Married names and titles

[Morgeruat]

i took morgies last name, but then i dislike my family. if i could erase being a hivner i would! and i also see the closeness of a nuclear family having the same last name. what happens if janice shifflet's mom is called while she is sick at school. ok so they call her at work. if janice is unable to tell them her mom's name, they may just assume she is mrs. shifflet. but she's not. "no pam shifflet works here, you must have a wrong number." in a large company this is very likely. now what happens if janice need emergency medical attention but only with mom's permission? ouch! besides the division that can happen with two different names. i do think some names need to be continued. and ahyphenation can help. then there are women who are proffesionals before marriage. so that dr. woods is also mrs. strehl. and my own dear best friend has decided she will keep her name when married (although i think this is a manifestation of her not truly wanting ot be with the man she is with) becuase of being an artist and her work that is already copyrighted under her name. funny thing is she grew up as a campbell, is now a wolfe, and has yet to be married? she changed her last name because she did not ever like her father. so she went back to her mothers maiden name. names can be changed but unfortunately if it is the fathers last name you must have permission from him to change it.

either way i like being a morgan, and someday i hope that we have custody of my oldest daughter and she can be one too.

p.s. sorry for posting under nathan's name but it is hard sometimes to remember to log into my own. hmmm....guess i share more than his last name

[Yorick]

Surnames were initially
1.Your profession.
2.Your place of origin.
3.Your fathers name.
4.Some other significance.


Examples:
1.Baker, Taylor, Butcher, Shepherd, Miller, Alderman, Landesmann, etc.
2.De la Motte (of the Mount), Van Der Aa (from the Aa river)
3. DonaldSON, WilliamSON (Mac, O' = son of) MACDonald, MACWilliam, O'Donald, William bar Donald etc.
4.Robert Bruce (Robert the Brave, as Bruce = Brave)

Would it not be better, if redesigning social naming - yet working within the current mode, so links to the past are not broken - to be inventing names for women at this point?

Names in other cultures, such as the Mongoloid cultures of East Asia and the Americas had more emphasis on the meaning rather than simply the sound.

You could earn a name.

What's in a name? My name, "Hugh" means light or spirit. I've long been aware of my names meaning. In my church and my social circle in New York, I endeavour to live up to that name by being a source of light, energy, encouragement and spirit to those I know. I sing. I encourage. I look for the positive in a persons situation.

On another message board I took the name "No". No is a negative. I think perhaps it influenced the way I negatively communicated on that board.

We all chose our pseudonyms for various reasons. Some of us gave them more meaning than others. "Yorick" was a Bard. Imagine if we chose aspects of our real names?

Vanessa's name means 'Butterfly'. We often remarked how 'Butterfly-like' she could be. I wrote a song about that once Yet it was the name she was given at birth.

I have a friend who after visiting native Americans in far north Canada, returned with the name they gave her - Nayokah - added on the front of her name.

When I was in SIngapore I sometimes used the name "Guang Hu" which I chose because "Guang" means light (the same as Hugh) while "Hu" was phonetically similar to Hugh. My name thus meant "Light Lake" in Chinese.

Anyway, now I'm disjointedly rambling with purposeless randomness. Time to bid thee farewell.

[Moiraine]

Originally posted by Yorick: quote: Originally posted by Moiraine: Yorick, in your first post and this last one, why do you automatically assume that if there is one common name, it has to be the man's ? What will you do if the lady of your life ever asks you to use her name ? For the sake of sharing and unity ?

By taking the female fathers name, I'd be losing the link to my own family. I can't just singlehandedly reorganise western society overnight. I could change my name to incorporate her maiden name as a second middle name (a fourth name). She could for example keep her maiden name in the same way.

However what's the point at this stage? All the surnames have been derived from males thus far. Even to say take her mothers maiden name, is still taking a males name.

What I'm advocating is working within the current western social naming system, yet initiating a female lineage tracing system AS WELL.

Not reinventing the wheel, but adding spokes. [/QUOTE]I understood that. But that was not my question. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I'll rephrase it. I saw two successive post of yours : a first one, raw, wher you show your gut feelings - and then one that is more of a thoughtful reflexion.

