After a couple decides to get married, there are often many, many decisions to make. Along with where to live and how many guests to have at the ceremony, many brides wrestle over whether or not to keep a maiden name or to adopt the name of her husband. (Even in the this age of women’s lib, not many men feel that they have to contemplate changing their own last names, although most marriage licenses include the option of a name change for either spouse.)
There are a number of reasons to keep a maiden name, and a number of reasons to change your name to that of your husband. It is a personal choice that will depend on a number of factors. Among my group of friends and neighbors, there are married women who have kept their maiden names, married women who have adopted their husband’s names, and married women who have taken on a hyphenated or combination name. I don’t think anyone raises an eyebrow over anyone else’s choice.
Should you keep your maiden name? For and against
You might want to keep it if the name is truly and important part of your daily identity. Would changing the name make you feel differently about yourself in a negative way. For example, if you have always thought of yourself as independent, would the name change seem somewhat against that belief? Do you have an ethic name that would get lost?
Names shouldn’t affect your sense of self, would be the counter-argument. However, it is a pretty weak one, since names do help us self-identify from an early age.
Do you have a professional career in which your name has earned recognition? Changing it to something else might confuse others or affect your career.
On the other side of this, you have to decide how having different names might affect your family, should you have children. Whose name do the children take? Will it be confusing if you have a different name from everyone else in your family?
What about a sense of women’s equality? Many brides feel that it isn’t fair and equal to have to give up their names when their husbands do not. Taking on someone else’s name put you in a subservient position.
An answering argument here could be that you are most likely choosing to keep your father’s name instead of your husband’s name, and either way, it is still a man’s name. Or you may have a conservative view that taking on your husband’s name is a sign of your respect for him as head of the household.
You also might want to keep your maiden name if you just don’t like your husband’s name, or if it doesn’t flow with your first name. A good example comes from the movie the wedding singer, when one bride anticipates ending up with the name “Julia Guila.” I once had an acquaintance in college whose name was “Cindy Savage.” She couldn’t wait to get married so the prank phone calls would stop.
There is no real counter argument to this one. Very few people fall in love with the name and not the person. Sometimes you luck out with a nice sounding name and sometimes you just don’t.