What’s In A Name?

When you get married everyone expects you to change your last name to your husband’s last name. While it is not a requirement, it certainly is expected by almost everyone: your fiance, both sets of parents and probably most of your friends.

You might think that this emerging decision to keep your maiden name after marriage is a product of the 21st century. Actually, the first recorded incident of keeping a maiden name after marriage was over 150 years ago when Lucy Stone refused to take her husband’s name when she married him in 1855. Her stand for individual women’s rights gave birth to the Lucy Stone League, which still exists today.

For more info: http://www.lucystoneleague.org/lucy.html

With some women, this is a very hot issue and several forums have come out of that emotional struggle some women have over changing their names. A Google search will provide pages of information for you. Quite a few wedding sites have articles or forums to investigate.

When it becomes common knowledge that you are not going to change your name after marriage, you might be surprised by the negative comments from those you considered enlightened friends. Most, but not all, women today are liberated enough to like who they are and do not require merging their identity with another’s in order to marry.

Some of those comments might be similar to these: “I thought you loved this guy” or “If you love him, you should be proud to bear his name.” Loving someone does not require a name change to prove it. In fact, their comments might be a reflection of some of their own unspoken doubts or insecurities.

On the flip side, there will be some that are appalled that you DID take your husband’s name. “You are so liberated, I cannot believe you took his name and abandoned your own identity. What’s happened to you?” You might decide to hyphenate your two names and someone will find another way to condemn your decisions. Just shrug it off and remember that this personal decision is yours to make and not anyone else’s.

There are many valid reasons women choose to keep their maiden name after marriage. One of the major ones is the feeling that your identity is all tied up in the name you were born with and have identified with for your entire life. That’s a pretty strong reason to not change your name. To some, it will feel like a total abandonment of who you are and that might be psychologically impossible to do.
Those with strong family ties might not be willing to toss their ancestry aside so easily by changing their name. A personal connection to a family name might be a deep connection to the entire history of her family’s ancestral ties.

If you are a professional with a reputation built up over the years, it might be career suicide to change your name and lose the recognition you need to protect. Of course, you can use both names, your professional one and your married name socially. If your career involves politics or a public presence, you might make a mistake if you lose the value you’ve built up for your maiden name.

To some, changing your name to your husband’s will feel like an ancient patriarchal flashback to a time when men owned the women in their lives. That’s sure to spark some fireworks with today’s women.

There are several solutions to this dilemma. You can take your husband’s name and replace your middle name with your family name. You can hyphenate your name with both of your surnames. And your husband can change his name to your maiden name. Some do.

Consider giving your maiden name to all your children as their middle name. That way, their connection to three families, yours, his and the one you created with your marriage, stays intact.

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