    ...

    Many moons ago I myself was married. Honestly, I'll never forget it. You know, like being brutally mugged outside a nightclub. After the rings were donned and the signatures scribbled, she went through the apparently tedious process of changing her name to reflect my "new ownership of her ass." After a fortnight of sweaty infidelity thought, she filed for divorce while I was thousands of miles away. I can only assume she went back to her maiden name.

    Today? I'm not married. I've been with the current girlfriend for many years now. With all of her friends getting married and thus changing their names, she expressed some mild anger at the who's-who confusion and their willingness to be assimilated while on FaceySpace one evening. I laughed and said, "That could be you!" She hissed and said she'd never relinquish her precious surname, that it was far too special and that she is her own creature.

    Interesting!

    My questions for you: What are you thoughts on name-changing with marriage? Is it practical? Why do we do still do it?

    Ladies: If you're not married, will you change your name? If you are, was it a pain in the ass? It has to be a pain in the ass to change it back after a divorce. If you didn't change your name, why?

    Dudes: How important is it that your wife have your name? I know we're all super liberated hippie liberals here, but I'll ask anyway. For me the big appeal was how easy it made a lot of paperwork.

    All: Does having the same family name really simplify things in life? What name issues have you had? If you kept separate names, what did you name your kids / pets? How do you feel about hyphens?

    Also: I'm pretty WASPy and thus I'm not up on name-changing as it relates to people of Latin backgrounds, etc. I know we've gotta have at least one Rodriguez-Gonzalez-Nunez-Esperanza-Diaz here.

    I wanna know!
     
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2012
  2. mixedmedia

    mixedmedia ...

    Location:
    Florida
    I changed my name with my first marriage.
    Changed it back to my maiden name after the divorce.
    Got married again and, really, never got around to changing my name. Which was a good thing, as it turns out. Saved me a lot of trouble.
    I really didn't see any difference in the 'ease' of doing things officially as a married couple. No one ever questioned our different names once we showed that we were married.
    My oldest two daughters have my first husband's name.
    And my third daughter has my second husband's name. Which is unfortunate because she hates it. It is a Cajun name with a common English spelling. So we intentionally mispronounce it to avoid having to explain to people that 'yeah, it looks like that, but it's pronounced in this stupid French way.' She has talked about legally changing it to my name, but we'll probably never get around to it. I am guessing. If it becomes important enough to her, we will. That may sound insensitive to her father, but, trust me, if you knew the whole story you'd say, 'OH OK YEAH.'
    It seems to me a little tawdry at times for us all to have three different names. It can be embarrassing having to explain it to strangers. 'Yeah I'm a tramp who's been married twice.' But not insurmountably so. Most of all I don't care or think much about our last names.
     
  3. Plan9

    Plan9 Rock 'n Roll

    Location:
    Earth
    So, is it difficult to change your name back after a divorce? What did you change in the first place? Social security card? Insurance? Etc.

    Any issues with proving custody? I know schools and insurance companies can be really anal about the dress-right-dress of forms.
     
  4. mixedmedia

    mixedmedia ...

    Location:
    Florida
    Yeah it was kind of a pain in the ass to change it back. It had to be changed on everything. SS Card, driver's license, bank accounts, pay checks, bills, car insurance/registration, everything. And it all has to be done kind of simultaneously, too, because, for example, your pay checks, driver's license and bank accounts have to be the same at the same time or you're stuck without a place to deposit your checks and shit like that. If it's not a big deal to the couple involved, I would suggest not changing.
     
  5. Bodkin van Horn

    Bodkin van Horn One of the Four Horsewomyn of the Fempocalypse

    We thought about merging our last names or changing both to something like "Blaster" when we got married. We ended up just leaving our names alone. Kids have my last name, for no reason in particular. ​
     
    • Like Like x 2
  6. Stan

    Stan Resident Dumbass

    Location:
    Colorado
    When my wife asked, the answer was no f'ing hyphens, just pick one. I don't care.

    Her parents thought that middle names were stupid and never gave her one. She slid her maiden name over to middle and took mine.

    Honestly, I couldn't care less.
     
    • Like Like x 3
  7. mixedmedia

    mixedmedia ...

    Location:
    Florida
    oh, and no problems with custody. I think I had to provide proof of custody to the school, but no that's it.
     
  8. MSD

    MSD Very Tilted

    Location:
    CT
    The whole "traditional marriage" things creeps me out for the reasons you touched on: it's all about the man taking ownership of the woman. Assuming I get married some day, I would be fine with whatever she chooses, but the kind of women I tend to attract and be attracted to lean toward the less traditional side and would probably not want to change their name.
     
