If you take this man in marriage...

Oh, we struggled with this one. I ended up with an easy out -- my parents never gave me a middle name (they wanted me to be able to choose my own) and so I made my maiden name my middle name. No hyphens, and usually just an initial when I sign. But there.

I just dislike hyphens on esthetic grounds, but at the same time, it was hard for me to consider losing what had been my name for so long. I'd already had a book published under that name, etc. (Illustrations.) I do think that whole aspect -- women getting married later, having careers of some kind before marriage -- has to do with the change in attitudes.

I think it has become a much harder decision, and precisely for the reasons you site, sozobe. We've got old traditions vs. modern situations and it's bound to cause some difficulties I guess.

I'll probably get hammered for this one, but I think for at least some men it's an ego thing. I used to think a mother should have the same last name as her kids, but with all the divorces and remarriages, etc., I don't think it makes too much difference any more.

Well I took the last name but retained my middle name Dorel because it was my grandmother's first name. I am thinking of changing my name, I have been thinking about it for sometime but it costs and it would be a lost of work. The name I want to use is my grandmother's full name, Dorel Pittman McDaniel. But y'all could still call me JD, Joanne or whatever.

What I really dislike about the tradition of using the man's name is that so often in the past women were simply left out of the picture by using their husbands name. Once at the UVA art gallery I was shocked to see all the art was donated by Mr. and Mrs. John Doe, the wife's name never mentioned at all.

It's not a new issue. I struggled with it 30 years ago, when I married. A few professional women, back then, were keeping their maiden names when they married and I seriously considered it. Also, I was an only child, a girl, and there was no one in our branch of the family to keep the name alive. In the end, I opted to adopt my husband's surname. I'm not sorry, but I'm still a McKenzie at heart.

We married in 1979 when I was in my thirties and was well established as me, myself and I when we did. I tried the hyphen thing for about six months, which was not only aesthetically ugly, but useless. I was always filed under the second part of the hyphen. The fact that his family was a tad obnoxious and I loved my own, that I was the only child, and my parents were dead, may have affected my sense of what to do. I did have papers I was author on, but more than that, I lived in my body, or whatever the phrase is now for being comfortable with yourself. My husband said he didn't, and actually didn't, care. He loved me as myself. There is a possibility my attraction for him was that I wasn't them.

I don't know about the legal stuff. We had bought the house as single people in joint tenancy before we were married... semiscandalous at the time, especially in a redlined neighborhood. (That neighborhood is now very high-end, another story.) I filed taxes under the hyphen once and for another couple of decades with my maiden name and we filed jointly.

There has never been a problem re my name usage. I never nattered about it in social situations, the Mrs. Husband, but made it known within friendships what my name was and after a while it was only necessary to murmur on occasion.

As an aside, I have a friend who is a tv anchor who uses her maiden name and she is 60 now...she comes from a proud Mexican American family and
that is who she is, and she is madly in love with her husband, last I knew.

I am divorced now, a quarter century later, having nothing at all to do with the name business, and find myself with the same name I have always had. Continuity.

But, this all has its funny side. Let's say my husband's family name was Brown and mine was, oh, Plaid. So people would say good morning, Mrs. Brown and I would think to myself, that's his mother. (don't get me started). But...they couldn't correctly call me Mrs. Plaid, since that was my mother. On the other hand, for aesthetic reasons, I don't like Ms. much, much less Miss. So, I'd really rather be called Osso, or my reallife equivalent.

Osso Plaid, married to John Brown.

That is a problem in formal circumstances, where titles are so very important. I have been known to check none of the above.

This is a problem for people more cultured or more aged than I, and I see their mental eyebrows rise.

In Italy, a place I love with the attraction of those who can't have something...people seem to prize authority...Dottore, Professoressa, titles add pooomff.

As for the original question here, this isn't a new one to me...I was dealing with this in 1980.

Professoressa Osso

Furthermore (I have been waiting to use that word):

Part of why, one of the accumulating circumstances that made me like keeping my own name, was the invitation I got from Mrs. Gary Huffman.

It was from someone in my high school class for some reunion event. I went to a girls' academy, another whole subject. Who the hell was Mrs. Gary Huffman? That probably did it, right there, and the rest of my thinking just needed to play out.

McKenzie, our posts crossed. It took me a long time to write that. We have some similarities.

Thinking on this a bit I feel that no woman should take a mans name if she is not comfortable with it. I know it can be a bit confusing if you have Children, but it really isn't a big deal in my opinion. I was not married when I had my son, but I did have plans on marrying his father, so I gave my son his fathers last name. Well, things didn't work out with myself and my sons father, so we have different last names. Although it never mattered to me, my son would like to change his last name to mine when he turns 18. He would change it now, but his father won't sign the papers needed to do it. My son is going on 16, so he doesn't have a long way to go. I do hear that it's a huge process though.

