Formation of last names after marriage.

[R_1]

This is a poll for AVENite preference for last names with the assumption that you end up being married somehow or if you were a romantic and married.

[Ceebs]

Depends on various specifics of the relationship to me, tbh. I'm not automatically completely averse to any option, though some I'd definitely consider a lot more strongly than others.

 

When I married my ex-husband, I tried using his surname at first. Ultimately it just didn't feel right and after a few months I went back to using my birth name. I don't know if it's more that I just didn't feel like the name represented me, or if it was because, although we make good friends, on some level I never really felt in my gut like we were fully a couple... maybe a combination of the two?

 

Being engaged now to get remarried, I think I'm going to use my fiancé's surname once we do. Pretty sure, anyway. (I mean, hell, my current AVEN username is based on his username. 😅 That isn't necessarily reflective of real name offline intentions though, more just a lighthearted thing.) Anyway, the relationship feels different than my first marriage and I feel more like we're a unit I suppose, and I like the idea of sharing a last name in this case. Although if ultimately it doesn't feel right for some reason (wouldn't be about the relationship itself in this case, but who knows, maybe I won't feel like the name represents who I am or something), I know my fiancé wouldn't have a problem if I changed my mind and didn't use it. 
 

There is, of course, an element of heteronormativity and tradition to it. I get that, but as far as I'm concerned, if I feel like an equal person in the relationship and simply like the idea of sharing a name this time round, well... there are more important battles to be fought when it comes to stuff like gender equality. 

Had I married my ex-girlfriend or any other hypothetical same-sex partner, I'm pretty sure there would be no name changes. Combining or hyphenating both people's names (no matter a partner's gender, actually) doesn't especially appeal to me, it just seems too fussy, and as far as I'm aware there are no particular traditions surrounding married surnames for same-sex couples. I think most tend to just keep their names, although I've definitely come across gay and lesbian couples where one person has changed theirs. Which is a perfectly valid choice and I imagine it's something the couple decides together for personal emotional reasons, given there's no convention. Your thing in the poll about going with the more masculine or feminine person's name... I suppose that must be a thing for some people? Obviously wouldn't be relevant for all same-sex couples, though. My cousin and his partner are not married (been together something like 24 years now, so I doubt they'll marry at this point) and I couldn't say that one of them is more masculine or more feminine. 
 

Anyway. It's all up to relationship specifics and emotions for me. I haven't felt pressured against my own desires to do anything in particular, be it by society or family or a romantic partner. And I sure as hell don't care what any other married couple does.

[Ceebs]

Maybe add a 'depends on the specific relationship' option or something like that?

[Sally]

Why no listed option for each to keep their own names?

[iff]

It would depend on this.

Although I have noticed, particularly with Danish procyclists, that the man adds the wife's surname to his name.

If it is good enough for 2 time tour de France champion, Jonas Vingegaard Hansen, then I don't see why not.

[petunia.the.plant]

I've never really thought about this before! I think if my partners last name is cooler than mine or I like the sound of it better then I would change my last name, otherwise I would probably keep mine. 

[Ceebs]

24 minutes ago, petunia.the.plant said:

I think if my partners last name is cooler than mine or I like the sound of it better then I would change my last name

That's admittedly a factor for me haha. Not the main one, but partially. My surname is super rare, and despite being a combination of two extremely common English words, gets misspelled with a surprising frequency. My mum's maiden name is a Ukrainian one and when she married my dad and changed her name to his very British-sounding one, she had way more trouble with people spelling her new name.

 

Anyway, my fiancé's surname is a lot simpler and shorter and more common than mine (not as common as 'Smith' or 'Jones' or something, but hardly rare) and I really like the sound of it. So that's a bit of the reason. 

[R_1]

1 hour ago, Mrs Telecaster-to-be said:

Maybe add a 'depends on the specific relationship' option or something like that?

 

1 hour ago, Sally said:

Why no listed option for each to keep their own names?

Added to fillers. Thank you.

[verily-forsooth-egads]

I'd just want the other person's name because I don't like mine, it has nothing to do with gender.

[Atreides]

I love the Spanish custom of everyone getting two surnames (one per each parent), and never changing that just because of your marital status.

