Recently, somebody quoted me some numbers about name changes and marriages, and I was shocked. I did a little reading, and found this:
Well, not if you look at an online survey Wedding Bells magazine in Canada conducted last summer. Of the 537 brides who responded, 18 per cent were opting to keep their own names, with 15 per cent hyphenating. In the United States, the survey showed a measly six per cent were keeping theirs.
The number ‘537’, and the terms ‘online survey’ and ‘Wedding Bells’ should tip you off that this wasn’t the most scientific study ever completed. Happily, the article cites other, less dubious data:
While there seemed to be a steady increase in the percentage of women retaining their birth names at marriage from about 1975 on, Goldin discovered the trend peaked in the late 80s and early 90s and then started to fall off. For instance, Massachusetts records showed that 21 per cent of women between 25 and 29 kept their names in 1990, but in the year 2000 that had dropped to 13 per cent.
Did feminism get this point wrong? At the end of the day, do the vast majority of women want to take their husband’s name? I know the battle was, of course, for a woman’s unfettered right to choose to keep her name. It’s interesting to me how few are electing to do so.
Or is it just reflective of cultural trends, and the numbers will fluctuate over different eras?
Personally, my name isn’t particularly important to me (and Lord knows I wouldn’t have dreamed of saddling my wife with it). If I had kids, they could have my name, my wife’s name, a hyphenated version (though that would be deadly) or an entirely new name.
This topic arose because I read an article about two of my former university classmates. They’re both academics, both young mothers, and (coincidentally) one kept her name and one changed hers.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
I kept my name when I got married the first time, but will take my (2nd) husband’s this time. It has very little to do with feminist ideals, and everything to do with the fact that I’d like at least one of my children to have the same last name as me.
When we travel now, we have 3 different surnames, which doesn’t always go over well with customs agents. And school information always comes to Mrs. {Child’s Last Name}, so I might as well use it.
I’ll continue to use my birth name professionally, however.
Hyphens are fairly frustrating for kids, and don’t give them a ton of options when THEY choose to get married — you can’t hyphenate on a hyphen, really. So that two-name privelege ends with your marriage.
Also, as the above poster says, mothers who opt to keep their own names often face gov’t and customs hassles because their names are different than their offspring.
And if you’re just going to invent a new name to commemorate your marriage, what is the point of being part of a family at all, if everyone just switches it up according to their desire in the moment?
Maybe this comes out garbled. But it all sounds a little whimsical.
I thought I was one of the last women to change her name, so these stats are interesting. I did it mostly because I liked the unity of having the same name, of being connected by more than just a piece of paper that says we’re married. Sometimes I miss my old name, but it did teach me that identity has very little to do with what you’re called; you are who you are, regardless of what your name is.
I think the key point on the feminism side of the topic is indeed that we now have a *choice*. And the choice doesn’t mean that you *should* keep your name, it just means that that’s an option that wasn’t there before. I think if I’d been of an age to get married ten years earlier, I might have kept my name to be part of that movement. But now there’s not as much need to make a point.
Of course, you can sometimes have a little fun with hyphenating names. Like, for instance Darren, if your wife’s last name was originally “InTheKitchen” or something like that.
I am young enough (26) that I have never felt the slightest bit disadvantaged by my gender. I feel that feminism has largely, if not totally, achieved its goal of creating gender equality.
Changing your name when you married used to be expected or required, just as staying home with children while your husband brought home the bacon was expected and required of women. Feminism’s goal was to present women with more options. These options are now available, and I am grateful for that.
However, I like the traditional gender roles and when I marry, I will take my husband’s name and if finances will allow it, I will stay home with my children while my husband is the provider. I think this became the traditional choice BECAUSE it’s the natural tendency of the majority of women. What was a problem was that not EVERYONE wants to do things this way, but they had no other options.
So I think that women went through a period where they stopped taking their husband’s name simply because they had the freedom to choose not to. And now women have gone back to the natural tendency of taking their husband’s name – but the important thing is that this is a CHOICE, they are not forced to do so.
I like the idea of creating an entirely new name. If I ever get married, I’m going to invent something new (well, with the input of my partner, of course. Theoretically, we’d both go with the new name). Like Firedemon or something. Donna Firedemon. I think that has a great ring to it. Mraw.
With our wedding coming up in September, we’ve been giving this topic a lot of thought. I don’t feel at all obligated to take my future husband’s name (we might end up making one up actually, although I don’t think it’ll be Firedemon…), but I do want us have the same name. I want to tell the world that we’re a TEAM! Oh yeah, go team …(tbd)!
I’m getting married in a year, and I’m fine with whatever choice she makes.
Meg, your comments struck me as kind of short-sighted. Whose to say the kids have to take the father’s name? And this comment:
“And if you’re just going to invent a new name to commemorate your marriage, what is the point of being part of a family at all, if everyone just switches it up according to their desire in the moment?”
