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I remember clearly the last time I wrote a guy's name because I wanted to see how it looked on paper, in my handwriting. I was 17 and working as a hostess at an Italian chain restaurant. The guy was the brother of one of the female servers, who knew one of my roommates and had been over to my apartment several times. He came into the restaurant a lot, and I thought he was adorable. One day I doodled his name on the inside back cover of a notebook I was using for a college class. I took that notebook to work with me several days later (I would sometimes study at the hostess stand when we weren't busy), and at one point one of the male servers walked by and started flipping through it absentmindedly. Then, of course, he landed on that fateful page. He paused, and I could see the realization set in that he knew this guy's name that was written in my notebook.
My saving grace was that I hadn't written my name in combination with my crush's name. Thinking fast, I told him that the guy had written his name in there himself, that he had been playing around while hanging out at my apartment. It was dumb, but it must have worked because I never heard anything about it again after that.
That particular incident is not the "ah-ha!" moment when I decided I don't want to change my last name; that was more of a gradual process. When I was younger, I always assumed that I would change my last name if I got married. It was expected. It was what "everyone" does. But at some point I changed my mind.
For me, a big factor in this decision are the large amount of marriages that end in divorce. A woman has to change her name on countless documents and with multiple companies, she finally gets accustomed to using a different name—and then what happens? The marriage ends, and you either have to change your name once again (Back to your maiden name? To that of your new husband?) or continue to use the name of a man you no longer want to be identified with.
I'm not a famous published writer—or a famous anything, for that matter. There aren't a lot of people who know my full name, outside of people that I'm personally acquainted with. But I don't care about that. My name is my identity. This is the name I've had for 26 years (and counting). It's who I am.
There are other options: some women choose to hyphenate their names. There are even men out there who decide to change their last name to match their wife's, although I don't think that is very prevalent. The thing is, I'm not saying I'd ever expect something like that from a partner. Why should he change his name? It's part of who he is. I simply expect the same courtesy and respect in return. If a guy equated my unwillingness to change my name with a lack of commitment on my part, he's probably not a person I'd want to be with.
Amanda lists some of the reasons she's heard women give for changing their last names:
1. It's better for everyone in the family to have the same last name.
2. What about the kids?
3. Hyphenation is stupid.
4. I don't like my last name anyway.
5. Both last names are patriarchal, so why does it matter?...women and women only seem to dislike their last names. But really, for the rest, there's no issue at all—name the children after the mother, name the husband after his wife, just switch everything around and you're done.
OneWoman has seen firsthand that using her given name can cause conflict. She experiences problems with her in-laws.
Apparently, I'm being "controlling" because I "refuse to compromise" on the name issue. That is, I refuse to change my last name or hyphenate with his. Never mind the fact that I NEVER asked him to change his and it was HIS decision. Obviously, I'm forcing him into it.
On the flip side, a lot of people have very good reasons for wanting to change their last name. Nicole wasn't close to her biological father.
