More on name changing
April 30, 2008 · Print This Article
Our last post about brides changing their names after marriage is probably one that we could talk about until the cows come home, and I thought it worthy to bring the discussion up again today after reading this post from Feministe regarding the flipside of that. By now, most of us should know that it’s not totally out of the realm of reality for a guy to change his name to that of the person he’s marrying, though it’s clearly not that “common” as other changes might be.
That said, though, is it something that’s done for creativity reasons, one not liking their name, problems with parents, or what? I’d *love* to hear from some men who’ve changed their names upon marriage, as I don’t know anyone personally, though do have a colleague who has a friend who’s done so. For those of you who are reading this, would you consider making a name change, do you dig your future spouse-to-be’s last name more than your own, or are you coming up with a third option, maybe “hybridizing” - as some of the Feministe commenters suggest - or making up a whole new one?
My parents did the whole “hybridizing” for their 4 children, me being one of them. I used to loathe my last name but I’ve grown to appreciate it. When they got married my mother didn’t want to give-up her last name so she took the hyphenation and my father still goes by “Lee.” Mainly, I think, because it makes business easier.
Not too sure what I’m going to do when I reach this decision. I have cousins who both kept their respective last name and all of their children took the father’s last name.
My sister’s husband changed his name to our name…Winters. His last name was one he had hated through life, and he jumped at the chance to change it.
I did the very 90’s “have it all” thing - kept Winters at work, took my husbands name elsewhere, and hyphenated legally. Not a great choice — outside of work, everyone just presumes I have the same name as my children anyway…airline travel is a major hassle when booking tickets for a family. If I could do it again, I would have just changed my name entirely…or not changed it at all.