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From: colsmith@iwlcs.att.com
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Name Changing
Message-ID: <85454@aerospace.AERO.ORG>
Date: 13 Sep 90 14:57:39 GMT
Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Reply-To: colsmith@islcs.att.com
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Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org


I know it's a bit late in the discussion, but a friend mentioned to me that
soc.feminism was talking about changing names at marriage.  In particular,
someone asked if any couple had made up a new last name.  Indeed that is 
where Colsmith originated, we made it up and took it as our last name.

We are very happy with the name (and the marriage :-)) and would highly
recommend the concept to other couples.  A friend of mine did the same 
thing last year, she and her SO picked the last name of Forest.  It's 
nice, you get a name that isn't "mine" or "yours," but purely "ours."

A coworker who recently found out about us making up our name was really
impressed and said if he had known that you could do it, he and his wife 
might have done it.  Neither of them felt particularly strongly about her
taking his name, but they wanted to have the same last name.  He didn't
know it was legal.  Legally it's fairly easy to change your name, and very 
easy to change it at time of marriage.

We haven't had any trouble about it except that my husband had a hard time 
getting a passport with our new name.  The State Department is very sexist,
they let women change their names to anything at marriage, no problem, but 
have different rules for men.  Actually I think men would benefit more from 
the ERA than women, but that's another article . . .

Marcia Colsmith