Sustainable Nomenclature

[trinityvixen]

What could we do about the marriage practice of changing one spouse's last name (usually the wife's) to the other's that would make the practice a) entirely gender-independent and b) practical for multiple generations?

The best I can figure is that both partners have to change their name in some fashion. Either they would do it upon marrying--John Doe and Jane Smith would pick or be given third, new name, say "Brown"--or they would keep their names but give any children a new one.

That would certainly fulfill requirement a), but I'm still not sure that it's an attractive solution to the problem of b). Unless the parents took the new name and passed that on, having children with a different name from the parents is awkward and inelegant.

What do you all think?

Oh, and please, bear in mind that issues of being able to track genealogy are lesser concerns to me. We live in an age with adequate resources for tracking down that sort of information if you want to build family trees. I don't think "being able to trace/link back to our ancestors" is an effective argument against adopting a new system of nomenclature. Issues of how couples would choose new names are fair game though. I imagine we'd get plenty of crank names as the internet generations get married, to say nothing about the few folk who would expose their ignorance and/or bigotry by appropriating names from cultures not their own (or enhancing their link to diluted bloodlines with usurpation of old names).

Comments

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think the apathy is a big problem, though, because so many people now think we're post-feminist, and they always seem to come back at me with, "Well, I want to marry my husband, and I don't care about the name thing, so why shouldn't I change it to his?" I get too tired/frustrated to have that whole discussion more than a couple of times before I just give up on it for a while.

This. Sigh. It's like the opt-out moms. They're choosing what they want to do with their lives, so you can't be mad. But it ignores the fact that our society approves of that decision and makes it easier to just drop out than it does for women to work and have kids. I see the same sort of pattern in this name-change issue.

[oblvndrgn.livejournal.com]

I hadn't head the term, but yes, I think the whole opt-out mom thing is significant. I had a good friend in college who is very bright, currently has a fantastic career, and really wants to stay home and take care of the kids after she settles down. A lot of her colleagues, both in college and current workplace, give her a pretty hard time about it, that she's selling herself short or whatever. She finds it pretty annoying because it's what she actually wants to do, and isn't that the whole point of feminism in the first place.

This conversation should probably be more about the kids than the spouses. Plenty of people keep their old names when they get married, maybe it's the circles I travel in but it really doesn't seem to get any strange looks at all. I care about what my kids will be named because I'm the last male in my line, so if I don't give my last name to the kids, it sort of feels like my family dies out. If I had 18 siblings that were breeders and my hypothetical wife was an only child of a dying branch, I wouldn't see a problem giving the kids their last name instead of mine. Systems are bad, choice is good. Liberal.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Why should your "line" be dying out if they don't have your name? Your genes would still be passed on. What if your wife were in the same position?

[shell524.livejournal.com]

If [...] my hypothetical wife was an only child of a dying branch, I wouldn't see a problem giving the kids their last name instead of mine

They addressed the what if for if their wife was in the same position.

If I didn't have a half brother who had a son, I would be the last of my family, too. YOU may not be attached to your name and wouldn't be sad to see the name die out, but some people are. If I had children, I would want to give them my name, not jlc's. Of course, he's sort of in the same position, unless his brother has kids some day.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Must have missed that, sorry. Was looking through things quickly (this post got a lot of replies!).

You want to give them your name if you have kids, and that's fine. I'm not particular about names one way or another, but mostly that's because I identify mostly by my first name. The last name is mine, too, but it's also a name that came to me. It's not really "mine" because so many others have it. I might feel differently if I were the only one with it, but it's still not "mine" in that case, it's my Dad's, and his father's and so on.

[shell524.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you stirred up some responses, alright. I'm not too surprised. People are usually somewhat opinionated about names. (Obviously, or you wouldn't have raised the question in the first place.)

My last name is fairly unique outside of the Carolinas and Florida. The combination of my first and last name is almost completely unique. Why do you feel like your name isn't yours, but your male ancestors'? Sure, my last name came from my dad, but it's "mine" as surely as my first and middle names are mine even though they were given to me by my parents, as well. Is my middle name less "mine" because it's the same as my mom's sister's? I couldn't imagine identifying by any OTHER last name. Maybe I feel like my last name belongs to me and my small family because, other than the one or two times I've met two of my half siblings, I've never known Dad's family. There is no huge lineage there or anything. It's just us.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I happen to have a large family, so I just don't feel like my having the last name is a special or even specific thing. Conversely, I have a VERY unique first name (mostly the spelling), so I relate to it more. I also feel kinda unrelated to the name in a way. We identify as the "My Last Name Family," but the traits that are so us are actually from my paternal grandmother. The name I have from my father is from his father, who died long before my parents ever met.

I also have this peculiar thing whereby my genealogy, specifically my ethnic background, is much more succinct on my mother's side--the name I don't have. But there, too, there's a kerfuffle as regards names because my maternal grandmother's family took on a name when they arrived in the US that was not their own. So, to me, names don't really make an identity just because they're given to you, that's all.