In the first one, you posted "So. If I had a wife that wanted to keep her father's name, there had better be a good (professional or phonetic) reason. If it indicates seperatist reasons that may undermine the unity a marriage requires, there's no way I'd go through that bullcrap again.". So, I can picture you, facing the lady you love, and telling her that she HAS to make that sacrifice to you in the name of love. While you, as a male, will almost certainly never be faced with such a demand. So I'd like you to play fair and ask yourself what would you, in your deepest core, would feel faced with such a request. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Ryanamur]

Originally posted by Kakero: Overhere it is forbidden for the wife to take the husband surname. because it will be viewed as the brother marry his own sister. a very very bad thing.

In Quebec (Canada), it's also illegal for a woman to take her husband's name. The reason is that they think it gets too confusing trying to keep track of the women after they marry!!!!

The law is actually really idiotic. For exemple, my wife and I married in Saskatchewan where she legally changed her last name to mine. We have two children bearing my last name - one of which changed his last name to match our last name after we got married. Once we moved to Quebec, the government would not recognize my wife's legal name (my last name) and forced her to change it back to her maiden name... even if she never lived here before!!!
They actually wanted our son to change his last name to his original birthname too (different from my wife's maiden name as she was married once before me)... we managed for him to keep his name but they just refused for my wife to keep mine.

[Ryanamur]

Originally posted by Moiraine: I understood that. But that was not my question. [img]smile.gif[/img] I'll rephrase it. I saw two successive post of yours : a first one, raw, wher you show your gut feelings - and then one that is more of a thoughtful reflexion. [/QB]

Moiraine, you missed this at the top of the second post.

"Hmmm. I was... inebriated when I wrote that last post."

That would explain why he was so emotional about the issue. As for the second part of your post, I think we both know what Yorick would do:

What he thinks, deep down inside, is right depending on the actual circomstances.

[ 07-08-2003, 02:43 PM: Message edited by: Ryanamur ]

[Spelca]

Hmm, when my parents got divorced my mum kept my father's surname. I guess it was because it was easier, and everybody knew her by that name, and we (my sis and I) were used to it, and also her surname is the most common one in Slovenia and there were only 7 entries in the phonebook of Slovenia with my father's surname at that time. So that was the best choice. I don't really care about that whole continuing family names thing... I wouldn't mind changing my name, though I am more comfortable with my own surname. Not because it's mine, but because I'm used to it... and my first name looks nice with it. [img]tongue.gif[/img] Though I did speak with my boyfriend about this, and he'd actually like to take my surname. But I don't think that would be fair (only one of us having to go through the trouble of changing names), so we both agreed we'd join our names when we got married. But his would come first, and mine last because it sounds better that way. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Aelia Jusa]

Originally posted by Yorick: The thing about a woman keeping her name is that she's still keeping a man's name. Her father's. The only way a fair nonsexist system would work is for women to keep their mother's name, and guys to keep their father's. But even then it's still sexist. And where do you go back to? Due to out patriarchal society, all surnames are from men at some point (in anglo saxon society.) In Nordic society it's been different. The singer Bjork for example has the surname (translated) Goodmansdaughter. To answer the question, my (ex)wife kept her fathers surname and did not take mine. We are now divorced. Reach your own conclusions if you like.

I'll respond to this even though I realise it was emotionally (and alcoholically ) charged . It's interesting that you say "[she] kept her father's surname and did not take mine". Yours is also your father's isn't it? Surely it is either she kept her name and not yours, or kept her father's and didn't take your father's. And so of course, when you say "The thing about a woman keeping her name is that she's still keeping a man's name. Her father's." - you will always have your father's name too. Sounds okay to me

Anyway for me it's not really a sexist thing necessarily (though the Ms thing is ). If I was a lesbian and marrying my girlfriend then I wouldn't take her name or want her to take mine either. My name is part of who I am - it's my label, what I am identified by. If I walk into a room and someone on the other side with one of my friends says 'who is that' they don't say, 'ah well, that's a woman who likes sport and shopping, she is a student at university, owns a cat and lives at home', they say 'that's Melanie Hunter'. So just because I am married my identity hasn't changed such that half my name needs to be different.

I don't agree that it is necessary to have a unified family to all have the same name. Surely the act of living together and making the legal commitment and wearing the rings is telling enough! Nor would I have a problem with, if I married Bob Jones for our family to be referred to as the 'Joneses'. Because I would be a 'Jones' insofar as that identified our family, however I am also a Hunter.

