Back in the medieval ages when a woman was married to a man, they were basically considered property for my understanding and treated like an extension of the man’s person and family. So it was customary for women to take the man’s last name since they were being joined to his family. But now here in the 21st century women are fully independent and last names don’t really seem to mean much of anything. I mean what is Smith or McGregor or any last name really mean anymore? Especially in the digital age, lots of people have digital usernames like SarahSmith1727373. So the last name clearly doesn’t mean much anymore… Which leads me to wonder, why do the majority of women still take the man’s last name? Especially when some of them have a horrible last name? I have seen some butt ass ugly last names recently, like Fink, Weimer, Slotsky/Slotsky, Hiscock (no joke this is a last name), Hardman… And then you hear the woman’s name and it’s like something way more reasonable and less stupid sounding like Kingman, or Harrison, Walls, etc.
Many people are fine with changing their names and the ones that aren’t won’t do it. There’s your answer. Don’t rag on the people that like changing their name.
I’ve dated a few people who seemed progressive, and I’m a woke-ass queer, but names were a sticking point. I have a complicated welsh travesty of a name I would happily trade in for something shorter - so when I got engaged and I didn’t like his name either, and neither did he, I suggested we both pick something new and change our names together. I mean, if it’s no big deal for me to change my name, it shouldn’t be for him either, right? Anyway, I’m single now.
Well, that took a turn. Sorry to hear that! I love how picking/making a new together is becoming slightly more common that in earlier decades.
Can’t speak for all women, but I (and I imagine some others) changed my name because I knew I’d be having kids and didn’t want there to be any confusion. Like, if I’m traveling internationally or if my kid ends up in the hospital, I don’t want one of us having to fish out a birth certificate to prove we’re both the parents. Also I’m of the percent that absolutely hated my long last name so the chance for my name to be shorter and nicer was a no brainer.
I think this is a big reason. Having a common family name helps solidify the family as a unit.
In several countries it’s simply not possible, and the family bonds are strong as elsewhere, if not stronger. China for example, family is above everything there, and you can’t change names under any circumstances.
That’s something I didn’t know. Do you have time to explain how that works in China? Or if there’s a good video essay on the subject I’d take that.
In China you simply keep your birth name forever, and children always follow the paternal side. That’s why having a male heir is important there, because a woman will only bear offspring for her spouse’s family.
As to why the family bonds are so strong, it’s part cultural (your elders are always right and must not be criticised, and you must take care of your blood above anything else), part societal - parents work too much (60-100h weekly), so children are generally raised by their grandparents, which strengthens the bond across generations. And because the pension system is totally insufficient, grandparents will at some point typically move in with their kids, so people are used to live in a multi generational household.
By the way, China is just one example, there are even Western countries where it’s not possible to change the names, such as Luxembourg.
Thank you for taking the time. I find it interesting that it is so important in some cultures for the woman to take the husband’s name, and yet in this example there seems to be zero problems with it …
A. Many men would not marry a woman who didn’t take their name.
B. Makes parenting more difficult in social settings by not sharing the last name of your kids. I.E. Picking up your kid at school or making medical decisions about kids and having a different last name as the child forces you to jump through a lot more hoops.
C. Women tend to grow up knowing they are going to change their last name it’s not even an afterthought. My girlfriend told me her and her friends would often talk about what their name would be if they married a guy they liked.
D. In some states it is very difficult for a man to change their last name but for women the processes is already in place.
Regarding B, the way we do it in the latin world is just by having 2 last names, one per parent. So the child of Jose Perez and Irene Martinez is named Alberto Perez Martinez (the fathers last name is the first by default but you can change order). Its not a problem when picking up children from schools or whatever.
She takes my hoodies, my snacks, my cash, the blankets… why wouldn’t she take my name?
(She didn’t take my name.)
Hah, same on every single account.
I had discussed it with my wife. I didn’t want her to feel obligated to do so, and I know it would be awkward at her work to change her last name, but ultimately she wanted to - so I guess that’s one reason?
There is a degree of closeness from it that I think some people appreciate. If you all share a last name, perhaps you feel closer as a family? I’ve known some people that don’t share the same last name as their kids, or people that went double-barrelled, but didn’t with their kids, and some of them had either changed later, or regretted not having the “same” name.
I think each woman has her own reasons (some people actually like traditions) but I have the impression that, globally, women are not the same as what we see online. I think today the taking of a surname does not indicate ownership or property, at least to most modern women (and men).
I don’t think any woman thinks like that anymore, or perhaps not many, so the motivations would then also be obviously different.
I’m from a different culture than my husband and my last name was a bureaucratic nightmare. Almost didn’t make it into university because of computer mix ups, have had issues filing taxes, voting, getting a passport, settings basic IDs, getting insurance… It’s endless. Changed my name as soon as I could, and even THAT process was hindered by my original name.
