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]

I've several friends I've found on Facebook who both hyphenated their names.

I'm all for leaving it entirely up to the individuals. Change the husband's name to the wife's. Change the wife's to the husband's. Pick your own. Hyphenate both. Keep your own and give your kids one or the other or something completely different. I don't see why it has to be codified at all.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I actually kinda like the idea of the portmanteau name (especially as an alternative to hyphenation. Yeesh.) Both partners and all children take the new name. An old friend of my dad's was born Miss Lebenhouse, and when she married Mr. Luft, they became the Lebenlufts.

The problem is that you end up with a lot of weird combinations and unusual names very quickly. John Doe and Jane Smith would become...the Doths? The Smoes? The Smitoes? And when their son married Jenny Jones, do they become the Smitones?

(I think that the children and both parents having the same last name is important, if only for reasons of bureaucratic stupidity. Which name it is is far less important.)

[viridian.livejournal.com]

Whatever we do, it needs to get more "normal" quickly enough that people won't hesitate at doing it because they'd have to explain themselves so often.

Basically the only reason I took Ben's last name was that I am inherently lazy and don't want to be continually explaining myself. I had to do that enough with the pronunciation of my old name, and it gets exhausting. I also admit I wanted a name that was easier for people to spell and slightly less Google-able.

Also? I will tell you what doesn't really work -- keeping one's maiden name as a second middle name. Technically, I did that. But said second middle name? Doesn't show up anywhere official, so uh. It's basically invisible and I can keep or drop it as I see fit. :/

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think keeping family names is very important. It's not just about genealogy, it's about a sense of lineage, about being able to say "I am part of this heritage, and this name, which has figured here and here in history, is also mine." So I don't hold with the idea of creating new names--I think that's turning our back on our heritage.

I think the best solution is the one several cultures (primarily hispanic, I believe) follow, of hyphenating names in a particular pattern--one child takes the mother's maiden name first and then the father's, the other does it the other way around, etc. Both family names survive and are passed on, neither gender gets priority.

[jendaby.livejournal.com]

On the marriage name change forms, it is suggested that a couple could combine their names into something new and both take that name. Usually, it is a hybrid of the two names.

I must say, though, that I have known plenty of people, male and female, who were happy to take their partner's name because they had a negative association with their own family name.

Though it is getting more common for people to keep their birth names, it is still easier to have a family with the same last name when there are children. The amount of paperwork that was easier to fill out yesterday because I could just check "same last name" is amazing...plus, my maiden name is cursed. As soon as it was entered into the system, the computer crashed and locked the woman at the registration desk out of the network.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Well, we could go back to the way they did it in feudal England--the person with the title keeps their name. So, whoever has more assets gets to keep their name, and their spouse has to change it.

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

Ummm........ that would mess wit folks like myself who are the 4th generation to hold the same name.

Perhaps the route that was taken with my sister's name (she has both my parent's last names in addition to her first name and middle name).

[ahab99.livejournal.com]

I really don't know what sustainable system there is, other than just getting to the point where no choice is so heavily favored that any other option is seen as weird. I mean, I had one high school friend who, when confronted with another friend getting married and discussing the name-change issue (the marrying friend had already started her career, and so a name change had more consequences for her than it often otherwise does) said, "Well, he could take your name, but ew, who does that?" The idea that it was not only an unlikely option for her, but something worthy of "ew" really blew my mind.

I am totally with you that the current system needs to change, but there's not any one option that satisfactorily replaces it. I think that's the reason the inertia is so hard to overcome, unfortunately...

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

I actually take a fairly progressive line on this: I don't think women should change their names when they marry (unless they want to, of course), and kids should take the last names of their mothers. There's less room for confusion that way.

[cassiphone.livejournal.com]

I've always been of the opinion that the one with the cooler name should win out.

But then I'm also resistant to the idea of changing names at all because of the identity issues associated with it. I let my daughter have her father's name because his is more distinctive and he has more of a family history (my surname is one my mother invented after her divorce because she disliked her maiden name).

I use their name for family/school reasons to make things easier but on the whole I'm okay with us not sharing one. It's also not a bad thing to keep mine as a work name and have an 'undercover' name for household stuff...

[sols-light.livejournal.com]

As academics, which I will assume quite a few people reading this are, it gets another layer of complication, if you change your name, there's no guarantee your publication record will follow you properly. This is a major disincentive to female academics especially to do anything about their names.

That said, I've changed my name to something which is my mother's chosen surname after choosing to live with her instead of my father. That name isn't the one she was born with, but is the one she has her major qualifications under. I'm adopted anyway, so the whole point of genetic heritage is a bit moot and to me, what really matters is an easily pronounced name people can normally spell, since my first name, Nicolai usually screws people up enough.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

enhancing their link to diluted bloodlines with usurpation of old names

I'm not sure it's fair to condemn this. At this point, I'm an Irish/German mix. Chuckro has English/Jewish/Gypsy/Greek/and possibly some stuff I'm forgetting mixed in. Our children will have a Greek name. Despite the fact that, percentage-wise, they're more Irish than anything else, and that they're really not anything but American. If they were to choose a name from somewhere on the family tree, it would be a different origin, but no less legitimate than the origin they allegedly have.

In a couple more generations, Americans' bloodlines will probably be so diluted that last name won't be particularly indicative of anything.

[slackwench.livejournal.com]

If both parties change their names to something else unrelated to either ones' birth name, there really isn't a point to last names anymore. You might as well do away with them entirely.

[umeyard.livejournal.com]

So what brought on this tangent?

Me, I just want a short last name that comes at the beginning of the alphabet.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

I think it's fine the way it is. I think some women like changing it, and anyone who has a problem can take it on a case-by-case basis.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

I like what my boss did: Patrick Hayden married Teresa Nielsen and they became the Nielsen Haydens, no hyphen. They both changed their names.

Personally, I'm keeping my name. It's partly a sense of feminism (I'm not interested in family history so it's got nothing to do with feeling "ties" to anything), and party because absolutely NOTHING goes well with my first name. :)

Generally, I'm for go with the cooler name, and either both should change their names or neither. As for kids, well, I dunno? I liked the Roman naming system that way.

I wish I had a cool last name. Man. :(

[slackwench.livejournal.com]

We should go back to the original system: your last name is your job. In fact, we could go to further extremes and have your name as a whole be your job. You only get a name independent of that if you do something noteworthy enough to deserve it.

Alternately: you just get a given name. When you do something worth remembering, you get a title. Like "x the y" or "x <verb>".

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

I had teachers in high school - Quakers, so they're all about the gender equality - who combined their last names. One was Crauder, the other, Reuff, so they became Craudereuff, and their kids had that last name. How's that?