Before I read it, I'm going to give my answer. I have some experience with the taking of another person's name, having married and kept my own name twice — in 1973 and in 2009. I had different reasons on the 2 different occasions! But one reason I had both times and that would apply to a man considering changing his last name to the woman is aesthetics.
Does the new name look and sound good with your first name? And how good is your original last name? When your parents chose your first name, they probably thought about how it went with the last name they were dealing with: What's the poetry? What do the initials spell? How does the end of the first name interact with the beginning of the last name?
If you were naming a character in a novel, would you choose the proposed new name over your original name? Do you get a different answer if the character to be named is boring and ordinary or annoying and villainous?
There's something very nice about having one name for the family, especially if there may be children coming. So I think it's great that the man — as well as the woman — should think about taking the other person's name so there can be one name.
Now, I'm reading the article, and I see a case of the man's taking the woman's name because it's the better name aesthetically. He was Elías Sánchez-Eppler, and when he married Emily Hanno, he became Elías Hanno. Hanno is a great name. It's simple but unusual (thought it would go badly with my first name).
And here's another one. The man's name was Josef Grznar, which is kind of fierce, but the woman's name was Taylor Valentine. He became Josef Valentine. Aesthetics. (And, also, in that case, he had the last name of a father he had never met.)
And when Hunter Snyder met Ashley Kane, why, isn't it obvious?! His parents had gotten the poetry wrong. Those 2 "-er"s. This one is a great example of my fictional character test. Hunter Kane is an interesting character. And why would you want to be Snyder when you can be... less snide?
Then there's the man whose last name was Heitler-Klevans. I will say no more about that!
That's 4 of the 5 men. Aesthetics. You see?
The 5th case is different. The 2 names in question are Margolin and Shulman. I'd pick Margolin on aesthetics. The choice was made because the woman, Amira Shulman, was the only one in her family carrying that name forward. That's one of the good reasons other than aesthetics. The man took Shulman.
ADDED: I can see an aesthetic reason for a man to pick Shulman over Margolin, and it has to do with masculinity, paradoxically. Margolin seems like 2 feminine names: Margo and Lynn. Shulman has "man" in it.
And "shul" is a place of worship. I was mostly discussing the look and sound of names, but the meaning of the names is part of an aesthetic analysis. If you're wondering what "Margolin" means: It means pearls.
You might want to consider not just what a name means, but what people looking at it think. I don't want to burden bearers of the name Heitler with what I thought when I saw it. (Actually, it means "hotter.") I've spent my whole life with a last name that people like to restate as something you wouldn't want as a name. But it's also something that has a real meaning that I like. (It means "old house.")
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Much better than the hyphenating fad that turned families into law firms.
Raj from Big Bang theory talking to Howard:
R: I can't wait to ask Stan Lee why he insists on giving all his characters first and last names that start with the same letter.
H: Oh, come on. Why would you do that?
R: Bruce Banner, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Stephen Strange, Otto Octavius, Silver Surfer, Peter Parker, oh, and worst of all, J. Jonah Jameson, Jr.
A friend of a friend got married in her 40s, and when asked if she would take her husband's last name, replied, "Are you kidding? Hell, I'll take his first name, too...!"
A pioneering photographer changed his name from "Edward James Muggeridge" to "Eadweard Muybridge"
Hmmm...???
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge
Never.
Had a case once where the key witness' last name was Fuckart. We wisely settled the case before we had to introduce it to the jury panel. (this was in the 80's when the F-word wasn't used as punctuation in ordinary conversation).
My late wife observed all the attempts to be married, but not exactly married, among the hipsters in Woodstock and said:
“Why don’t people just do things the way they’ve always been done?”
This struck me as very odd at the time, because I was still recovering from leftism. But, it’s usually the right thing to do.
I experienced this personally back over 50 years ago, upon marrying my first first wife, who was the only child of an only child. We decided to double the names, but we did it for family reasons, not "feminist" ones, and we did it in the Latino style of the woman's name second, which makes a lot of sense genealogically. [ by P out of V' is how it's done for prime livestock, for the same reason ].