I personally like to use both, and having to use just one of them (or worse, using someone else’s surname) feels like giving up on a part of my own identity. I also noticed that it’s something that sticks out in international contexts, as people are not used to seeing people with two surnames. Sometimes they asume one is a second given name or something like that.

[everywhere and nowhere]

A friend of mine invented an interesting system which is fairly equal indeed, although of course not without drawbacks: it assumes that daughters must bond with mothers and sons with fathers, and is blind to other genders and even same-sex relationships... But at least it provides a non-sexist and practically feasible option for the more common different-sex relationships, the ones in which sexism is anyway the biggest problem... In general, the idea would be: everyone has a double family name, consisting of a mother-name and father-name. When two people marry, the wife changes her father-name to that of her husband and her husband changes his mother-name to that of his wife. It also becomes the family name of their children and, if they marry, the name-change repeats according to the same system.

For example, Nancy Lewis-McPherson marries Christopher Altman-Madison. They are now Nancy and Christopher Lewis-Madison and their children might be, for example, Dorris and Andrew Lewis-Madison. As I wrote, not without its issues, but at least very simple, logical and preventing problems such as "if both people keep their names, how long will names get after a few generations?".

 

It's not a personally pressing issue, because marriage is not an option for me. However, I always felt that if I bore a noun name...

Generally, Polish family names are grammatically either nouns or adjectives. Mine is an adjective, so it generally can only have four endings: -ski for a man, -ska for a woman, -scy when referring to a married couple or several men with this name, -skie for several women with this name... or, in fact, also for non-binary people. (Note 1: Which is, by the way, a drawback of ordinary inflected languages that one ending might work for more than one case or gender, in this case: the ending is the same for feminine plural and neutral singular. Note 2: a non-binary surname like this is not possible formally, although gender-neutral first names have become legal - but I wouldn't be surprised if someone is using such this kind of name informally somewhere in Poland.) But noun names used to have separate endings for wives and daughters: -owa and -ina/-yna for wives (note 1: compare to Czech and Slovak -ova; note 2: the latter two if the male version ends in -a itself, for example Zawada - Zawadzina; note 3: -ina and -yna because some consonants "like" being palatised and some "don't") and -ówna and -anka for daughters (compare to Russian patronymics such as Yelena Pavlovna). It's now rare, generally women with noun names almost invariably use the male variant and the only difference is that it takes no case suffixes, its form stays the same in all cases (for example nominative, genitive and dative: Jan Nowak - Anna Nowak, Jana Nowaka - Anny Nowak, Janowi Nowakowi - Annie Nowak). But it's possible to insist on recording an -owa/-ina-/yna or -ówna/-anka variant in documents. So, if I bore a noun name... I would insist on changing my legal name to a "daughter variant", to flaunt that I'm a spinster...

(Although it's not foolproof either. For example there was an actress Agnieszka Kotulanka - and it was a fictional name or name of a more distant family member, adopted because it sounded nice; in fact she was married...)

At least I use a Latin matronymic as an alternative name in my diary, for example: Eva filia Magdalenae, or "Eve, daughter of Madeleine"... Or in my exlibris:

 

However, even if it's not a partical issue for me - because I don't intend to get married - I feel passionately negative about women adopting husband's names. Really, it's best summed up with a text by a Polish feminist, it's so poignant that it makes me shiver...

Quote

(...) I now carry a stamp with his name.

I break up with a million of sheets I signed. With drawing paper in kindergarten, congratulatory cards for grandpa, scribbles in zero grade. With school tests, notebooks covers, letters to my friends. With a park bench, wall in the school toilet, diaries and albums. With my A-levels, protest letters, bills, tax declarations, credit card. (...)

I am now my husband's.

We abandon spaces which have raised us, formed us, allowed us to grow. We strain with barely ingrown roots. We don't invite someone in, but we accept invitation from someone else, slamming the door behind a place where we didn't belong to anyone. We run off from it as if it burned, hurt, was insufferable. For women lack of attachment is not freedom, but a stigma they are ashamed of.

I feel sad when my friends change their names. Sad and terrible. Because it's as if they told me: I am no more. Now there is someone else. Someone who got married. To a man, who matters the most. More than any other bond. He matters so much that I changed myself for him. Now you don't know me anymore. I don't know who I am either. I an growing back. In a new pot on a new windowpane. (...)

