Adding this simply because I love Portia and Ellen's wedding photos.
Yesterday, I had a conversation with a friend (and frequent commenter on this site) about name-changing after marriage. Yeah, I know we’ve been there, done that. But this time, the question was gay marriage.
See, my friend’s older sister recently married her girlfriend, and the sister’s girlfriend changed her name—they’re now Ms. and Ms. Older Sister’s Name. My friend felt somewhat conflicted about this. Like me, she dislikes the tradition of women taking their husbands’ names, and so she had a kneejerk moment of discomfort when her sister-in-law did it.
I definitely could understand my friend’s twinge of ick but I could also understand why a gay couple would co-opt an old-fashioned custom like name-changing to emphasize the legitimacy of their marriage. It’s one more thing that makes their marriage look the same as the vast majority of hetero marriages. Optics are important, so having same name counts for a lot, especially when a gay couple has children. Ultimately, as a feminist, while I reject that particular tradition, I might feel differently had I been flatly denied marriage my entire life. Maybe it doesn’t feel like Patriarchy when two women own it.
This week a press release went out announcing that Portia de Rossi, one half of America’s most famous lesbian couple, changed her name to Portia DeGeneres. Several news sites that enable comments (always a bad idea), had a long thread of commenters—not all of them haters—who basically said, “Well, duh, because Ellen’s totes the MAN in that relationship.” That really rankled. Even people who don’t oppose gay marriage are still trying to stuff it into the same pink and blue boxes as hetero marriage. Sorry, gay folks, it appears that if you want to partake in a deeply heteronormative institution, you’ll be subjected to the same dismal gender roles as us breeders. If I were a gay lady, that alone might discourage me from changing my name to my wife’s.
What do y’all think? Comments from our gay readers especially welcome…
The whole name change thing is just another anachronistic holdover of the days when women were seen as a commodity more than as people, and the name change was the equivalent of branding a woman as a man’s property. Frankly, we should be beyond the need to do this as a matter of course, but if a woman (or a man) wishes to do this to honor their partner, then I don’t see anything wrong with it. It has to become a choice, not a demand.
Seconded. Nay to name change, but despite that, Yay to co-opting name change to emphasize the legitimacy of a gay marriage.
OT but I was weirded out by the name-change theme in the movie Hot Tub Time Machine.
A couple (m + f hetero) friends of mine changed both their names to the man’s mother’s maiden name when they got married. They are divorced now.
I think Ellen and Portia could have done a cool combo that goes both ways, especially because both last names have the “De” “di” sounds.
So, “Portia di Rossi-Generese” and “Ellen De Rossi-Generese”
Eh…Eh? It’s egalitarian and shared instead of one person making the identity sacrifice for the other.
Since it’s in the news, the deal is done, and of course, it’s their right/decision to choose as they like, but dang, they should’ve asked me if I have any good ideas.
While my girlfriend and I are not (yet) married, we have talked a little about how we might handle this in the event. While I dislike the heteronormativity of women automatically taking their husband’s name upon marriage, I have always liked the symbolic significance of a unified family name, and the fact that a couple who is establishing a new legal/religious family identity, formally recognized by society, mark that transition by choosing to share a name.
The solution we’ve discussed (besides the clunky hypenation option, which would make our name the impossibly long Cook-Clutterbuck) is creating a new name, either out of combining two or more family name pieces/letters — other wise known as the “scrabble option” — or by coming up with a word/name that has meaning to our history as a couple or our plans for our share future.
I like a unified family name too, but in my mind there’s just no way for one person to take the other person’s and have it be an egalitarian transfer. Choosing a new name, either from a stack of family names or from, I dunno, your favorite Source of Personal Meaning (me, it might be Mad Men…
) would be the only way I could consider it.
After years of dating exclusively men, I just started dating women recently and I think the pursuit of balance is pretty much the same in any relationship – same-sex relationships just have different templates.
I’m a fan of the argument from Bitch PhD against changing one’s name.
Regardless of the circumstances, I hope that people consider what (not) changing their name means in a broader social context. And I’ll own up to the fact that I judge women who take their husband’s name. I feel slightly better about it in the context of gay marriage, but not a whole lot, considering the origins of the tradition (aka property).