  9. Plan9

    Plan9 Rock 'n Roll

    Location:
    Earth
    My feeling exactly.

    ...

    Yes, I get that. I mean, it's 2012 and a lot of women aren't all OMGWTFBBQ over the whole Barbie Dream White Wedding (TM) w/ Family 'n Kids playset like maybe they were back in the 1950s.

    ...

    'nother Question:

    Are titles like Mrs. ___ antiquated? Do they continue to serve any practical purpose in the age of higher thinking where the divorce rate is +50% and prenups are the new "meeting the parents?"

    I'm taking calls from the home audience.
     
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2012
  10. I don't recall caring one way or the other back when QW and I got married, back sometime between the discovery of fire and the invention of the wheel. I think she preferred taking on my surname as a bit of a rebellion against her father.
    One older sister kept her name, claiming "professional continuity" or some such. I suspect she was just one of them wimmens libbers, though. Now that they are both retired, she's begun using her husband's name. Interesting development.
    Another sister kept her husband's name even after the divorce so that she and her son would match. She did take her second hubby's name. But that was after the son was grown and getting on with his life.
    One daughter-in-law changed her name. The other has not, as of yet. I'm cool with it, either way.

    As for the "Mrs." thing.... QW seems to relish it. As unconventional as she tends to be, certain old fashioned-ness creeps into the picture. Her devotion to us as a "family" has something to do with it, I think. It's her declaration to the world that we're attached and nothing is going to shake that.

    I'm not trying to imply that assuming a name or declaring yourself as Mrs. X has any bearing on the state of a couple's relationship. It is, after all, a relic of an age when wives were considered property, as were children and horses and goats and other unruly animals (;)). I think it could easily be relegated to the status of quaint custom, to be adopted or not by the newly sentenced married couple.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  11. DamnitAll

    DamnitAll Wait... what?

    Location:
    Central MD
    Not (legally) married. If and when I do become legally married, I will keep my name. I used to hate it, and now I like it... and I'm the last one with it, so it isn't going anywhere yet.

    Simple as that.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  12. Borla

    Borla Moderator Staff Member

    My wife changed her name. Her family is very traditional. Between her grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, and first cousins (12 or 13 marriages, ranging from 5 to 60 years) there isn't a single divorce. And only one or two of them are the "we're dysfunctional but it's too much trouble to hide a body or split the bills/kids in half so we're still together" sort. So I don't think she considered any other option. She used to mindlessly doodle her first name with my last name ever since she was in HS. Once she asked me if I cared and I said I didn't, though I'd prefer she change it when we got married.

    I guess that would still be my preference/suggestion. I suppose out of tradition as much as anything else. I can totally understand changing it back after getting divorced, though I have one friend who waited until her last kid graduated HS before doing so, so the change seemed to come out of the blue.

    This very much falls under the catagory of "I have a preference myself, but it's not a diehard dealbreaker of a decision, and frankly I can't imagine getting worked up in the least at any choice someone else makes on the matter."
     
  13. Levite

    Levite Levitical Yet Funky

    Location:
    The Windy City
    As a dude, I had no strong feelings about my wife taking my name. I don't necessarily see the custom of the wife taking the husband's surname as pernicious and insidious, the way some leftish feminists do, but I also can understand why a woman would see it as arbitrary and unnecessary, and would wish to keep the name she was raised with. I always felt like it would be up to the woman I married what she wanted to do. I did stand fairly firm on my future children having my surname, but that's less out of any idea of masculine right, and more to do with the fact that I am an only child, with no cousins-- I am the last of my branch of my family, and if my children don't take my name, that branch of the family will die.

    For the record, my mom, who is a fairly prominent Jewish feminist scholar, never changed her name after divorcing my dad following 20 years of marriage, or changed when she married her second husband, but she says that had more to do with the fact that she had published extensively under her married name, and it was to her professional benefit to keep the name she had.

    I fully expected my wife, who is a feminist and a strong woman, to want to keep her own surname. So I was quite surprised when she said she wanted to change her name to mine. She jokes that it has less to do with me than with establishing kinship with my mom, who was her teacher in rabbinical school; but she admits in some seriousness that she never felt too attached to her "maiden name," and she liked the idea of sharing my name, and sharing the same last name as our future children. She said the name-change paperwork was a hefty pain in the ass, but once done, she is enjoying having her new last name (especially because her maiden name began with P, and her married name begins with A, so she ends up in the front of lines and lists now, and says it's hella convenient).
     
