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

[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.