Do you really think your surname is what makes a family? I have dozens of cousins, all with my surname, that I don’t know at all, while I have several very close friends that I have no relation to. Family is what you make of it, it has nothing to do with name or blood.
I was rather surprised when my wife said she wanted to use my name when we got married, but she really did. In part it’s because she’s a teacher, and now she’s harder to find in the phone book, since the phone is also in my name. Oddly, though, while nearly every organization happily changed her name on their documentation (her employer, the passport office, Visa, etc.), HBC (Zellers, the Bay) refused, and her HBC credit card is still in her maiden name.
HBC more stringent than the passport office? Weird.
Oh, and I know one male friend who took his wife’s last name. When you get married, you can choose to use your old name, your spouse’s name, or a hyphenated variant (but not a made-up name unless you both go through a formal name-change process). And, it seems, you can use any of those in different contexts if you wish, though that could cause confusion, of course.
Think of the fun you could have with credit reporting agencies and identity thieves.
I am such a fan of Donna’s idea of coming up with a new family name altogether. I’d be down with that. In fact, I’d like to find a guy just to *ugh*marry*ugh* just so I could really be Celia Pantsalot. It would be totally worth it. We would be Team Pantsalot.
Feminism has largely been contained to the upper-middle class (on both social and economic levels, not necessarily in combination). And that’s pretty much the same group in which women keep their names. And the same group that tends not to respond to Wedding Bells surveys. 🙂
I kept my name and most of my friends kept theirs. But I guess I’ve moved into that 33% tier now.
I’ve stood on both sides of this. My first marriage, I did not take my husband’s name. For one, I didn’t think the world needed any more Smiths 😀 and second, I wanted to keep my name to honor my dad, who had no sons to keep his name. We did not have children together.
Now with my second husband, I have sort of tacked on his last name to mine. It’s not hyphenated, just added, so essentially I have four names, and they are all on my driver’s license. I normally write them both out when entering in my name on forms and the like, but usually I get entered into the computer as Mrs. W, using only the last of the names. Since both names are fairly long and unusual, this doesn’t bother me too much. My daughter has three names since she will most likely change her name when she gets married too, with just the W name for the last name, but my son has my same last name with all four, first, middle, and two last. This again, was my way of passing on my dad’s last name to another generation. Somewhat akin to the Spanish custom of taking both parent’s surnames, which I have always thought of as a lovely way of doing things.
I think there are several good points made above for doing this, such as having the same last name as your children and husband which makes things dramatically easier when it comes to dealing with beauraucracies. My reasons are along these lines, and because we have children together, it’s a uniting force. I was resistant to it for a long time, but I began to see how it would be beneficial to have a common surname not long after we had our ceremony. (long story!) So I went through the paperwork and here we are.
Both of my sisters changed their names immediately when they married, as they didn’t like the unusual surname of our family. I don’t think it had anything to do with feminist ideals as I’d rate them both as very strongly feminist.
Chris — I don’t think I said that names defined families. I don’t know my cousins terribly well either, but I have lots of close friends who are like family.
But there is something to be said for carrying something through and not reinventing it every time a new bond is formed. I don’t know what is to be said, but something in that resonates for me.
It’s the same argument for not changing your name in the first place, actually, just applied to a different notion.
And no, I don’t think all children take their fathers’ names. I actually work with a single moms’ organization, so I know this to be true. But regardless of the name they take, one parent (woman or not) will have a different name if their children take their partner’s name, and they don’t, thus creating some issues with gov’t organizations and borders.
The argument really isn’t gender-related for me.
My point on hyphens remains, though.
First of all, a lot of people are living common-law now. So let’s look at the subset of people getting married: they are living within a more traditional framework, so I would expect a very high percentage of the women in married relationships to change their names. But there is, instead, a significant percentage who retain their maiden names.
So we have nearly all common-law relationships where women don’t change from their maiden names plus a percentage of women in married relationships who don’t change their names.
There’s also a very practical reason for women to keep their maiden names: most business logins incorporate the name you used when you joined the company so everybody internally, plus the many distribution lists, need to be advised. If I were a woman, I’d tell my husband that I love him dearly but switching names just isn’t worth the hassle and I’d probably also tell him that dinner tonight is his responsibility.
I want to start a movement where the husband and wife join their two names together. It’s egalitarian and respects the lineage of both families — plus it’d be a symbolic and creative manifestation of the new family as a product of the merging of the two families by marriage
So for example, my last name is Brown and my husband’s is Downham — so we’d become the Brownhams.
Holloway and Oakley would become Hollowoak or Oakway
Pinch and Traas would become Trinch or Pinchaas (the second one would be a cruel thing to do to a child!:))
Bibby and Wilson would become Bibson or Wilsibby.
Personally I love it. It’s whimsical, light-hearted, collaborative and egalitarian — just like I think marriage should be.