In my view, your name is yours to do with what you like. We’ve seen good arguments for and against changing one’s name at marriage, and I think that whatever the individuals choose to do is fine, as long as it’s a free choice and not made under pressure.
That said, and on a different topic, people who get cute with their kids’ names are just being cruel. Yeah, I’m talking to you, Penn. Or Teller, whichever one it was.
@Fashionably Evil – May I ask why you judge women who take a new name? I know a few people who’ve said similar things, but they’re not people I’d feel comfortable asking where they’re coming from with it.
IMO, it’s not really MY name – it’s my father’s. I already have one man’s name, so I don’t feel strongly either way about taking another man’s name. So I’m curious why it bugs you
I feel like if that’s what they want to do then they should do it but it DOES reinforce the custom of changing one’s name which is unfortunate.
Reading Dan Savage recently (both his itgetsbettercampaign which is laudable and his National Masturbate to Christine O’Donnell bullshit)I was reminded that just because you are progressive in one area of your life doesn’t mean you are progressive in other areas.
@bluebears: True about Dan Savage. Interestingly, not only did he and his husband keep their own names, their son goes by his birth mother’s last name, a choice that they made as a tribute to her, and because they got so hung up on whose last name their son would have, or a hyphenated name, or blended name of some kind that they just gave up. The downside to this is that they both carry copies of their son’s birth certificate and adoption papers everywhere so that if challenged, they have proof that he’s their child, despite his different last name.
I am anti-name changing, because it really does come from the tradition of one man giving a woman to another man, which I just cannot get past. It’s really my big issue with marriage (well, that and the lack of gay marriage in the US).
That said, my partner and I are (very vaguely) planning a pseudo-wedding for a few years down the line. Is this because our favorite restaurant, which has significance not only as a place to get food that makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time, but also just more general significance for us as humans and a couple, told us that they cater weddings, and so we decided to have a commitment ceremony/wedding-thing so that they could cater our big party? Almost entirely, yes. But also, my BFF is probably going to do the ceremony, as she’ll be an official minister, but there will be no religion talk and no language that reduces either of us to things that we or someone else can give to the other. But there will be wonderful food.
ANYway, back to the point, is that neither of us will change our names, and even though to hyphenate would make a name that means “is-good,” that just isn’t really our style. But when my partner was a kid, he wanted to get married and change his name to his wife’s just because, and he was a kid and doing things just because Fuck You, That’s Why! was totally attractive. And now I wonder–which is the more anti-patriarchal move: to not change names at all, or for the dude (in a hetero partnering) to change his name to the lady’s?
@Cimorene: Oh, it’s WAY more subversive for the dude to change his name to the woman’s than for them each to keep their own last names. It is also WAY more awesome.
What if they had both changed their names: Ellen de Rossi and Portia DeGeneres? It doesn’t solve the problem of having the same last name to look more “legitimate” (ie: mirror heterosexual patriarchal customs) but it certainly shows their commitment to each other and their inlaws.
@FourInchHeels: For the reasons that Nefarious Newt and Cimorene have noted: that the tradition comes from the fact that women used to be property passed from a father to a husband. Squicks. Me. Out.
That said, I know there’s a lot of social pressure on a woman to change her name when she gets married and the overwhelming majority of women do change their name. But no way in hell was I changing mine.
The Bitch PhD post that I linked to above does a nice job spelling out the counterargument to “It’s not my name, it’s my father’s name.”
I have a close friend who just got queer married and they both changed their last names to names that were dying out in their family — one partner’s dead father’s last name (also that person’s last name from birth) and the other partner’s dying grandmother’s last name. I thought it was beautiful and completely unobjectionable. I still got sad to think about my friend changing names though! My feelings are no reason not to do something so meaningful obviously, but I just noted that I still had a holdover feeling of sadness or that my friend’s identity was changing. Which I know is kind of the point of marriage! Anyway my reaction had more to do with me and my shit than anything else.
