The Name Game

When Mike and I got engaged, in 1988, it didn’t even occur to me that I’d change my name after we got married. And I mean that sincerely–I didn’t give it a thought. But I didn’t realize that I’d taken this decision for granted until a friend asked me what I was planning to do.

“How does Mike feel about that?” she asked, when I told her.

I took a long pause. Because, in all honesty, it also hadn’t occurred to me that Mike was entitled to an opinion.

“I guess I should probably ask him,” I said.

Fortunately, Mike thought keeping my name was a good idea. (Actually, what he said was “I think it would be weird if you changed it.” Obviously, I had chosen the right man to marry.)

But many other people didn’t agree with us. His mother, for instance, had a lot of questions.

1. Would I still be Mrs. Mike? No, I would be Ms. Pam.
2. Would I still be the legal wife of Mike? Of course. And I would have the marriage license to prove it.
3. Then why wouldn’t I call myself Mrs. Mike? Because I wasn’t changing my last name. And Mrs. is a social title, not a legal title. And I preferred Ms., which means “Maybe married, maybe not. Basically, none of your business.”

One of my aunts, discovering that I’d kept my birth name, said “You’re one of those liberated women? I think that’s just terrible.”

I wasn’t entirely surprised by these reactions–or by the number of people who persisted in addressing our mail to “Mr. and Mrs,” even though they knew full well that I didn’t go by Mrs. Anything.

When you make the choice to do something different from what’s always been done, you’re going to run into some resistance. And every time I do, I end up dealing with more or less the same string of questions.

What’s wrong with a woman changing her name when she gets married?

Not a thing. I just didn’t want to do it.

Traditionally, taking a man’s name meant a transfer of ownership (from father to husband). Before paternity tests were available, naming was the only way of indicating who a child belonged to; having the same last name assigned to father, mother and child made a statement about the legitimacy of that child. None of those reasons for changing my name were appealing to me.

I understand that times have changed and that names mean something different now. I also understand that many women have excellent reasons for wanting to leave their father’s name behind. I fully support their choice to do this. But I don’t buy the argument that many of my female friends have made to me–that you’re just swapping one man’s name for another when you get married. 

My name is mine. It’s who I am. Lots of people who know me never met my father–so my name has nothing to do with him.  And the person I am didn’t change when I got married, so I didn’t see why my name would, either.

What about family unity?

I have a friend who’s been married four times. She changed her name after each marriage. She has three children, each of whom was given their father’s last name. After she divorced her third husband, she returned to her birth name. Then she married a fourth time, and changed her name again.

I’ve been married to the same guy for 31 years. We have two children, both of whom have his last name. (Passing mine along was not important to me; we chose the last name we thought worked best with the first name we selected for each child.)  I’m pretty sure I win the prize for “family unity,” whether or not we all have the same last name.

Isn’t it harder to have two names on everything?

In the early years of our marriage, forms were sometimes complicated because they assumed married couples shared a single last name. That’s no longer the case; almost every form I encounter now has a separate space for husband and wife. And I have used Mike’s last name sometimes, just for clarity. When our kids were in school, for instance, I often signed Mike’s last name behind my first name, so teachers would know which kid belonged to that permission slip.

It’s not that I refuse to be associated with Mike’s last name. I just didn’t want to change my own, so I didn’t.

So you think all women should keep their name when they get married?

No. I think all women should make a choice about their name.

One of the things people consistently misunderstand about feminism is that it’s about the right to make choices–not about the requirement that women make specific decisions. When it comes to last names, many women don’t consider that they actually have a choice. Or they give that choice away–if their intended husband is hurt by their desire to keep their birth name, they acquiesce. They give his preference more weight that their own desire to keep what rightly belongs to them.

Why? Most often, just because that’s how it has always been done.

Past generations of feminists worked hard to give us choices. It really shouldn’t be so difficult to honor their work by supporting each other as we all make the choices that are best for us.