A quarter century later, after a friendly divorce, I dropped her name, for simplicity. My sons kept the hyphenated name, but upon his marriage and aware of the underlying original reason, he dropped my surname, with which I've been fine for over two decades. In the event, they had two daughters, and as they approach marriageable age they're fully aware of how and why it is that they bear their paternal grandmother's maiden name.
We all agree implicitly that whatever they do about that is up to them and any future spouse. And we all believe, again implicitly, that what defines family is not really "name", but Character, Culture, and Connection.
“ When your parents chose your first name, they probably thought about how it went with the last name they were dealing with: What's the poetry? What do the initials spell? How does the end of the first name interact with the beginning of the last name?”
Ann Althouse attributes way too thinking to parents.
They make up names that sound good to them. Or name the baby after a TV show character.
As I age, I peruse the obituaries in my hometown newspaper for classmates and childhood neighbors. It's difficult when last names are changed by marriage. My favorite is when multiple marriages result in multiple hyphens.
I use my real name, and have never published even one comment anonymously, as I chose that as the only moral route. I speak and write and comment frequently, though hundreds of hours of my professional online commentary has been officially disappeared. One would think free speech advocates would give a shit about that.
One would be wrong.
My husband has a career and so posts anonymously online and only for pleasure.
I draw the line at personal attacks. I'll debate an anonymous person, but if they choose to attack me personally, they better man up and say who they really are. To channel Johnny Cash, that's the line I walk. As should they.
On a lighter note, my dad's immigrant family name was shortened from Trachenbachen to Trent in the 19th Century. Trachenbachen (I may be spelling it wrong: those crazy German words) means something akin to "stale bread," I've been told.
So that worked out.
I like lineage- I’m thinking that since the Fathers’ line is the constant (supposed to be) then that’s why we take the male name.
I loved my maiden name: it’s meaning, it’s sound. It’s vowels lol. It’s incorrect pronunciation by others. So I gave my children that joy(hopefully).
I’m curious how all the name changes w/gender changes is going to trash any genetic lineage.
People want to be their own god, spouse, child, creation.
It’s so messy.
I married for the first time at 48 and kept my maiden name for two reasons: All my legal documentation would have to be changed and I didn't want to miss anything (I have lots) plus my husband is Jewish. Sadly, it's better these days to have a Gentile name on any travel reservations. Especially in Europe.
"My favorite is when multiple marriages result in multiple hyphens."
Hyphenated names are a pain in the ass. I don't know why people don't keep maiden or family names as middle names like the Spanish.
Like Jacqueline Bouvier or Franklin Dekano or any number of others who seem to get this simple convenience.
The prominent are less pretentious than the strivers.
Tina Trent could be a Lee superhero.
That’s way cool :0)
My grandmother’s maiden name was “Marti” and that is my first name. My wife kept her last name. Our two last names flow together. For that reason, my family tradition, and to honor her father, we gave our son her last name is his first name. It’s a great name but has created some confusion when my wife would introduce herself and people would think our son had the same first and last names.
I didn’t change my name. Purely aesthetics. I have a good last name, and it flows perfectly with my first name. Dare I say…it’s somewhat regal. My husband’s name is kind of ugly. I can claim inertia also when we got married, but it was really aesthetics. I don’t care if some people call me by his last name, but to fully and legally change it? Nope.
I only know of one guy who took his wife's name, and that was a hyphenated doubling. He did it because he wanted to inherit his father-in-law's business.
My last name is foreign to many. Often mispronounced and misspelled. My wife's staff not-so-subtly suggested she retain her name after marriage.
She had already established herself as a rising star i her profession, so there was a second reason to keep her name.
Her choice.
She did not.
In Puerto Rico the common practice is for the wife to add her husband's name. My wife is "Sanchez de Henry" The Sanchez (her father's name) belonging to or connected to Henry (mine)
Kids take both mother and father's names. Sandy O'Casey-Cortez O'Casey is her father, Cortez is the mother.
John Henry
A man with the last name of Hitler might take his wife's name.
