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From: bthomas@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Becky Thomas)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Name Change Upon Marriage?
Keywords: marriage names
Message-ID: <1990Aug16.191948.3908@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 18 Aug 90 15:24:35 GMT
References: <1157@tahoma.UUCP>
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
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In article <1157@tahoma.UUCP> bcstec!tahoma!kgf2173@uunet.uu.net (Kerry G. Forschler) writes:
>I'm interested in women's opinions about changing names when they
>are married.

I just got married a month ago, and decided to keep my name.
There were several reasons:

	- I'm working on a PhD in computer science, and have had a
	  journal article accepted under my birth name, so changing it
	  now would mean I wouldn't get credited with that article;
	  nobody would know that was me!  I've also begun to get a
	  tiny bit of name recognition among a very small set of
	  AI researchers, and I don't want to start over.

	- I do think I would be giving up a part of me if I adopted
	  someone else's name.  Friends have pointed out that I'm still
	  taking a man's name - it's just my father's instead of my
	  husband's.  But I have lived with that name all my life,
	  so it's *my* name, which was handed down from my father.
	  (My husband and I have decided to give our daughter(s) my
	  last name and our son(s) his, so that both get carried on.)

	- As Kerry points out, changing one's name makes it hard for
	  people to find you.

	- Plus, changing your name means going around changing all
	  kinds of documents - driver's license, social security card,
	  credit cards, bank accounts, school records.  I *hate*
	  doing paperwork, so this alone would probably have been
	  enough reason to keep my name.

What are the drawbacks?  At our wedding reception, I didn't have the
"fun" of hearing people use a new name for me - I know some people
who really find this to be exciting and fun, and I can understand
that.  Also, there's the annoyance of having to explain that yes, we
really are married, and no, I'm not Mrs. Van Norden and no, he's not
Mr. Thomas.  (When our wedding announcement appeared in my hometown
newspaper, the caption under the picture said "Becky and Bryan Van
Norden," even though I explicitly asked for the caption "Becky Thomas
and Bryan Van Norden."  Sigh.)  And then there's figuring out which name
to give to children.

While I think the tradition of the woman changing her name is
*in itself* fairly harmless, I don't like the historical significance.
The tradition of the wife submerging her identity and taking on the
new identity of "wife of So-and-so" is disturbing to me, and is
(IMO) outmoded.  But in the end this is a personal decision, and I
think each person should make it in terms of his or her own opinions
and values.

Becky Thomas
bthomas@cs.stanford.edu


>--
>Kerry G. Forschler   		 |  Voice: 206-237-1274 (work)
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--
--

Becky Thomas
bthomas@cs.stanford.edu