    • Like Like x 2
  14. Phi Eyed

    Phi Eyed Getting Tilted

    Location:
    Ramsdale
    I had great difficulty changing my name as I was foolishly young when I married but felt that my surname was my rightful title; indicative of my ancestry, heritage and identity. I considered the nouveau feminist choice of hyphenation to alleviate this ambivalence but thought that this suggested the inability to commit in a world designed to submit to the male agenda. It seemed to me, in my fairytale daze, that the girls who kept their maiden name were setting themselves up for failure. I thought the best choice was take the new one; which is impossible to say, spell or remember. My gut always told me otherwise. I have grown into an immature decision and it has made things easier to lump us together. I justified my grief in losing my surname by accepting the new moniker as a new title for a new adult life. I often use my maiden name when giving my name in restaurant lines. I want to hear it. Its comfort echos in my head. My heart will always bear its label of origin and there will always be some level of discomfort with my adopted name, cuz it ain't MY name.
     
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2012
    • Like Like x 1
  15. genuinemommy

    genuinemommy Moderator Staff Member

    I kept my surname. Some places show my last name as hyphenated with my husband', but for the most part my name shows up on everything exactly the way it appears on my birth certificate. When people ask, my husband jokes that we're lazy and I explain it's not worth the hassle. People call me by either name or both, I really don't care either way. Some people ask me earnestly, "But what is your last name? What do you want to be called?" apparently it's onfusing to some people. They really don't believe that I have no preference. I didn't want to deal with the paperwork at the time of our wedding and it wasn't a deal-breaker for my husband. I didn't see a convincing reason to change, and when I saw how much work and expense was involved I basically told him that I would change mine if he changed his. At the time I said I'd re-evaluate things when/if we have kids. With a baby on the way, you'd think it might be on our minds, but it's really not. Our child will get her father's last name. Hubby and I are pretty dang stuck on each other, we don't need to officially alter one of our identities to prove it.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  16. My wife kept her surname. I was indifferent as to whether she wanted to change it or keep it. It was her choice, and ive never been overbearing about any decision that woud have an effect on her or her professional career.

    As a professional, she is known by her maiden name. My wife talks on radio, and she's continued with her name partly for the same reasons Levite 's mum kept her maiden name because of her professional career.

    My kids have my name, and it wasnt something i would have comprimised on.

    Under islamic customs, women were never viewed as chattels, and they weren't 'owned' and weren't 'souless' as is the case in some other societies in some other times. And were allowed to keep their names as a sign of their identity
     
    • Like Like x 2
  17. greywolf

    greywolf Slightly Tilted

    My wife kept her maiden name. I keep telling people she hasn't earned my last name yet, but in reality, I married her, not my sister, so I prefer it that way.

    In Quebec, a woman can use her husband's last name, but by law, must use her maiden name for legal purposes or when dealing with the government. As well, here, the children can take the last name of either parent (if they are married), or a hyphenated form. Once the first child takes a family name, any others must follow suit (except in the rare circumstance of a divorce and re-marriage). So a woman can even get married and have her kids use her name... women's lib has gone too far!!!

    And actually, in Canada, you can use any name you like except when dealing with the government and legal system, so long as there is no intent to defraud. That law was put in place to deal with nicknames and pet names being used everywhere, but does include family names to account for informal adoptions, which were so common in rural communities years ago.
    --- merged: Nov 25, 2012 12:35 PM ---
    Around here, the stupid French way is the more common pronunciation, so the English form always sounds odd to me. On the other hand, the North American pronunciation of my name probably sounds horribly colonial to my Scottish ancestors and cousins.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 2, 2012
  18. mixedmedia

    mixedmedia ...

    Location:
    Florida
    I only call it stupid because of my experience with him, his family and that godforsaken shithole in Louisiana.
    Otherwise, I don't have anything in particular against the French language. :)
     
  19. greywolf

    greywolf Slightly Tilted

    I know... and I took it that way ;) And as I say, my own name is hardly pronounced the way a true Scot would say it :p So I'm not sure you're actually mispronouncing it as much as pronouncing it your own way.
     
  20. Freetofly

    Freetofly Diving deep into the abyss

    It doesn't matter much to me. It sounds like it is a real pain to change everything back to your maiden name after a divorce.
    My daughter in law didn't take my son's name, but they agreed that the kids would take his name.

    I'm still waiting for those kids to appear. :D