Do these men have to provide their maiden names on government forms? I believe the government views name changes due to marriage differently than due to a whim.
Jesus gave Simon a new name, Peter. "Upon this rock I will build my church."
So that's a powerful idea, a new name. It's a new identity.
You can also have fun with it.
In my all-male workout group, everybody gets a nickname. And nobody gets to pick their name.
We had a visitor from Brazil one time, and his nickname was "Wax Off."
The worst nickname I've heard is "Assless Chaps."
One of my favorite movie directors is Sean Aloysius O'Feeny, and I love his big star, Marion Morrison.
Tina Trent could be a Lee superhero.
That’s way cool :0)
Or a DC girlfriend!
not as cool but way more realistic
It may be true that that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Still, no one would ever exclaim: “Oh! A dozen long-stemmed Dachshund Dung flowers! For me?!”
If Ms. Kirsch married Mr. Platt, she could become Mrs. Kirsch-Platt.
My mother wanted to name me Cosmo. Parents don't think about the names, they just pick whatever they feel like.
Like it or not, husbands taking their wives' last names is simply too far outside the cultural norm to be accepted at face value. The name change itself becomes the story, whether that's disrespect of the husband's biological family, a political statement to knock the patriarchy down a peg, or whatever might be in the eye of the beholder. Your surname shouldn't be a gimmick.
Linage does not carry near the meaning as it once did. For better or worse. In small rural areas, understanding linage is a big asset when moving in as an outsider. I learned quickly to never gossip. Invariable, a snarky comment about the a girls antics while over served at the local fun day, turns out to be a sister to my largest account. Oops. Much awkward back peddling required.
But the name thing was important...to the community culture. One town we lived in had the son taking the fathers mothers maiden name as his middle name.
Today taking a Husbands, or wife's, last name is personal. Thats it. There is no right or wrong, just preference. Though the hyphenated last name is unsustainable. So I anticipate it is not being done much anymore. If someone had stats, it would interest me.
Ok, let's go with the aesthetics, even the poetry of the decision then. In that case a portmanteau would be most appropriate for a marriage. A blending of two lives and souls, and not just a hook-up via a hyphen for commercial or legal reasons.
Thus (as others have suggested already), "MeadeHouse." No longer just of the old house, but now of the house with meadow and honey. Lovely. And equitably balanced. One.
I suppose this convention would still leave a major decision, namely, does the male name enter the female name or does the female name enter the male name. "AltMeade" would sound too politically altright. Forgive. So "MeadeHouse" it is.
Where do we send the Ginsu knife set?
I remember in law school when a guy got married to a gal in the same class. The BOTH hyphenated their names “so the kids would have the same last name as both the parents”. I always thought it was stupid. If she simply took his name the kids would have had the same last name as both parents. So why do a new more complicated thing when the traditional simple thing would’ve worked?
Anyway, after the divorce and their kids getting married there are hyphens here, there and everywhere…
My wife, who did not take my last name, met a flight attendant, and suggested that it was too bad the attendant had not married me, and hyphenated the last names. Said attendant's last name being "Drybread".
Names are powerful and people who want to practice identity politics ought to consider how stupid humans can be about words and identities.
Madonna got famous for singing "Like a Virgin." It seems to me she struggled with her name and her identity all her life. She resisted the holy name her parents gave her.
And Johnny Cash has some thoughts.
Fight the patriarchy!
Keep your father's last name!
I do remember advising Freeman Hunt to avoid choosing Mike as her baby's first name.
When your name is Mike Hunt and your wife's last name is Hawk?
I am very suspicious of women with hyphenated last names. I've known a few.
The main reason a woman takes a man's name is to identify her children in public as his children. We all know who the mother is, but nobody knows who the father is, unless he's identified as such.
Taking a man's name fortifies the idea of union and protects fatherhood.
The feminists who want to destroy patriarchy, are really destroying fatherhood, and families, and babies, are now seeing their tactics used against them, and women are being destroyed, the biological reality of womanhood is now denied and wiped out via drugs and surgeries.
