Back in the medieval ages when a woman was married to a man, they were basically considered property for my understanding and treated like an extension of the man’s person and family. So it was customary for women to take the man’s last name since they were being joined to his family. But now here in the 21st century women are fully independent and last names don’t really seem to mean much of anything. I mean what is Smith or McGregor or any last name really mean anymore? Especially in the digital age, lots of people have digital usernames like SarahSmith1727373. So the last name clearly doesn’t mean much anymore… Which leads me to wonder, why do the majority of women still take the man’s last name? Especially when some of them have a horrible last name? I have seen some butt ass ugly last names recently, like Fink, Weimer, Slotsky/Slotsky, Hiscock (no joke this is a last name), Hardman… And then you hear the woman’s name and it’s like something way more reasonable and less stupid sounding like Kingman, or Harrison, Walls, etc.
Especially in the digital age, lots of people have digital usernames like SarahSmith1727373. So the last name clearly doesn’t mean much anymore…
but you also just used 2 names in your example… others here already said the right stuff, but I reiterate, it’s a lot of symbolism helping create feelings of unity in a family unit, but also there are legal issues/benefits for changing a last name.
I’ve dated a few people who seemed progressive, and I’m a woke-ass queer, but names were a sticking point. I have a complicated welsh travesty of a name I would happily trade in for something shorter - so when I got engaged and I didn’t like his name either, and neither did he, I suggested we both pick something new and change our names together. I mean, if it’s no big deal for me to change my name, it shouldn’t be for him either, right? Anyway, I’m single now.
Well, that took a turn. Sorry to hear that! I love how picking/making a new together is becoming slightly more common that in earlier decades.
Yeah but it’s easy when both parents already had the same last name 🪕
My mother kept her last name. There was never an issue at school etc. I run into more issue now, everyone thinks my uncle (mom’s brother) is my dad because of the last names.
My wife and I think it is. I took her last name since it meant more to her.
Well, my last name isn’t my mom’s last name, it’s my dad’s, and her last name was her dad’s, then her husband’s. So why do I care, I don’t get a matrilineal name anyway.
I hyphenated, because we both had kids when we got married, and it made it easier to deal with the school stuff for my stepkids.
Otherwise, I really just don’t care because my family name is my dad’s name and it was only my mom’s name because she changed hers to his. Not that I didn’t care about my dad, was closer to him than my mom. I just mean I don’t feel like it means anything.
ETA: as the OP says, though - I really, truly don’t understand it when a lady has a cool last name and the man an awful one and they still use his. I used to work at a payroll place and saw this happen over and over, someone would be calling up for us to change their last name from, say, Valiant or DeLeon to Assing, or Fuckler or something . Really, why wouldn’t he be the one happy to change in that scenario?
Tradition, mostly. When I discussed this with my fiancee she just wants to - I certainly don’t care. My one cousin went with both hyphenated, in alphabetical order so hers was first.
It’s tradition in my country but not mandatory. The archaic government system is also easier to navigate through if a married couple have same the last name. Because it’s so common for a wife to take her husband’s last name, it immediately raises eyebrows when people claim to be married but have different surnames. In our case, my wife took my last name because she just likes it better than hers. It’s neutral and easier to pronounce.
You’re seriously wondering why women would want to take Hardcock? Buddy, I hate to be the one one to have to tell you this, I even hate to even type it, but women LOVE Hardcock. It’s a fun name. It’s fun to say. What woman wouldn’t want Hardcock coming out of their mouth? Plus you get to attend the family gatherings on holidays and family reunions. Just a woman, surrounded by Hardcocks. Hardcocks as far as the eye can see!
…why is everybody giggling?
My wife didn’t and years down the line she says she wish she had. We have to go through more with medical things and such to show we are related and it was like a simple checkbox for her to do it when we got married but to do it now is a major pain in the ass.
I took my partner’s last name because I like their family more than mine, and I liked the idea of no longer being associated with my family.
But I think most people just want to do what is normal or expected of them, so I would imagine that is why most women change their name. Not doing so would go against the grain, putting them in awkward situations where they have to explain they didn’t take the last name.
My partner likes my family more than hers, but has continued to keep her ex-husband’s surname because she likes it better than both her childhood one and mine.
…was her ex Hardcock?