I've been doing the hyphenated thing for our entire marriage (we're married 10 1/2 years). It's a matter of some pride to me (after all, I got my law degree with my maiden name) but it's proved convenient in one extremely odd way - I always know when someone calls and doesn't really know me, because they inevitably either get my name wrong or only use part of it.

Let's say my name was Smith-Jones. I'll get -
* Mrs. (or Miss) Smith
* Mrs. ( or Miss) Jones
* Miss Smithjones (This is usually followed with them saying: My, you had a lot to write down when you were a kid! (Me: I've only had the Jones part since 1992. Them: Oh.)
* Mrs. (or Miss) Smith Jones wherein they use Smith as my first name. Since my maiden name is an actual man's name (though rare), I find this one particularly amusing.

The phone book doesn't know what to do with me (we finally got listed under my husband's last name). The Department of Motor Vehicles was originally going to list me as (I love this one):

-Jones, Jespah (my middle initial) Smith

Then I informed them that the only thing they were getting hung up on was the punctuation and, if my name were O'Connor, I wouldn't be 'Connor, Jespah (my middle initial) O, now, would I? They got the hint and changed it to Smith-Jones, Jespah (my middle initial) so that I could be alphabetized like a normal person.

My husband, of course, gets all sorts of junk mail addressed to:
* Mr. Smith
* Mr. Smith-Jones
* Mr. Jones-Smith

- even though he's named Mr. (his first and middle names) Jones and has always been and has never changed his name.

When I met some coworkers back in 1995 or so, I recall the women having no problem with my name (although my boss at one point was introducing me as Jespah Jones until I privately corrected her - always a fun thing to do on your first day on the job!) but the men! I recall more than one telling me they wouldn't "let" their wives hyphenate their names or use their maiden names. "Let"? Exactly which century are you fellows living in?

I'll leave you with an amusing anecdote:

I was at the pharmacy about a week ago, at a different time than usual so there was a different clerk. So I ask for my prescription.

Me: My prescription is under Smith-Jones.
Clerk: Smith?
Me: No, it's under Smith-Jones.
Clerk: Jones?
Me: No, it's under Smith-Jones.
Clerk: You spell that J-O-N-?
Me: No, I spell it S-M-I.
Clerk: I don't see it under the Js.
Me: That's because it should be under the Ss.
Clerk's Supervisor: Oh, hi Mrs. Smith-Jones [a long time ago, I gave up the Ms. vs. Miss vs. Mrs. battle if someone at least got my name right]!

The clerk's supervisor, of course, then found my prescription and handed it to me. :-D

I was married twice, and had a child by my first husband. I had taken HIS name, and kept it because I wanted my son to have the same name as me. When I remarried, we ended up having different names anyhow.

You younger gals probably don't remember this, but I have some stationery, that I made when I was first married. It's those little cards that open at the bottom, the kind that you send "thank you" notes. It actually says Mrs. Mergatroyd Phoenix!

I have been using Ms. Whatserface Phoenix for most of my married life. In fact, I did not wear a wedding band from about the 2-20 years of my marriage. I did that as a sign that I did not "belong" to anybody. At my 20th anniversary I figured, "What the hell. it's a nice ring!"

I think it's not a new issue, to be sure, but I think what has changed is the acceptance factor. When I was considering it, the aspect of "what will people think?" basically never crossed my mind. LOTS of people do it.

If I didn't have the middle name option, I'd probably have hyphenated. I do like the idea of all of us in our family having the same last name, though, and not sure what I would have done about that. I actually know two hyphenated folks who are getting married and have NO idea what to do. (Their parents hyphenated, they grew up with hyphenated names.) Last I talked to them, they were tossing around the idea of coming up with an entirely new last name.

I think the Mexican naming tradition is one of the most elegant:

A woman is born and named Marta Alicia Marquez Contreras.

Marquez is her father's father's last name, Contreras is her mother's father's last name.

A man is born and named Pablo Patricio Garcia Nogeira.

Garcia is his father's last name, Nogeira is his mother's father's last name.

When Marta marries Pablo, his name remains the same and her name becomes Marta Alicia Marquez de Garcia, although she will often just use Marquez Garcia.

They have a daughter and name her Maria Isabel Garcia Marquez.

This, as you see, is her father's father's last name and her mother's father's last name.

If she marries Jose Antonio Vasquez Sanchez, her name will become Maria Isabel Garcia de Vasquez.

http://www.wam.umd.edu/~sek/wedding/names.html

It's very much a culturally-based hmmmmmm discussion (my eyes STILL hurt from Friday's glaucoma test, so i can't seem to make my brain think of words i really want to use.) I have Tamil friends who think this is all TOO funny - when they marry, the husband takes the wife's family name as his first name. So Bob Smith marrying Debbie Jones become Jones Smith and she continues on as Debbie Jones. Their children then get variations of other family names for their first and family names.