It's amazing this kind of intellectual insanity. It's done by people who worship at the feet of words and language and they think these narratives somehow trump actual biological reality. Nah, you're just a bunch of liars, and you use words to hide truth (and atrocities) from public recognition.
My partner happily went back to her maiden name after her divorce maybe 25 years ago. It is very pretty, as well as being somewhat exotic. One time Bill of the Beth and Bill, popular AM drive radio show in PHX, asked her, on the air, whether it was the name of a feminine hygiene product. He was awfully quick, but the reality is that they knew each other, having dated a couple times. And she was a frequent caller, who had their secret celebrity call in line number.
She initially changed her name when she first married, for the prospective kids. After he died, she kept it for the two that they had together. Her son and his kids kept it. Then, when she remarried, she changed it again, this time so all their 4 combined kids would look United. Her two never formally changed their last name, and went back to their birth father’s at the divorce.
My ex wife though kept her maiden name, for probably similar reasons as Ann probably did. And our daughter does. They had all used their birth names professionally before marriage. A year and a half ago, when said daughter got married, her entire bridal party of 6 or so women all had doctorate degrees of some sort before they had gotten married, and all kept their original names. She had been published several times on the way to her PhD, and her Best Woman was a dentist (I use that terminology because of sexism of basing the title on the marriage status of the bride’s primary attendant - daughter Maid of Honor for her friend’s wedding, but when they switched roles 3 months later, that friend was now the Matron of Honor) with clients (ok, patients).
The place where this is endemic is Wash DC, where the women in power couples inevitably kept their maiden names, and you really need a scorecard to identify the relationships. And sometimes, it is quite pernicious. You find one partner in a marriage with a lot of regulatory power, and their spouse representing the regulated before them, at some obnoxious pay. Or, Peter Strzok reputedly using his wife’s regulatory power to leverage targets. Or the Senate Minority Leader married to a Chinese American who supposedly represented China at some point. It seemed worse though during the COVID-19 nonsense, because it seemed like none of the top players on the government side were married to spouses with the same last name (since they all had doctorates of some sort) and the non-matching last names so often covered up fairly blatant conflicts of interest.
Switching tacts, my daughter did not hyphenate her last name, but instead, switched her mother’s extremely long last name for her new husband’s much shorter one, as a first last name. They plan to reverse that for their kids, if they manage to have some (I worry that their Vaxing decisions may be interfering there). She was really, really glad that we had not hyphenated our last names for her, because the girl alphabetically in front of her in grades 3-12 had a hyphenated name of maybe 18 characters. Names that long are intimidating, and that girl’s always took two lines on name tags, etc. daughter’s would have been over 20, with the hyphen, if we had gone that route. Besides, our last name is somewhat famous in the west - for example, we have an aqueduct (Hayden-Rhodes Aquiduct) running maybe a mile south of us in PHX, sharing our last name, and carrying CO River water through PHX, with some of it providing water for our brethren (and sisteren?) in Tucson. Plus towns in at least CO and ID named after us, etc. My, partner hates that, because she just has a short street in Boulder City named after her (but then, her sister hates that, because of all of his 5 kids, my partner is the only one their father named a street after). I tell her that she is lucky that he only used her first name, since if he had used both names, people might confuse it with a feminine hygiene product.
I have a cousin whose husband took her name. He was estranged from his family and happy to eliminate the reminder. Plus my cousins have a great family name.
When my wife and I married, we discussed choosing a new name we would both take. I wanted Gatsby (Timothy Gatsby has a nice ring), but she wouldn't go for it. (My choice of Wednesday for my daughter's name got relegated to the middle, and then only if I gave up first name rights--but I got the last laugh. Since first for middle is not a fair trade, I gave my daughter 3 middle names).
In the end, we each kept our birth names. Not having the same last name creates problems from time to time, but in general, it's no big deal.
so, what happens when two people with Double last names get married? Are you then, Mr. Smith-jones-O'Reilly-Sullivan?
My wife changed her last name to mine, and that's what it says on her DL and other records. But at work she still uses her last name and of course her Foreign citizenship is in her last name.
