Taking wife's last name?

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I had a second cousin who kept her maiden name but made up a “new” last name for the kids, taking parts of both her last name and her husband’s. For example: husband is Smith, wife is Jones, so they name the kids “Smones” (not their real names, and the made-up name was actually one you might find in the phone book; it wasn’t anything weird). It was totally confusing for everyone – teachers, doctors’ offices, etc., because nobody’s names matched. I wouldn’t advise this, simply for the sake of practicality. But do what works for you. This isn’t a moral issue here.
 
As a general thought, what is the point of a last name anyway? There are so many of us now, that a lastname+firstname combination rarely uniquely identifies a person, a last name rarely uniquely identifies a family. It is no longer tied to a person’s role in society. Now various numbers given to us by the government are used as an identifier.

What is the purpose of a shared name? Why not just go with a first name, or a firstname + middle name for each individual?
 
dfp42 said:
My last name ok it’s just very hard to pronounce as to hers. It was something that came up in conversation and I never really thought about it before. Our two last names I don’t believe would go well together. I will more than likely express to keep mine as I know my immediate family would probably take it the wrong way. It’s a touchy topic though as a name is more than just a name. Look at Jesus Christ for example. If his name was Jesus Jones, it wouldn’t be the same. Wasn’t there a custom in the past that whatever your name was, that what you were or identified as. Ie. Smith?

I’ll pray about the right choice. I’m not stressing it to be honest. Thank you all for the wonderful opinions.
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Christ wasn’t Jesus’ last name, it is a title (means Messiah or Anointed one).
 
rcmama said:
FWIW there are many countries where it is normal for a wife to not take a husbands name. In many places only siblings share a last name.
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We know many immigrant families and many of them come from backgrounds like this. It’s not so weird!

I knew a couple at our Catholic church where the husband shed his last name in favor of his wife’s. It happens – maybe not often, but it isn’t really a moral issue.

I have a super cool maiden name and my husband’s last name is somewhat unfortunate – it has a double entendre meaning which is kind of unfortunate, although it’s not a terribly embarrassing name. On our wedding day, during our first dance, he told me that he thought I should keep my last name. So, I did, even though I had already signed the marriage license with his. I never went through with officially changing it in any other capacity, and I’ve been happy with that decision. Our children have his last name at his insistence (which surprised me, actually), but he has said before that he hopes our daughters marry men with cooler last names so they can change them.

I don’t see this as a PC or liberal issue at all, though. It’s just a personal choice. We are a very conservative family. It’s just a matter of preference. Like someone else said, it’s just a name!!!
 
I’ll admit, I like the idea of spouses at least combining their names, like a lot of Latin cultures (traditionally Catholic and not PC:rolleyes:). I dated someone with four last names, his family was from Spain, Central and South America, with hints of other European ancestries. I thought it was a cool way of honoring all the grandparents. His parents are married, his mother kept her maiden name (common, husband and wife keep their names and give the kids both).

I’ve thought of taking my dad’s original surname (lost due to a “sea change”) and passing it to my children somehow. It’s a beautiful Italian name that no other Italian American I know has…and it will die, at least on the American side of the Atlantic (to my knowledge). Due to it being changed when my father was still young, my brother doesn’t carry it. But my family’s lost a lot of our culture and we’ve been trying to go back to the “roots on the Boot” so to speak.

It’s funny, because I’ve got a very Gaelic first name (with Anglicized pronunciation, which I don’t like as much as the Gaelic). So, I’ve thought of reclaiming the Gaelic pronunciation of my first name and my dad’s Italian last name. What a way to honor my Gaelic and garlic, so to speak 😉
 
sanctamaria17 said:
I’ve thought of taking my dad’s original surname (lost due to a “sea change”) and passing it to my children somehow. It’s a beautiful Italian name that no other Italian American I know has…and it will die, at least on the American side of the Atlantic (to my knowledge). Due to it being changed when my father was still young, my brother doesn’t carry it. But my family’s lost a lot of our culture and we’ve been trying to go back to the “roots on the Boot” so to speak.
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To pass your family name on to your kids you can always use it as a middle name. Thats what my mother did with her maiden name. She never uses her real middle name. Its a good way to pass on names. You can have one child with the Italian last name as a middle name than have 2 middle names for other kids. This is a good way to start a tradition to keep a name going. There are many unique names in my family Ive considered passing on that way.