No, it’s boring and generic. He name before sounded like a rude word, and mine is just weird and literally always mispronounced by everyone.
My wife did, despite me saying I’d rather she not. Me changing to her name was not legally possible in our situation (me US citizen, her JP citizen, both living in and married in Japan). (Edit: What I wanted to do was change to her name, but that doesn’t happen unless I give up US and my other citizenship, apply for and get JP citizenship, and choose her maiden name as my name or do that but a name combining hers and the sound from the start of mine rendered in kanji).
Her reasoning was that we could quickly and easily remove basically all doubt that we are related with just what ID we both always carry. Her usecase was one of us being critically injured or something and being able to gain access in the hospital or something else like that.
One other reason I imagine is to establish a single family name, especially with children in mind. I’m not sure it actually works better than a double damily name, but it probably seems so to some.
My husband and I were not married when our kids were born. I wanted to have the same name as my kids So I gave them my maiden name. I never really liked that name and I wasn’t particularly close to my dad, so when my husband and I got married, we all changed our names to his.
I also took my husband’s name when I got married. I personally am not a big fan of hyphenated names. For those that like them, fair enough, but they’re not for me. To me, the problem with hyphenated names is that while they seem a way to avoid the “whose name do we give the kids” problem, they just kick the problem down the road a generation. If you have a hyphenated name, and you marry someone who also has one, are you both going to start using a 4-part surname? How about the generations after that, are they going to use an 8, 16, or 32-part name?
Of course not. At some point, now or in the future, someone is going to have their surname dropped. It either happens when you get married, or it happens when your children or grandchildren themselves get married and have to decide which names to drop. Rather than putting that burden on your kids or grandkids, I think it’s better to make those hard decisions yourself. Better to just come up with a shared name for both partners and move forward together.
To all the people here arguing that it’s easier to have a family name, especially with children: It’s also possible that the husband takes the wife’s name. But from anecdotal evidence in my acquaintance, most men are very opposed to this idea. So if the woman wants a family name she has to change her name or have endless fights about it. That’s why most women I know did it.
Having one name is easier for social reasons. Going with the man’s name is easier for social reasons.
It all comes down to social pressure to keep the status quo. I even offered to take my wife’s last name and she declined and took mine instead.
We had a brief talk where I said I like my name and wouldn’t change it. I also said that while I prefer the tradition of her changing hers, that I understood it’s not really my choice. She did anyway
In Sweden, a couple can choos to have a new last name not related to either.
You can choose another last name when you get married in the US too, but people just don’t choose to for the most part. The marriage license name change is a shortcut to a regular name change that can be made through the courts.
Oh didn’t know that
Having one name (at least in common, using hyphenation) is easier for legal reasons too. If you have kids, and one parent doesn’t share a last name with them, you’ll have headaches at school, maybe crossing a border, unless you brought some extra legal documents with, etc.
Because it is easier to have 1 family name if you intend to have children.
Two short answers: Tradition and simplicity.
If you have different names, which one do the kids get? Also, it’s sometimes challenging to fill in school forms when your kid has a different last name than you.
This it the real answer. It’s usually just easier to do it because it’s the expected situation.
My mother took my father’s surname and kept her maiden name as a second middle name, then they named their children the same way. That ended up being the smoothest way to handle it for official documents.
Both, that’s what me and my wife did. It was recently allowed here, but it has been common in Spanish speaking countries for example.
I don’t really like both as a compromise.
What if your children did the same? And their children too?
After a while you’d have 30+ names in your last name.
When they get married and or get children they can pick only one to continue. So that the names don’t get super long indeed.
They get one per parent, not all of the previous ones. The child of Juan Lopez Sánchez and Ana Heredia Marín would be called Firstname Lopez Heredia. If this child had a child with Luisa Ribera Zapatero the kid would be Firstname Lopez Ribera.
By default the fathers last name goes first, but they can decide to swap the last names to put the mother’s first.
Exactly, this is a strange concept to get hung up on. In China and North and South Korea, a woman in a stereotypical heterosexual marriage keeps her name and the children get the father’s name. There are numerous traditions globally.
Yeah, but in South Korea they also give you pickles witch your pizza!
What does that have to do with this situation? Nothing. I’m just bored, and think it’s a weird thing they do…
How’s your day going?
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