The name change thing
I was reading this post at Faux Real and it got me thinking about that name change thing again. Names are important things - at least to someone as concerned with words as I am *grin* - and so I've thought a lot about if, in the event LJ and I get organized enough to get married, I will take his name. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't drop my name and take his but I'm torn between hyphenating and just keeping my name. I am the last in my family line with my surname who will probably have children. My father has a sister whose children have her (ex) husband's name. My sister will not have children. My half-sisters have my father's name but hyphenated with his wife's name. So that leaves me. In some ways my name is one the strongest connections I have left with my father and for that reason (which is very personal and most certainly not political, strangely enough) I don't want to just lop it off. Also, my name has been with me for 30+ years up to now and I am quite happy with the person I have become in that time. I'm proud of my name because of all the different experiences and attributes it signifies to me.
Most of my female friends who are married to men have taken their husband's name. I have no problem with their choices and I think their new names are really pretty, and I am not them. Actually, I like the idea of taking LJ's name party because I think that it looks pretty. LJ's name goes well with mine (when hyphenated) and I love him so why not combine our names?
But the question I keep asking myself is this: why shouldn't he take on my name too? And that's where I get stuck.
Most of my female friends who are married to men have taken their husband's name. I have no problem with their choices and I think their new names are really pretty, and I am not them. Actually, I like the idea of taking LJ's name party because I think that it looks pretty. LJ's name goes well with mine (when hyphenated) and I love him so why not combine our names?
But the question I keep asking myself is this: why shouldn't he take on my name too? And that's where I get stuck.
3 Comments:
As far as I can remember, neither Lucy nor Claire took their husband's names, but that might just be me only ever thinking of them as their old names.
My thinking tends to be that it's probably best symbolically if husband and wife have the same name, so if you were to hyphenate then I reckon he ought to too. Why hyphenate just one?
G
Interesting. I had actually never thought about this, and then I suddenly found myself in a married state and it was vitally important to my husband that I change my name, so I did. Later on, when I *did* think about it, it kind of annoyed me that I had so easily changed it and I considered changing it back. But to my husband this was essentially like me rejecting him....and I figured that if I didn't care enough to think about it beforehand I should just let it go and move on with things. Overall I don't feel that the person I have become has been compromised or altered in any way because I have a different name. It just makes me harder to find on Facebook :-)
Besides, isn't a rose by any other name still a rose? Can you still be friends with a person without knowing their name? Why is a name so important anyway? Does it define who you are as a person? (I understand in your case the importance of your name...these are just hypothetical questions)
Thirsty Gargoyle - you're right, why should I be the only double-barrelled partner? But LJ doesn't want to take my name, purely for aesthetic reasons. He likes his name as it is. BUT this pushes me to feel that I should simply keep my name.
Sandi, I completely understand where you're coming from and I think that if I weren't so attached to my name for the reasons I described in my post then I wouldn't have started thinking about this so seriously. Well, perhaps I would have. But I certainly wouldn't have in my pre-Women's Studies days. Since then, I tend to see the patriarchy at work in so many places I had never thought about before. And, as I said in my post, I don't see women who take their husband's names as victims or pawns of the patriarchy, it's not like that (at least not for everyone). But I think it's important to engage in this discussion and, by doing so, question the things we do unconsiously, that we think are natural, the conventions etc. of life. In doing so I think we make our lives richer and we make our choices more intentional and more our own.
Thank you both for your responses. You both gave me much more to think about.
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