Then we look at some of the Scandinavian naming traditions - where children's last names reflect/reflected their father's first names - Bob Smith's daughter would become BabyGirl Bobsdaughter, and his son ToughBoy Bobsson. Toughboy's son would be Doug ToughBoysson.

About 10 years ago, I met an Irish chap whose last name changed about 6 months after we met. His uncle died - his uncle had been the oldest male of his generation - my friend was the oldest male of the following generation - his name changed to reflect that (trying to remember how it changed, i'm pretty sure it wasn't the addition of the O' , but it might have been).

Or the famous Fitz prefix - indicating illegitimacy. Bob Fitzgerald, illegitimate, but acknowledged son of Dave Gerald.

Names are interesting.

O is the being of , the son of...etc etc . I actually have a last name without the O which is found to be quite abnormal in that fashion but, we believe it is due to the influx to America.
Regarding the name taking, name changing well, you know its a very personal decision. In my opinion no matter what your name is you, when married are still Mrs. Married whether it is legal on paper is another story but it is still who/what you are. Its perfectly understandable that someone take the name or not and I think its just very much more accepted today than it was in the past.
My name has been changed twice, and although its alot of hard work, I think its been very much worth it each time. I changed my name at 30 due to a promise I made to myself at 18. I had my biological fathers family name and knew not a one of them after the age of 7. The ones I did see on occassion were actually his step sisters, whos names actually changed anyway even after they were born into another family name. <very confusing, I know> So, my true and close family were on my mothers side. There was a very large business in the area I lived in with that name where I was constantly asked if I was related to. It got to the point where I thought that name had nothing at all to do with me, so I changed it when I thought perhaps I would not be getting married and needed more of my own identity with my family. So now I carry my mothers maiden name, which is sometimes confusing to some but, not at all to me or any members of the family. My mother is remarried and now carries another name as well.
Then yes, I got married. I decided after all that work, take Mr's last name and use my family name as middle name. I was very happy to be Mrs. Married in thought and name, and to have my family name as well, it was like having the best of both worlds.
Then I got divorced. Back to the family name.
Guys got it easy I tell ya!
One of my cousins married into a family actually that has a tradition of using the wifes maiden name as the middle name of the children which I think is a nice way of supporting ones in laws and keeping alive the mothers family name in some way.

Very interesting info on name-changing customs, Sozobe and Ehbeth. The first time I married. I changed my last name to my husband's. While going through the divorce process I changed my name back, and it was a pain. 15 years later I married again, and decided to not change, but when my daughter was born, we gave her my husband's last name. The hyphenated thing never appealed to me... too many names to drag around.

I drag around four names and don't mind it at all. No hyphens, just names. They're not so heavy and I don't show them to everyone.

Fascinating info here -- never knew much of the historical context. Think I'll send this all along to my daughter for reassurance.

No way she can hyphenate (a Hungarian name and an Italian name and they don't hypen very well at all, let alone pronounce well). Even keeping her name as is, she'll always know when strangers call (they absolutely can not pronounce our last name).

This is the closest, although not exact same, as my solution to this situation. My husband-to-be (marriage next month) and I will be taking his mother's maiden name as our last name. We considered taking my last name, but I wanted a name change to mark the new chapter of my life. I liked the idea of honoring his deceased mother, who managed to raise a child as a single mother in the 60's and 70's and absolutely refused to take his father's last name (his current last name- his father was alcoholic, abusive and asked to leave the family when my fiancee was 2. The man did not bother to retain any contact with his son. His last name is not worth honoring.)

It is relatively easy and expected for the woman to change her name for marriage. I'm not sure what type of rigmarole California will put us through to change his last name also. From what I've read, some states have a place on the marriage certificate to indicate male name change via marriage. We're being married in Las Vegas instead of California, and I can't manage to get their marriage office on the phone to ask if they have such. (Phone just rings and rings)

I've heard of people consolidating their last names rather than doing the hyphenation thing. An example of this is Tamarind marrying Gallard taking the new last name Tagal. We scrapped this idea in our case because the new name would have been Zertor. Um.. I think not.. LOL. It sounds like either bad science fiction or an allergy drug.

Wow this is all so cool

I especially like the bit about Mexican names, and the prefix of Fitz- --> i never knew that!!

The only one I know about is the origin of all the names like Johnson and Peterson: In Iceland, your surname is never changed: if you are a boy then you have your father's name plus son (hence the two names mentioned above) and if you're a girl then you get your father's name + Datter (not sure on spelling)

Hehe so I would be Bekaboo Johndatter

I'll quite happily take my husband's name when we marry - i feel no attachment to my last name (now my first name - that is a whole different kettle of fish) and it's quite a common one, so it makes no difference in that respect. I am very much in favour of belonging to someone when I'm married (*waits for teh feminist onslaught*)