I have recently begun contemplating changing my last name to A’s last name.
A long time ago, I wrote a post about why I kept my own last name when we got married. When we first got married, it never really occured to my feminist self to take Mr. A’s name. I mean, I was a Women’s Studies major. A proud feminist. Why would I need his last name when I already have a perfectly servicable name of my own?
But lately I have been thinking about naming the HFC. I am strongly committed to keeping all parts of the name that the HFC already has. Mr. A is strongly committed to the HFC having a western first name, in keeping with the tradition of his family. It just seemed obvious to give the HFC Mr. A’s family name, which is the same family name we gave to M.
So the plan has been:
New First Name – Chinese given name – Chinese Surname – A’s last name
By keeping all the names, we are hoping to give the HFC options to use any parts of his/her name without having to go through the hassle of a legal name change. By putting the two surnames together, the HFC could use both as a last name or hypenate if that was what he/she wanted to do.
The reason we are giving the HFC Mr. A’s last name is a way of claiming the HFC as a member of our family. But if the name is the symbol of the family unit, shouldn’t I change my name too?
When I think about giving up my own last name (which isn’t especially unique or interesting) it feels….squidgy. I can’t put my finger on why it feels strange, but it does. Even when I think about using my maiden name as a second middle name and taking M’s last name, it still feels weird. (Hyphenating or using both names as a last name isn’t an option for me.)
When I put myself in the shoes of the HFC, already having a perfectly good name and then having two new names slapped on there without being given a say, it seems really unfair. It isn’t so different from Dawn‘s considerations when she kept Madison’s birth name. If the HFC grew up with his or her original names, would he/she be a completely different person?
I am also well aware that my personal choice to change or not change my name still puts me in the position of control, so it wouldn’t be the same as the HFC having two names added involuntarily. But if I am justifying giving the HFC Mr. A’s name because it is the “family name” shouldn’t we all share it?
For the record, I do understand most women change their names when they get married and it isn’t a big deal for them. It IS a big deal for me. It would be a fundamental shift in my self identification away from that of an individual to being one member of the larger family unit.
I could use some feedback here.
“I originally changed my name so I would share a name with the kids, but now I realize, I’ll be “Mrs. X” to their friends regardless of whether my last name is X or Z, and I feel like their mommy regardless.”
This is one of the reasons why I didn’t change. A couple of times before MD andI got married I was called “Mrs. MD” and I realized exactly what Jody said – people were going to call me whatever they wanted so I might as well go with what felt right for me.
interesting. My husband and I were talking about this in the car this morning. When we got married, I changed my name to his. As some have mentioned, I had no particularly fondness for my last name and didn’t mind switching [though I do use my maiden name for work]. H didn’t ask me to change but just said that if anyone was changing, it wasn’t going to be him because he had done it on his first marriage. Not that he was particularly attached to his name but just that he went through name change and paperwork change once and felt this time around, someone else could do it. In that I thought 1 name for one family group was good, I switched.
Today he was saying he wished that we had just gone and picked a new family name together–not hypenating but just something completely different. In truth he wasn’t too attached to his own family name [no contact with dad and mom has different name] and wouldn’t object to a different name. Boy was he ticked when he found out that we could have done it–at least as far as I know.
Now with two kids of school age including a very proud k girl who can write her name, changing is really not feasible. But if it were back in the beginning, I think I would go for that solution, particularly if I felt that giving up my last name was giving up part of me. That way, the sacrifice would be even.
toss a coin? be a different name for alternate weeks/months of the year?
I haven’t had a chance to read what everyone else wrote, but I thought I would add my thoughts. I changed my name upon marriage and I totally regret it. I loved my last name, despite it coming from a craptackular dad. Pre-marriage, when my husband and I discussed last names, he was very pro-me-taking-his-name. And hypenating made my name way too freaking long. So I took his name. Bleh. Now he says it doesn’t really matter and has actually encouraged me to change it back. We’ve discussed naming HFC (yeah, I totally stole that from you) First Name-Middle Name-My maiden name-Husbands Last Name (no hypens). But, if I did change my name back, or chose to hypenate, or whatever, I wouldn’t mind if my HFC had a different last name from me because my mom always had a different last name than me (she’s been married and divorced three times and in between marriages she always went back to her maiden name) and although it was sometimes awkward, it did symbolize a sort of independence to me.
But, maybe you could combine your last names and make up a new one. When my friends found out about my lament over losing my last name, they came up with a new one that combined the two, and they often use that when referring to us.
Xue will have my surname. Probably hers too in the middle somewhere. I’m even thinking of adding her Chinese surname into MY name. If C and I ever marry…? Hmmmm, I think we’d stay as we are.
Man, this is a tough one. We gave our daughter my partner’s (Chinese) last name. There are about a million great reasons to do this, like
- it’s a lot easier to pronounce and spell than mine
- it connects our daughter to both of us
-I’m not all that connected to my last name. I’m adopted and I’ve never really felt like it was ‘mine’ per se, so I wasn’t desperate to pass it on.
- we had hoped it would inspire Andrea’s parents to accept this little girl as their grandchild. So far that hasn’t happened.
But have I set myself up for being ‘Mrs. Daughter and Partner’s Last Name’ at school, doctor’s officies and a million scenarios I haven’t thought of yet? Probably. But really, in those contexts, I know who that person is and why they’re calling me that.
If I were less stubborn, I’d probably give up my name now and become Ms. Daughter and Partner’s Last Name. But since it’s not yet (if it ever will be) legal for us to get married, I won’t do it.
[...] i don’t think i’ve ever posted about my last name before, but i’ve meant to. if i have, sorry for the redundancy. amber reminded me. i have a hyphenated last name. it is ‘ms. maiden name-husband’s maiden name’. husband shares the hyphenated name, though he was quite opposed to hyphenating initially. [...]