Taking your wife’s surname really freaks a lot of people out, at least if Donna and Mike Salinger’s story is any indication.
As Donna and Mike entered their wedding reception, an unwitting announcer told the expectant crowd, “Ladies and gentleman, put your hands together for the new Mr. and Mrs. Salinger!”Some guests clapped, some chuckled at what they presumed was a joke and most looked at one another in confusion. The couple spent the entire reception and some of their honeymoon explaining to people what they had done.
Other couples are reported to be using hyphenated names, not just for women, but for men as well.
Sam Van Hallgren, 32, co-host of the movie-review podcast Filmspotting, had to explain himself not just to his listeners but even to his co-host, Adam Kempenaar. Kempenaar was caught by surprise the first time Van Hallgren introduced himself at the top of their show with his new name. Van Hallgren was formerly Sam Hallgren until he wed Carrie Van Deest in August and they both took on the new, combined names.Van Hallgren received a scathing note from a longtime listener with a subject line that read, “Sam, turn in your man card.” The listener asked what “sissy juice” the host was drinking.
If Susie and I ever got married we’d both keep our last names, because her last name is too cool to give up and I’m not going as “Joel Johnson-Stalker.”
Personally, a name is just a name. If you want to take your wife’s as your own I don’t see that as any more weird than a wife taking her husband’s.
More men taking wives’ last names [USA Today via Kottke]
I have often thought that a couple might create an amalgam of both partner’s names;
ie - Johnson + Stalker = Stalkson. But yeah, Stalker is way too cool a last name to mess with.
If you’re going to assume your wife’s last name or otherwise hey thats your business.
My wife and I are on the traditional side and have no trouble going to bed at night without thinking that marriage is legalized prostitution and that I have effectively made her my property by her taking my name, no matter how loud feminist harpies may shriek.
But I digress.
I’m down, I’m hip, you take her name, she take your name, go ahead, make up your own name, go crazy. But for the sake of the children, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, Pretty Please with McDonalds Chicken Nuggets on top, do not hyphenate your names. I mean seriously, what kind of precedent does that set, what are your poor kids going to do? Do they get to pick their last name? Do they get the whole long hyphenated trainwreck, imagine trying to learn how to say hyphenated as a youngster, and then learning how to spell your ridiculously long hyphenated last name. And then what happens when your child gets married to another kid with a hyphenated last name, what the hell do they do then, words escape me. You’re gonna end up with people that have like 8 hyphens in their last names.
PLEASE, for the children, pick ONE!
If you do not intend to have children then do whatever the fuck you want.
i don’t see why that is such a big deal. if your kid’s have hypenated names, and they marry some who does to, just pick one. maybe if it’s a guy, he keeps his dad’s, if it’s a girl, she keeps her mom’s, or something.
i figure, when i’m ready to marry in about 10 years, gay marriage will be legal then, so we’ll have to do something. my last name is an old family name, which really will die if i don’t have kids, so i’ll definitely keep mine.
my sister just got married, so now they are the Beaugh- Grymes’s. seems reasonable to me.
This makes me think of the “creative name spelling” trend that originated in more ethnically diverse communities, and has since spread to a lot of white-bread people that I have met lately. For a long time, there were many proponents of this trend and it kept growing until it became not only popular in black culture, but also “the thing” for boring white people to do. Now, I have seen the pendulum swing back the other way. Since there are a bunch of white people trying to copy the hip black culture, the hip black culture has gotten a little sick of it and is starting to swing back to more old-fashioned names.
I think the same thing is going to happen with the last name stuff discussed here. There are a bunch of people who have been hyphenating last names at marriage, or the man taking the woman’s name, or creating an amalgam of both names, etc. By the time two kids with hyphenated names get together and think about making a family and inflicting a four-name hyphenation on their kids, those kids will all change their names to “Smith” or “Jones” as soon as legally possible.