Of my lesbian friends who have married and one has chosen the other’s last name, I completely support their decision and I do think it is different/potentially more subversive and/or necessary or life saving/affirming than when a wife takes her husband’s last name, but I have to admit that in all of those cases the couple has been fairly butch/femme identified and in all cases the femme-identified partner chose to change her name to her partner’s. This is also, arguably, the case with Portia and Ellen. Also Ellen is worth a ton more money than Portia. I have to admit it gives me pause. But obviously my dozen friends or whatever is not a representative sample, and in any case is not about personal judgment but consideration of whether the act tends to reify or resist patriarchy. Realizing of course that not every decision in our lives can or should be made on this basis.
Personally I think people should be careful about judging people as to why they’ve taken the name because you don’t know the reasons. For example I was flat out told by the US government that in order to have my L2 visa (which is essentially a wife visa) I had to change my name on my passport and bank cards. I had never intended to do so but given that refusal to comply would essentially have scuppered our move to the US I agreed and have learnt to live with it. I actually find it pretty offensive to blanket judge people on this because there are tons of reasons why someone might have to and they don’t all have to do with embracing the patriarchy.
I would add that its not just the US government who do this, I’ve met American women who had to do the same when their husbands moved to the UK.
Yes it’s offensive but seriously would you hold up an entire (much dreamed of by both people) life change just for one principal, because honestly in the end I found I couldn’t.
I would add that I still write under my maiden name which is the name I think of myself with and if I applied for a job I would do so under that name. It’s just that there was no way round the legal issue at the time because the visa was not being given to me.
Emily, that is so funny because I didn’t change my name legally (and yes had to have many patient conversations with immigration about it, and we are forced to fill out separate landing cards every time we fly because of it) but I use my husband’s last name as my nom de plume. Just because it is really boring and bland and I think it makes me more likely to sell books than my own.
In general I am very aware of the legal and social benefits that accrue when changing one’s name and that is why it is not about judging individuals, but just further proof of the fact of patriarchy’s power that something like that still matters in real and material ways. Any added vulnerability in the family unit — gayness, immigrant status, kids adopted or otherwise non traditionally united with the family, class, etc. of course makes it less personally objectionable. Resisting patriarchy in this particular way is definitely a privilege, and I think that is part of the reason why Becky S is saying that it may be different for queer folk.
JD – oh I absolutely agree regarding Becky’s comment, I just got narked re the judging thing because honestly I would have always said that I wouldn’t change my name and then when it came to it the thought of having all those immigration arguments and the fact that the Embassy was so damn obstreperous about the idea of me not changing my name just wore me down.
We did consider combining the names actually but unfortunately it would have made us sound like a Welsh prop forward and that would simply have added to the confusion.
Adding to further confusion I actually think that if I wrote novels I would do so under a combination of my second name and my married name because it sounds better to me (and also because I secretly want to write really trashy novels without making my mother die of shame).
Sorry about that, Emily. JD’s take on it was more nuanced and more in line with what I meant: it’s “not about personal judgment but consideration of whether the act tends to reify or resist patriarchy. Realizing of course that not every decision in our lives can or should be made on this basis.”
Also, it sucks that the US government also embraces patriarchal standards for what your name should be.
@FashionablyEvil – that’s ok, it’s a subject I’m a little stroppy about because it was so frustrating to me. I do generally agree with your take though, and I liked the riposte to the it’s my father’s name anyway argument.
@FashionablyEvil: Yes, I hate this argument too. So my last name is my father’s name, but my husband’s last name is his own name? Only men can have names that truly belong to them. Women just get temporary labels.
FWIW, I’m pretty sure that de Rossi is a stage name and DeGeneres is a family/given name, so that may be why Portia’s the one making the change.
@Spark: Yes, Portia was born Amanda Rogers. I’d be curious to ask her what it’s like to give up one’s birth name entirely…it may be that taking her wife’s name feels like a more genuine link to familyhood for her than keeping her stage name. I can’t speak for the woman, obvs, but when you’ve changed names already, maybe your approach to naming is more fluid?
I feel like I’ve written about the “It’s my father’s name” argument before but I’m too lazy to look for it.
Becky, you beat me to it about PR’s real name and the role that might have played in her decision.
emilyanne/JDR: if I ever move out of the country w/ the Dude (which I want to do), y’all have me freaked out. He’d have to take my name, cuz it would happen the other way round, and the would probably cheese him off.
