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Married or Maiden Name: How To Choose
How to choose a last name that satisfies husband and wife.
by Kelly Utt-Grubb
My husband was open to whatever arrangement might make me happy, but the only nontraditional options I knew about at the time were keeping my name or hyphenating it. I looked for professional guidance, but—by the time the stack of wedding books on my kitchen table had grown so tall that I had to eat in the living room—I realized there just wasn’t any.
To make a long story short, I took my husband’s last name. Gasp! I know, I know. And why did I do such a thing, you ask? Mostly because Utt and Grubb didn’t exactly lend themselves to melodious combinations—Grutt and Uttubb didn’t cut it—and I wanted our family to have a unified “team name.”
Taking his last name was just as awful for me as you might imagine. The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach began when our officiant—against my emphatic instructions—pronounced us “Mr. & Mrs. Sam Grubb.” I felt like I’d had the wind knocked out of me right there in the wedding garden. I guess that’s what happens when you’re proceeding with a decision that you know deep down isn’t right for you.
By the time our first child was born two years later, I had come to the conclusion that, for me, embracing Utt and Grubb in all of their terrible-sounding glory was the only authentic way to go. I hyphenated my last name and our son’s, and by the time our second son was born a couple more years later—drum roll please—my husband had decided to hyphenate his name too. He said that when he talked to our boys about things like equality and marriage being a partnership, he wanted those values reflected in his actions.
When we hear about what we’re supposed to do and about the difficulties surrounding our options, we typically walk away missing two very important pieces of the puzzle that—when taken to heart—totally change the landscape of family naming.
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1 Lin // Nov 13, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I subscribe to the “make the choice that makes you happiest/fits you best” motto.
But *do* think about all the choices from the “traditional” to the modern and why those exist.
As a feminist, I can’t see taking one’s husband’s last name as a Feminist choice, even if a feminist makes it.
That *doesn’t* make someone a bad feminist, however. It just doesn’t further the cause, in my eyes.
And that’s fine. Because not every aspect of our lives can be lived for a cause. We have to live for ourselves as well.
So long as people are not manipulated or guilt tripped into a decision, so long as there is discussion and thought put into the decision (we do not make our choices in a vacuum), I don’t see an issue.
2 Jenny // Oct 1, 2008 at 9:46 am
I honestly believe that this issue stays a complete personal idecision. I always wanted to keep my maiden name. When I got married my husband did not feel the same way, needless to say, I decided to take his. After 10 yrs of marraige we got divorced. We had 2 children which obvoiusly had “our” surname. After the divorce I took my maiden name back - for a few reasons. None of which was revenge, seeing that I get along very nicely. I got married again and decided to keep my maiden name. Again for a few reasons. The first reason being my children - they did want me to have another surname although they accept my maiden name as being my surname. Having my husbands daughter from his first marraige also living with us, make it understandable for my children not to want me to change surname. They would feel like the outsiders to a family of 5. I understand where they are coming from and I am happy to keep my maiden name. Maybe one day when they are living their own lives I can consider this again.
3 Gabriella // Sep 26, 2008 at 1:36 pm
My long-term live-in boyfriend and I have been having this back and forth, so I started looking online for opinions and arguments. I must say, I am so disappointed in both the men and women who say that because it is tradition, how dare we rogue women stray! I love my boyfriend very much, and me choosing not to take his name does not change that in any way. He is his own person, and I am mine. I did compromise to a hyphenation of our names, and to our future children taking his last name.
I have been S- for the last few decades, though not always. I was born to a single mother (who, incidentally, is a hyphenator). I also have a close connection with my father who adopted me and gave me the name S-. It is not only out of a selfish need for identity, but a reverence to his selflessness that I am keeping my name. And anyone who says that a woman must take a man’s name to keep unity in the household- that is blatantly untrue. I have lived it, and I am thankful to have had such a strong female role model as my mother.
4 Peter // Aug 19, 2008 at 3:33 pm
If a man wrote this, it would be slightly different. I believe in tradition and all things that go with it, including the fact of a woman changing her name to her husband’s name. This indicates unity, loyalty, equality, honor, commitment, teamwork and permanent companionship.
Too much change in today’s lifestyle gets a little aggressive. People, including women, must get back to the simpler things in life. Can’t anyone remember when a man was a man and a woman was a woman. Today a person can be half and half. Maybe we all have to watch some old Bogart movies to get a grip in our lives today.
5 Judy McKinley // Jul 1, 2008 at 3:52 pm
I loved this article! It recapped my own experiences many years ago, except that she didn’t address what to do in the case of divorce. In my case I kept my maiden name, then took my husband’s name when our SON was born. In my mind I was matching not my husband but our son (should that have been our first clue?).
I kept my maiden name as my middle name, and gave that middle name to my sons as well. Many years later they wanted to know why Daddy didn’t have the same middle name as “everybody else” in the family!
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