Bonuses: Distance myself from social media I had as a child. Harder for former stalkers to locate me if they decide to rekindle their previous obsessions. Don’t need to upset one set of grandparents when you name your children one parent’s last name and not the other. People stop asking me where I’m from and making racist assumptions about me. Everyone seems a lot friendlier now that they assume I’m [insert European white race here] instead of [insert non-white race here] and that’s despite the fact that I’m clearly white. Racism is wild. My signature is way shorter.
Not saying this should be the norm, but I was happy it was a socially acceptable option for me.
Duper curious what it was now
Nothing too complex. I come from a culture where you take one last name from each parent. No hyphen. Just FirstName LastName1 LastName2.
Some systems put LastName1 as my middle name and shortened it to one letter. Some excluded LastName2. Some squished both last names into one name, sometimes with a hyphen, sometimes not.
But because every system did its own thing, no one could ever find me. I had 2 different credit scores at one point. I received 3 voting cards every election, all of them wrong, despite the fact that every election cycle I would take the hours it takes to report the errors and get them to “fix” it. I was enrolled twice in one class in grade 4 under two separate wrong names. And whatever name my high school used on their system, I wasn’t showing up when universities searched for my records, so I kept getting rejection letter after rejection letter with no explanation and it took me months to track down the cause and have it fixed, by which point it was too late to get into several schools. I also couldn’t buy certain things online because some stores’ paymentet methods wouldn’t let me put in the name of my credit card as it was written. Oh, and the government couldn’t get the name on my social insurance card and the name on my taxes to match. This affected my online logins, so I would need to call on the phone to verify myself for each tax-related transaction, including simple address changes.
Yikes, that sounds like an absolute nightmare
Yeah, not the name itself but why it was a bureaucratic nightmare.
Please don’t DOX yourself.
My wife did, despite me saying I’d rather she not. Me changing to her name was not legally possible in our situation (me US citizen, her JP citizen, both living in and married in Japan). (Edit: What I wanted to do was change to her name, but that doesn’t happen unless I give up US and my other citizenship, apply for and get JP citizenship, and choose her maiden name as my name or do that but a name combining hers and the sound from the start of mine rendered in kanji).
Her reasoning was that we could quickly and easily remove basically all doubt that we are related with just what ID we both always carry. Her usecase was one of us being critically injured or something and being able to gain access in the hospital or something else like that.
I took my husband’s last name because it was important to him, and I wasn’t super attached to mine. Also, it has 2 Z’s in it, and that’s one of the coolest letters.
Is your last name is Lizzard? /s
Izzard
Eggyzz.
Zardoz?
My SO and have talked about possibly changing both of our last names when married. Neither of us are tied to or really care about our current names for any reason so why not just start fresh.
For me, it was because my husbands last name was simpler than my maiden name.
I took my partner’s last name because I like their family more than mine, and I liked the idea of no longer being associated with my family.
But I think most people just want to do what is normal or expected of them, so I would imagine that is why most women change their name. Not doing so would go against the grain, putting them in awkward situations where they have to explain they didn’t take the last name.
My partner likes my family more than hers, but has continued to keep her ex-husband’s surname because she likes it better than both her childhood one and mine.
…was her ex Hardcock?
No, it’s boring and generic. He name before sounded like a rude word, and mine is just weird and literally always mispronounced by everyone.
Because most countries have been patriarchal for most of human history. Old habits die hard.
I went from a “normal” western last name that was ethnically coded (like McCoy) to another ethnically coded name (like Nguyen, or - um - Fink).
My options were to keep a common and dull name that I share with people I don’t like, get a new one (that I’d need to spell to every customer service representative ever), hyphenate (HELL NO), or make up something new (which would involve a shitstorm among relatives on both sides.)
The only real options were A and B. I was undecided until we were leaving the county courthouse after we were married. He asked me “are you going to change your name?” He didn’t care. He thought it was a weird custom and was curious. And I realized - this is an opportunity. It’s a relatively easy and socially acceptable way to shed your old name.
I took it.
The new name honestly messes with quite a few people who are meeting me for the first time, and it’s interesting to see how they react. I’ve had people ask straightforward questions (I prefer that - there’s an easy and straightforward answer), get half-way through a straight-up racist comment before they stutter to a stop (helps me get to know them), get all the way through a racist comment (again - helpful to know where you stand), or just not comment at all (just fine by me).
I’ve found that it’s not the worst way to get a read on someone.
tldr: part spite, part novelty, part legitimately helpful when your profession means you need to meet strangers and get a quick read on their personality/potential biases/willingness to be straightforward when there’s no reason to be weird about it