The multiple last name tradition is like you said not just Spanish and Italian but also French, German, Russian, etc. The single dominant last name is really an Anglo-Saxon tradition. You see it in Scandinavia as well as in Germany (though you see combined last names there too). Actually if you were to combined last names in the American way you would need to mix the two together in a clever way or attached the two together as a single name :p.
 
But no one knows you by your middle name. I’d rather combine or give it to all my kids…Because it will die. No one I know State-side has that name. And part of it is me protesting against cultural mandates to anglicize everything ;-)…Like me wanting to name a future daughter Chiara and everyone’s wondering why I wouldn’t name her Clare. Or me wanting to name a future son Dante and people telling me he’ll be acting like he’s on Jersey Shore or something asinine like that…

Part of it is that I’ve been having a huge back to the roots experience since my late teens. The more I try that surname with my own name, the more I like it, the more it sounds like me. I didn’t even realize how much I thought about it till discussing a course of study with an academic adviser (I chose courses on Italian and Renaissance history one semester). I mentioned my own Italian ancestry and how we’ve lost a lot of it. He asked me if I thought about taking our original surname…I’ve been seriously considering it for two years. I also plan on going to Italy and finding my family. I just need God to open that door and let me know when that time is right…

After going through all of that, why is it a big deal if I don’t take a husband’s name? As we’ve seen, in many traditionally Catholic cultures, women do not (Puerto Rican lady who lived next door to me kept her name…very devout Christian family, husband and wife adored each other, just part of her culture). It’s the personal decision and discernment of both spouses, not a matter of Catholic moral teaching. It doesn’t make spouses any less united to each other. I will still be one flesh with my husband, devoted completely till one of us goes back to God, will still wear my ring. I don’t think God’s going to look at me at Judgment and say, “Sancta, you did the best you could, despite XYZ sins but keeping that NAME??? :tsktsk:”

All of this to say, sir, if you want to take your wife’s name, there’s nothing too “PC”, “unmanly”, “un-Catholic” or immoral about it. Go right ahead! 👍
 
I am a woman with not only a coolsounding last name that is easy to pronounce regardless of your first language, it also has a cool story to it.

I have always resented that because my brother is a man, he can give it to his kids and as a lowly woman I can`t. People laugh when I say I want to keep my last name. Of course I suspect it is because deep down these woman wished they had th guts to stand up to their husbands and keep their last name.

I also think that the way woman not only raise their kids nowadays they are expected to pay at least half the bills as well and they can`t even give their last name to their kids is worse degradation than being confined to the home.

With all that said and done however, I do understand personal preferences and strongly believe each adult is free to choose whatever last name they want. Considering your parents feelings is not an issue in this case. It is your choice

CM
 
davy39 said:
In this PC age, about anything goes.People have three names, four names and I’ve heard of one with five.
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Actually, in Spain and countries influenced by Hispanic culture, having four or five name is pretty common.

As for the US, I think whatever name a couple picks to share is fine. A former mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, got his last name by merging his last name of birth with the last name of his bride. Villar + Raigosa = Villaraigosa.