[Father Bronze]

When my wife and I married, I was very disappointed that she was unwilling to take my name. In some regards I am very traditional and I believe that having a single family name brings a sense of unity to the family.

We compromised and she hyphenated her name. Part of her argument for keeping her name is "I've always had this name. That is who I am." And the other part is that her maiden name ("Sample" -- really, I'm not joking!) is cooler than mine. When we came to name our children, we agreed that the children would have her maiden name as their middle name. So my children now have my last name and her maiden name.

For my ten year anniversary (next year), I'm considering changing my name to add her maiden name as a second middle name. The irony is that since she kept her maiden name and the kids share her name, I'm the oddball in the family that doesn't share both names.

And Moiraine: I'm pretty sure that my wife married me because I can cook She's said so herself on many occasions.

-- edited to correct typos and misspellings -- oops --

[ 07-08-2003, 07:21 PM: Message edited by: Father Bronze ]

[Cloudbringer]

I plan to take my fiance's last name when we marry. It'll mean alot of paperwork and notifying places, I'm sure and it's not like I haven't had MY name for several decades, but I'm taking a big, emotional step and the changing of my name is symbolic thing for us. He realizes it's a major concession/change for me and I'm cool with that. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Cloudbringer]

Just a note for Aelia:

I have a friend who kept her name after she married. Actually she hyphenated but the people where her husband worked wouldn't use the full name and she finally took back her maiden name. Now she and her husband have different last names and their kids have hyphenated ones. Makes addressing a Christmas card interesting... Thing is, they do seem to be fine as a family unit, BUT they are both extremely home-oriented (the wife doesn't work outside the home- she did some substitute teaching after the kids were already in or near their teens, but she was a stay at home mom for their early years and now) and worked extra hard on the family and communication anyway. So it's hard to say how it would have gone had they not been so intense about their family unit. I do know that they have had many incidents where they had to explain their name situation to doctors, neighbors, parents of their kids' friends etc. Sometimes it was easy, sometimes quite awkward and occasionally the kids suffered because the other kids and their parents assumed things about the family (that the mother wasn't married to the father or that it was a forced union for the kids' sake or whatever) but they survived. [img]smile.gif[/img] So yes, from my experience you can raise a family with different names.


My question to you, though, is do you really think that just changing your name somehow re-defines you as an individual? I'm curious because it seems that some women feel that way.

I have thought about the whole subject, obviously ( ) and came to the conclusion that I don't think the name change will affect who I am on any basic level. I am 'me', no matter what name I use. I have various nicknames on and offline and a 'real' name but I never think of myself as 'changed' in any way when I use a name not on my birth certificate!

I'm going to take Jim's last name when we marry- to me it's not only tradition, but a way of showing I'm committing to a marriage with him and making us a NEW family unit. I don't feel I will be made different by it, or not in any debilitating or negative way, I'll just have to get used to it after all the years I've used my current name. If anything, to me, it's a positive, outward sign of my love and willingness to make a life with him. It's not on quite the same scale, of course, but he made the same 'symbolic' gesture when he bought the engagement ring I'm wearing. It says he is committed and wants to make his life with me. [img]smile.gif[/img] He is happy I decided to take his name but never pressured me to do so, which makes me all the more willing to do it.

I'm more worried about my credit cards, driver's license and the like than being changed by the name swap! I used to think that, back when I was in my 20's "Oh yah, no way a man is stealing MY identity or subborning MY person by making me change my name! No way!" But nowadays, I don't feel that's what happens at all. Maybe it's my 'advanced years' ? LOL

I think it is a personal decision for the most part and for some women it really makes a difference to them, (obviously it did to my friend and Father Bronze's wife), but I guess I don't think of my name as being an extension of my inner self in that way and my fiance's name isn't a hard one to spell...LOL. True, it's how I've been known til now and I suppose it changes one's perspective, but in this case I am willing to do that because I'm making a major life change. [img]smile.gif[/img] I'm thinking of the change as a positive one- a new begininng in my life. I have toyed with keeping my maiden name as that 'fourth' name Yorick mentioned. Not sure about that, though.