Btw, I wonder why the NYT's, New Yorker and WaPo, etc. are always publishing these articles about men adopting the wife's name, agreeing to an "open Marriage", taking care of the kids while the wife works, etc.
My daughter was recently married. I encouraged her, requested that she take his name.
My wife does the hyphenated name game. It's a real pain in the ass.
When your parents chose your first name, they probably thought about how it went with the last name they were dealing with: What's the poetry? What do the initials spell? How does the end of the first name interact with the beginning of the last name?
I wish my parents did that. When I was born, I was named Timothy after my sister's teddy bear, but the middle name was a toss-up between Francis (after Father Francis) and Ignatius (after Father Ignatius)--like the Sopranos, my family was the type that kept an extra place set at the table in case the parish priest showed up.
I understand their reasons for choosing Father Francis, but if they chose Father Ignatius, my initials would be TIM.
Fight the patriarchy!
Keep your father's last name!
It would perhaps be more feminist to adopt your mother's maiden name. Unfortunately that just moves the problem back a generation. Now your grandfather is more of a man than your father and your husband.
To be truly feminist you have to go "year zero." Adapt a last name that has nothing to do with your biological history. You're like Malcolm X. Except you'd be Samantha Y.
If you want to go Samatha Y, you probably want to avoid sex with men and order your sperm from the store. Then you can abort any boys and/or castrate them. You can avoid all males but unfortunately you will go insane and/or end up with a lot of cats.
Nikki Glaser has some thoughts.
“Linage does not carry near the meaning as it once did. For better or worse. In small rural areas, understanding linage is a big asset when moving in as an outsider.”
Sat next to a fraternity brother last fall at my 50th reunion, with the last name of Smith. In college, he and the woman he ultimately married had normal first names. But after graduating, and moving back to Boston, the both started using their middle names - both of famous Revolutionary war families in the Boston, thus marking them as their descendants, and part of the old elite there.
When I was a young boy, there was a Sunday School teacher at our church named Ron Taylor or something like that. My grandmother told me he took his wife's name after they married. He was no longer Ron Titsworth. Made sense to all of us.
Our daughter got married three years ago and her husband took her/ our last name. She loves our last name, which goes very well with her first name, Kathleen. Her husband really didn’t like his name, it was an awkward spelling of the original German and no one could figure out how to say or spell it. Plus, he thinks our last name is cool and unusual.
Begley: "Ann Althouse attributes way too thinking to parents."
Generalizable: Intellectuals attribute way too much thinking to most people.
My last name is Ham. I married a Virginia. She demonstrated devoted love and became Virginia Ham... but only for about 3 years. Then she became MaidenName-Ham, which has worked for the past 20 years. We are still the Ham family, though, and she still gets called Virginia Ham quite a bit.
Before we married, her brother did suggest that I just take her maiden name. Her maiden name is pretty, and it works pretty well with my first name. The portmanteau would have been even more aesthetically pleasing. I guess I was just attached to Ham. Plus, as has been pointed out, our society isn't really set up for guys to take their wives' names.
I'm with you Tina. Ive been signing my real name to every post for more than 30 years now. Phone and address are readily available as well.
I've never had to be fearful of being doxxed
Jonn "Manual.encoded.stir" Henry
People can expose as much or as little of themselves here as they choose--I don't fault anyone's choice. I try to focus on what is said, not who says it. (I do glean what I can from profiles, in judging whether to engage another commenter or not.)
One of my older female relatives married a Mr. Bean, then one of her sisters married Mr. Frank. The Beans and Franks used to get together a lot.
Those sisters recycled family names, with one result being that none of their seven kids have readily identifiable Boomer names--most have rather old-fashioned rings when fully deployed.
My wife never had a middle name and was glad to add mine to her three short syllables.
Oh- in case it wasn’t clear: I gave my children that joy: w/their fathers’ names.
All I know is that I’m happy to have lived through the golden age of genealogical research. The internet made it exponentially more possible to find records and the ancestors followed customs that made sense.
John Henry, I've met some wonderful people here, even those with whom I squabble. Heck, I'd share a camomile tea any day with Inga, and I bet we'd get on fine. Being laid up at times, it's nice to have a place to "go."