When we married, I offered to take my wife’s last name. She thought the idea was funny, being more conservative than me, and she took my name instead. And that was okay. The important thing is to create family with a common identity.
 
dfp42 said:
I’m going to be getting married soon in the Catholic Church in the US. My fiance and I were talking about the possibility of me taking on her last name. Is there typically a norm in the United States that the wife should take the husbands last name? I thought about this and don’t see this to be a problem since the kids can carry on her sides last name which would be broken if not done. I also am worried in a way of what my family might think of this since I’m the only son my parents have. I also have 2 sisters as well. Anyone have any insights. I don’t want to make it seem as if I’m making a statement against my family. Am I wrong for thinking or feeling this way?
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Bad idea. For a myriad of reasons. a) Your family will be upset b) You will be explaining this, to no one’s satisfaction, for the rest of your life c) Sends the wrong message to future children as the the nature of the family structure d) Traditional cultural norms should not be lightly disreqarded e) Some in her family will likely be upset, they certainly won’t appreciate keeping the name going in such a weird way f) it is weird g) be a man
 
Monte_RCMS said:
Joshua bin Josef

[of course, it wouldn’t have been in our alphabet!]
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But that’s just the ‘son of’ appelation, not a family name. It’s not passed on from generation to generation. Each generation of the same family gets a different one, depending on the first name of the father. Like Russian middle names.
 
lizaanne said:
IAnd for genealogical purposes, I can’t even imagine the confusion of future generations trying to track a family line when the last name switches from the husband’s to the wife’s side. What a mess!!!
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I can imagine this being a real and immediate concern for the OP and a major driving factor in the decision he and his fiancee make for their upcoming new life together.

Not.

😛

(With birth certificates listing everybody’s names in full, I can’t see it will be any more of a mess than tracing the maternal side of the family in those traditions where women choose to change their names, especially in this internet-searchable day and age.)
 
Why not? My great-grandmother was widowed and remarried twice after my great-grandfather passed, & she never used any name except her own “maiden” name. She was from Holland, where women don’t chamge their names (except in very special cases, & it takes a lot of paperwork)…She simply never answered to anything except “Nevelizier”.
And this lady was born in** 1861**! (She died at well over 90, & was insistent on her own name to the end). Hardly a ;)new innovation…
 
Guitar said:
I can imagine this being a real and immediate concern for the OP and a major driving factor in the decision he and his fiancee make for their upcoming new life together.

Not.

😛

(With birth certificates listing everybody’s names in full, I can’t see it will be any more of a mess than tracing the maternal side of the family in those traditions where women choose to change their names, especially in this internet-searchable day and age.)
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While it is harder for women to be traced genealogically, it has been pointed out to me that deviation from the cultural norm can add more genealogical difficulty. I would assume the reason would be that it is less expected.
 
My husband did it. He was adopted as a baby into a very abusive family. His birth family found him after his adoptive parents died. He immediately connected with his birth family and truly felt that he fit in with them - a feeling that he never had with his adoptive family. As it turns out, my last name is the same as his birth family’s so when we married, he took my last name. It is our family name now. We sometimes have to explain it to people who knew us before the name change but it is not uncomfortable and we really don’t mind. I think it’s a neat story actually.
 
cmscms said:
Of course I suspect it is because deep down these woman wished they had th guts to stand up to their husbands and keep their last name.

I also think that the way woman not only raise their kids nowadays they are expected to pay at least half the bills as well and they can`t even give their last name to their kids is worse degradation than being confined to the home.
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Such decisions are not about “standing up to your husband” and passing on a common identity to one’s children is not degradation.

Those kind of attitudes do not indicate a healthy attitude for the complementary roles in a marriage.
 
This is an interesting topic.

My last name is relatively common and my wife’s was unique. She considered keeping her own name.

I had not seen successful marriages where the wife kept her own name (in this country anyway). My view was that the name change was a merging of two lives and maintaining separate names was a way of not fully committing. This controversy was one of the results of the misguided feminist movement that taught husbands and wives are adversaries.

Children also are important to consider. A family is more unified when they all have the same last name.

Thankfully, my wife agreed and did take my last name.
 
I’d hardly call an old tradition in many cultures a feminist invention…

I’ve seen marriages fail due to many things. Most that did, the wives’ changed their names. It wasn’t the name, it was other factors.

What unites the family is many things. Not the name. Otherwise, it doesn’t explain all the united, devoted, Christian Latino families I know. In all of them, the wife kept her name and they are much more traditional in other respects than my own family is…
 
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