I don't want to see them wilt, ever weaker, at the side of ever stronger men, who weren't forced by the culture to abandon themselves outside the door for someone else. (...)

I prefer these double ones after all. But their husbands didn't add their wives' names to their own. They didn't change their passports, greeting cards, IDs, (...) contracts with suppliers of electricity, gas, mobile connection and internet. Asymmetry which bears power, or rather expresses this power, sometimes doesn't require subtle analyses with the framework of gender studies. It rather glares into your eyes with the gentleness of a searchlight.

This is it. Even if it may be shallow to think of something formal as a name as an expression of our identity, this is what I feel: that the custom of women adopting husbands' names means telling women that they have no identity of their own.

This is one of the reasons why I couldn't marry. I am asexual and sex-averse anyway, and I don't even know how to form relationships... but I also must belong to myself only.

[Sister Mercurial]

It's up to the couple to decide.  My sister took her husband's last name because it made the choice of last name for the (at that stage potential, now very real) kids easier.  If I got together with someone, I'd discuss it with them and try to figure out what would feel right.  

[daveb]

I don't have a set answer. For me, it would depend on various factors, such as the specific relationship, the coolness of either name, etc. For me personally, I identify more with my mother's side of my family (and tend to take after that side in terms of physical appearance and even some mannerisms), and have less fondness for my father and his side of the family. So it would have been better (more suited?) if I had my maternal family name. Instead, I got the paternal one. Yeah, I could change it, but there would be a lot of hassle with that. My sister ended up with the maternal last name, just because she happened to marry a guy with that last name (totally unrelated, but it's a common name), and kept it when she got divorced. Marriage, especially for women, is one of the few times it seems readily accepted for someone to take a different last name, without people getting upset that the woman "abandoned" her birth family or rejected her father's name. Of course, that's only one side of it. I'm sure some women feel pressured to take their husband's name even if they don't want to. Hopefully that has gotten better over time.

[Ceebs]

27 minutes ago, everywhere and nowhere said:

(...) I now carry a stamp with his name.

I break up with a million of sheets I signed. With drawing paper in kindergarten, congratulatory cards for grandpa, scribbles in zero grade. With school tests, notebooks covers, letters to my friends. With a park bench, wall in the school toilet, diaries and albums. With my A-levels, protest letters, bills, tax declarations, credit card. (...)

I am now my husband's.

We abandon spaces which have raised us, formed us, allowed us to grow. We strain with barely ingrown roots. We don't invite someone in, but we accept invitation from someone else, slamming the door behind a place where we didn't belong to anyone. We run off from it as if it burned, hurt, was insufferable. For women lack of attachment is not freedom, but a stigma they are ashamed of.

I feel sad when my friends change their names. Sad and terrible. Because it's as if they told me: I am no more. Now there is someone else. Someone who got married. To a man, who matters the most. More than any other bond. He matters so much that I changed myself for him. Now you don't know me anymore. I don't know who I am either. I an growing back. In a new pot on a new windowpane. (...)

I don't want to see them wilt, ever weaker, at the side of ever stronger men, who weren't forced by the culture to abandon themselves outside the door for someone else. (...)

I prefer these double ones after all. But their husbands didn't add their wives' names to their own. They didn't change their passports, greeting cards, IDs, (...) contracts with suppliers of electricity, gas, mobile connection and internet. Asymmetry which bears power, or rather expresses this power, sometimes doesn't require subtle analyses with the framework of gender studies. It rather glares into your eyes with the gentleness of a searchlight.

I know that's not something you wrote yourself, but goodness... whoever that particular Polish feminist is, I'm very glad I don't feel that strongly myself. I am no one's property. And I certainly wouldn't tolerate being in a marriage where I was 'wilting', growing 'ever weaker', abandoning myself, or didn't know who I was anymore because of that relationship. I understand there may be some context in that quote that's specific to Polish culture and customs, though of course what's being alluded to is not foreign to any society where some form of patriarchy has existed at any point.

 

My version of feminism is I'll Do Whatever The Fuck I Want. If I have a desire (any desire, not just talking about surname stuff) that happens to fall in line with something that seems more traditional, that's totally fine with me because I know it's coming from me and how I genuinely feel about that particular tradition. Women ought to be allowed to like something without being considered a bad feminist; it's when they're being forced to accept something they don't agree with that there's a problem. Similarly, if I don't like the idea of some type of social custom that involves a certain expectation of women simply because they're women, I have no problem rejecting it and not feeling any pressure at all. I don't reject or embrace things based on a sense of needing to be traditional or of needing to be progressive. I just do what appeals to me and ignore anything that doesn't.