I had to completely get off social media when I became the target of a child molesters' support group (yes, that is a real thing) due to some legislation. They didn't threaten me: worse, they relentlessly tried to get me to agree that society misunderstood them and that adult/child sex is natural. They were incredibly self-pitying and whiny.
I think I learned something important, in the sense of criminological profiling. But an inbox full of whiny child molesters is no way to start the day.
What is the difference between a Lee superhero and a DC girlfriend? I like to imagine myself as Judge Dredd. Comic book, not movie. Never cool enough for Love and Rockets. Sadly, Zippy the Pinhead is probably more fitting. Not sure I can offer a translation of any of that for the Boomers.
“When your parents chose your first name, they probably thought about how it went with the last name they were dealing with: What's the poetry? What do the initials spell? How does the end of the first name interact with the beginning of the last name?”
Yes, some parents do think about these things, and unfortunately, some of us wished they hadn’t. My first name was chosen so that no one would be able to shorten it or create a nickname from it (yeah, that didn’t work) and secondly because it sounded ‘musical’ when put together with my last name (I won’t elaborate). I was more than happy to take my husband’s name and despite it being impossible to spell or pronounce, it’s a damn sight better than my real-life version of “The Name Game” song.
The Boomers?? Hell- I’m a Hick, I’ve no clue as to what a DC girlfriend is!
It does sound interesting:0)
The main reason a woman takes a man's name is to identify her children in public as his children.
The one, the only, the mother of his children, and his agreement to not outsource responsibility.
MadisonMan: Always with the Hitlers but no one thinks of the trials of the Mussolini's.
Sad. Very sad.
Farmgirl: DC as in the comic books. Think "Lois Lane".
“…I've met some wonderful people here, even those with whom I squabble. Heck, I'd share a camomile tea any day with Inga, and I bet we'd get on fine. Being laid up at times, it's nice to have a place to "go."”
Well, thank you, that’s so kind and yes, I’m sure we would get along fine, coffee or chamomile tea, love them both.
“I had to completely get off social media when I became the target of a child molesters' support group (yes, that is a real thing) due to some legislation. They didn't threaten me: worse, they relentlessly tried to get me to agree that society misunderstood them and that adult/child sex is natural. They were incredibly self-pitying and whiny.”
Wow, that is so messed up. So child molesters need support groups, huh. I guess they don’t understand why they are pariahs.
Simple rule of thumb I employed naming my children: will it sound silly when they are forty? If the answer is yes, then don't use that name.
Simple rule of thumb I employed naming my children: will it sound silly when they are forty? If the answer is yes, then don't use that name.
I might've considered Rockefeller had it been on the table.
My wife had a very Dutch maiden name. When we married, she took my last name, as did our kids. But we gave them both (boy and girl) the same middle name--van. This worked out much better than the marriage.
This is a white people's problem.
Blacks don't even bother to get married when the female gets knocked up. The name hardly matters.
"I do remember advising Freeman Hunt to avoid choosing Mike as her baby's first name."
A well-established rule in the family with all relatives quick to admonish any expecting bride who proposes a name that ends with the sound of K.
30 or 40 years ago, when women keeping their names was relatively common, I noticed that women frequently took on the name of a husband when the name was of higher social stauts, and rarely when the name was of lower social status. Thus, if Ms Levy got married to Mr. Cabot and her sister married Mr. Garcia, they likely would become Ms. Cabot and Ms. Levy. Conversely, Ms. Garcia marrying Mr. Levy likely would become Ms. Levy, while Miss Cabot would not take on Mr. Levy's surname. In public life, Madeline Albright is a case on point. I don't know if this is true any more, as the Times Wedding section is no longer a reflection of social class and has very few wedding announcements each week
I am not implying that this subtle discrimination is or was conscious.
Freeman, LOL
Freeman, your first name is interesting! Is that your actual name?
I'm guessing (totally a guess) that Freeman is a family name. I would be a little excited to track down the history of that name. "Free" and "Man" are very exciting ideas and concepts.
See also Morgan Freeman.
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