silentwalk

This is a collection of letters written as opinions for the process of selecting a name after one’s marriage or naming to one’s own children. Many interesting options have come up regarding this change of names such as: putting middle name as husband’s name and last name as maiden name, not changing maiden name, putting a hyphen between husband’s name and maiden name, putting mother’s maiden name as child’s last name or together with mother’s and father’s name. The letters are written from varied groups in Philadelphia.

First letter is from Charlene McGrady who continued her maiden name after her marriage. She got married at the age of 33 when she was well established professionally, personally and financially. After her marriage she did find her life changed in a better sense but could not find any valid reason to change her well developed identity by changing her name. Hence she decided to continue her maiden name as her last name. Her husband also did not object for this and supported her view by saying that he had married her and not adopted her. For her daughter she gave her husband’s last name.

Second letter is from Liza M. Rodriguez Lavergne. This lady has a family tradition of women not changing their names after marriage as her grandmother and mother kept their maiden name even after their marriage. She was raised by her parents by reciting the names of four generations from each side. Her point is that keeping names from both maternal and paternal sides leads us to remember the names of a few generations of our ancestors. She also did not change her maiden name after marriage, except that she started putting her mother’s name in front of her maiden name on official documents, certificates. For their children her husband and she decided to keep names of both of them.

Third one is from Amy Verstappen. After her marriage she did not change her maiden name but decided to give her last name to her child. She thought this out logically. Her husband had plenty of relatives with his name but in her family after her and her sister their name was about to vanish. Her husband also supported her decision. Many people were shocked by this decision and asked different questions to both of them. Some of them asked that whether the child is from her husband or not? Or doesn’t her husband want to pass on his name to future generations? Though this decision was disputable for their society, they continued with it.

The fourth letter is from Spencer Clayton who is still unmarried. He told firmly that after his marriage his wife has to take his name and so should the child. His parents had divorced due to which he had suffered a lot by different kinds of irritating questions from people. He doesn’t want his child to face similar kind of problem. Moreover, if parents have different names then people might think that the child’s parents are not married. He would not mind if his wife wants to keep her maiden name along with his name as her last name.

The fifth letter is written by a lady named Amann Talerico who married in 1996. Both, she and her husband had come up with a totally novel idea of interchanging their middle names like adopting husband’s name by wife and wife’s maiden name by husband as their middle names keeping the last names same. She justifies their decision by saying that she is well established researcher with publications in her maiden name. It would have been much easier to change the middle name just to symbolize the marriage and change due to it. For their child they decided to give names of both as the child’s middle name though initially they found it difficult to see to have a name for their child different from their own names.

The last one is from Patricia Dixon who supported the traditional change in name very logically. According to her marriage is union of two souls and after marriage husband and wife no longer remain as separate entities. The family with husband, wife and their children represents a unit in the society which is symbolized by their one name. This feeling of one unit, one cannot get with hyphenated names from both sides that show a discrete nature of society. According to her giving a woman’s maiden name to a family doesn’t make a major difference except creating great confusion. Hence she concludes that the traditional way of changing the last names represents the real meaning of marriage and family.

Before reading these letters, I had no ideas about changing names after marriage. However, it raised various questions in my mind. Certainly, the point raised by Patricia in support of traditional method regarding representation of a unit by a family and its name has a strong appeal. However, how is it confusing if a family is given a woman’s maiden name? After all if having name of only one family is important for a united picture in the society, then why not a woman’s name? If marriage means to merge completely in one another then what is wrong in adopting a woman’s name as a family name? Is there any biological reason to have a name of a man’s family after marriage instead of a woman’s? The common point put by Charlene and Karen about not changing their names because they did not find any valid point in changing their well established identity for practical purposes, I feel is correct. Also if not a single man is ready to change his well established identity then why women do have to do this? Another common point of keeping hyphenated names such as keeping both maiden and husband’s name and for children putting both names together, I feel is a bit problematic. Everywhere they have to write their long hyphenated name which is totally impractical. The concept of changing names and starting a new life with new names is acceptable but to change only woman’s name is not acceptable. I remembered one of my friends who did not like her maiden name so when she got married she told her husband to keep a name of her choice. One of my cousin sisters has not changed her name after marriage and writes her maiden name everywhere. I feel that change of name is completely a private affair and different views by different people are possible. One cannot make a generalization or compulsion regarding it.