[everywhere and nowhere]

48 minutes ago, Mrs Telecaster-to-be said:

I know that's not something you wrote yourself, but goodness... whoever that particular Polish feminist is, I'm very glad I don't feel that strongly myself. I am no one's property. And I certainly wouldn't tolerate being in a marriage where I was 'wilting', growing 'ever weaker', abandoning myself, or didn't know who I was anymore because of that relationship.

And I know that women should be allowed to choose whatever they want... but for me my own mental reflex is clear: being married would be slavery. I cannot. I am asexual and sex-averse, and effectively incapable of forming relationships anyway, but my intransigence in this respect is another reason why I cannot marry, cannot have sex. For me they are absolutely impossible to reconcile with my own understanding of who I am. Which is, of course, surely a part of my sex aversion as such, but it also shows that my sex aversion can't be reduced to my chronic illness and resulting nudity aversion, but is a part of a whole tangle, of things which are impossible to accept for me.

[Ceebs]

For sure, yes, you should do whatever is right for you. Everyone should, and I'm certainly not interested in pushing the idea of marriage on anyone. I just think that whoever wrote that passage is making assumptions about how other women experience marriage. I'm sure she's right in some cases and wrong in others. Not everyone sees it as a loss of autonomy, a loss of themselves.

[rosesnromantics]

I honestly feel whoever has the cooler and more unique last name should give their name to the other person. Of course, if the other person does not want to switch they should just keep their name.

[Snao Cone]

If I get married I'm going to take the name Shitposting and my partner is going to take the name Memes.

[fragglerock]

I'd go for whoever has the cooler last name. Though I actually rather like my last name, it's unique and has a good sound. In contrast to my legal first name which is alright but I don't go by it if I have a choice.

[Guest]

Depends on the relationship. If my potential partner has a much higher social standing, I will make sure to take theirs.

[Tystie]

Personally, I’d want to keep our original names then combine them for any offspring..

 

Part of my reasoning is laziness. Don’t fancy doing unnecessary paperwork.

 

 

[bare_trees]

We both changed our names and hyphenated.  I don't know anyone else who's done that, but we can't be the first.  It's kind of a pain doing the paperwork and I didn't think of that, lol.  Not just the initial paperwork, but realizing all the places where both of our names need to be corrected.  So idk if I'd say it's what I prefer--it just depends on the circumstances.  It was what we wanted to do, and we're not going to have kids so it's not an issue of which name they would take.

[silent__]

I'd pick whichever name I liked better, or keep mine because that would be easier. My partner could do whatever they wanted.

[Guest]

everyone can last name their kid however they wanna. 

 

I don't want kids, so last naming a child is not for me.

[Tuffattack]

Real question 

what happens if two kids who have double last names marry

 

John Dog-smith and Chloe Golf-Johnson 

Will Susie be Dog-smith-Golf-Johnson?

[J. van Deijck]

I'm married and I stayed with my last name and my spouse stayed with his last name.

I'm technically in gay marriage, but side note, in my country married women never take their husband's last name. They stay with their maiden name.

[J. van Deijck]

2 hours ago, Tuffattack said:

Real question 

what happens if two kids who have double last names marry

 

John Dog-smith and Chloe Golf-Johnson 

Will Susie be Dog-smith-Golf-Johnson?

I just giggled as my cat's name is Susie

 

Off-topic, but it made me wonder whose last name she identifies with more.

[uhtred]

I have no problem with any choice a couple makes, but in my case keeping our names worked best.  We were not planning on kids though. If we had had kids, i would  have used my wife's last name which is much more interesting than mine.

[Duke Not-24 Memphis]

I don't place too much importance on names, but going by the "taking the man's last name" tradition I grew up with gives me my only hang-up about gay marriage: What would the last name be if both (assuming monogamy) people getting married are the same gender?

 

Then again, if they spend time planning out the wedding, they can likely figure out the last name situation.

[-Tismtastic-]

Just let them decide whatever they wanna do!