Van Hallgren is so much more kickass than plain old Hallgren…there is no sissy in making your name more rockin
A married couple sharing a name is a cool thing, and part of why I changed mine when I married. I think I tried to talk my husband into coming up with a new name for both of us, but he wouldn’t have it. However, I know a few couples who have done that and I think it’s great. I also know a couple who chose their married name by taking both sets of parents last names [using the mothers' maiden names] and picking one out of a hat.
Rye, you make me laugh :) Your digression sounds like a little too much protestation. Anyway, my maiden name is 11 letters long and of German origin, yet I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t spell it. I grew up in a heavily German & Polish community and there were innumerable difficult, long names, but no one ever had trouble spelling hir own. If a kid really can’t learn to spell hir name, it’s not the name that’s the problem. I also have known people who had hyphenated names from birth and to them, it’s just what they were named. Whether or not random strangers could accept it simply didn’t matter.
Of course, names are powerful things and how a person carries a name conveys a great deal about hir. Not everyone has what it takes to be more than a John Smith [no offense to any JS's out there - I merely use that as an example for its generic-ness].
I used to be all stupidly contemptuous of people who chose to do “weird” things with their names or their kids’ names. But, the more I’ve come to appreciate the value of people being who they want to be, without giving a shit about uptight cultural norms, the more I enjoy the delightful things people do with names. That said, I have to add that I once heard someone call her child Latrina. Clearly a case where checking with a dictionary before committing anything to a birth certificate might have been a good idea!
My wife and I joked about it, because of the connotation that my surname holds. I honestly had no problem taking her last name, but we knew that we’d catch too much crap for it.
But we still use her surname for reservations at restaurants. ‘Wilkins’ is much easier for a 16-year old hostess to hear than ‘Faust.’ And less chance of butchering the pronunciation.
my dad and i used to do reservations under the name “Stumbles.” Then, we’d trip when they called the name.
my sister is very easy to embarrass.
Adam: I am totally stealing that, how funny.
I’m reminded of my “Ketamine, party of five” story now.
Even after a few wonderful years of marriage I still think my Hungarian born wife took my name since hers was utterly unpronounceable to Americans. Truth be told It took me several months too. If I had a wacky name I may take another, but have female friends who kept names like Butts and Lipshitz.
Once again, I’m with Eddie. Sometime this summer i’m going to have my last name legally changed from Tirman to von Tirman. Way cooler.
My wife and I strongly considered picking out a totally different last name rather than hyphenating or one taking the others’.
In the end we chickened out and hyphenated - mostly for the parents’ sake.
Oh hells NO. No way no how should a man take solely the woman’s name. Can’t say I’m a fan of the hyphenating, either. I’m ok with her dropping her middle name, assuming her last name as middle, and then taking my last name. Or just keeping them separate, and each person keeping their own. Ehhhhh, who cares though, to each his own.
You all are making the family tree tracer’s life a nightmare…
A good friend of mine in Germany took his wife’s name a few years ago when they got married. Now Voelkmann, formerly Rietz. I think that name translates to Man of The People or something. I don’t see anything “sissy” about it… so they broke a social norm. good for them!
Speaking of Family tree tracing… being from Nordic ancestry myself, i’ve thought it would be hard tracing family history when all children get a new last name based on your father’s first name. Nordic music artists as examples…
Jay Jay Johanson (son of Johan). Bjork Gudmundsdottir (daughter of Gudmund)…
I’ve gotten to that point in my family tree and don’t know where to start… doesn’t help that my ancestor that came to the US apparently severed all ties when he left Sweden. Oh well!
interesting that pete has such a revulsion to the idea. be sure you get a wife who can stay in the kitchen, too.
From a genetic or family tree research standpoint, it makes far more sense not necessarily for marriage but to give children the maternal surname. Daddy’s are questionable, but you always know who the mother is…
My wife and I took each other’s names, no hyphens, and now we have an obnoxiously long last name (two words, not a mash-up) that no one properly pronounces. Doesn’t bother us. Our kids can use both or pick their favorites.
YMMV.