Becky, you beat me to it about PR’s real name and the role that might have played in her decision.
emilyanne/JDR: if I ever move out of the country w/ the Dude (which I want to do), y’all have me freaked out. He’d have to take my name, cuz it would happen the other way round, and that would probably cheese him off.
This kind of relates to the post in terms of names and labels..
I’m not married and haven’t had the “last name” dilemma.
But I did change my last name from my birth one (which was given patrolineally) to my mother’s birth name (which she went back to when my parents divorced), when I was younger.
I did this because, a) that patrolineal name was one that was changed from another surname in the 1930s, and there are plenty of others in the family that bear both names, b) my father has grandkids that bear his surname, c) my mother doesn’t have extended family that bear her birth name.
In saying all that, I’m not changing my name for quids! I like it, I’ve finally found a name that works for me. And I finally have nicknames, and that never happened previously
I kinda liked the idea of a married couple (how ever the gender combination works) reconstituting themselves as a family unit, and finding a name that works for them, similar to the way described by gogobooty and JD Regent.
My sister, who is in a long term relationship with a female partner, has already said she would like to take on her partner surname.
One of my dude friends just got hitched and I was delighted to see he’s added his wife’s surname (and she his) in a [her surname]-[his surname] double-barelled deal. If you’re going to go the marriage route, this is a nice modernisation.
(Although I will hang onto my name, unless I find myself up in a situation like Emilyanne.)
My fiance has said recently that if I was planning on appending his name to mine, he’d like to change his name when we get married, too. So we both have the same last names. I’ll have to admit, it did give me a good feeling. I don’t plan on hyphenation, just having two last names. Thankfully they’re short and simple, although one can be interpreted as an adjective…
I can understand having to change your name for stuffy immigration reasons (sometimes you gotta pick your battles) but a lot of the name-changing crowd is of the “I choose my choice” style of faux-feminism, which turns me right off.
Oops, I guess I should clarify. I wasn’t planning on changing my name at all. I’m still not sure if we’ll officially do it, since I hate paperwork.
Look, we all can’t be perfect, and we definitely all can’t stop judging each other. Sometimes I bow to the kyriarchy and shave my legs, wear heels and makeup, and criticize myself in the mirror. But changing your name is such a big, permanent decision – and it’s not necessary.
I love what I’m hearing about people blending names or choosing different ones for themselves because I think that if enough people do it in enough different ways, it’ll help to make the decision less socially significant and more immediately personal. That’s the way marriage is moving anyway – from purely social contract/economic arrangement based on necessity to a choice about who you want with you the rest of your life.
That said, I’m with FashionablyEvil on this one. I am married and the idea of changing my name is abhorrent. My marital status is nobody else’s business. And I don’t think the ‘but it’s my father’s name’ argument is at all valid. It is also my mother’s name, my grandparents’ name,my cousins’ name and, most importantly, my brother’s name. If he can claim it fully, why can’t I?
Ultimately, I think there’s a lag between what we would like the name change to mean and what it still does. By queering it in all our different ways, I think we’re doing something to disconnect it from its patriarchal roots, but we haven’t done it yet. I’d go as far as saying that the more women continue to change their name to that of their male partners, the more people like emilyanne will continue to come up against the bureaucratic idiocy she had to deal with.
I think this Hoyden post sums it up really well:
“You may feel you have great reasons for choosing the option which just happens to be what the patriarchy has greased the rails for you to do rather than taking the harder path of going against tradition. But having good reasons doesn’t mean that you’re not adding your own grease to those rails, or transform your choice into something feminist.”
http://hoydenabouttown.com/20091101.6925/in-a-nutshell-4/
I’m the daughter of two moms–not married, never been legal in our state. So the name-change didn’t come up in that context, and they’ve just always kept their own last names. I don’t think it was ever an issue until they decided to have kids (late ’80s).
My last name is my biological mom’s last name; my non-bio mom’s name is my middle name (and my brother’s). It worked as a decent compromise, and I love having that connection to non-bio extended family, who I’m much closer to. Plus I find two last names more appealing than a single hyphenated one…easier to fill out forms.
On the other hand, I can see how it would have been easier if all four of us had the same last name, whether it was hyphenated or they just picked one or the other. Symbolically, the fact that it’s three S’s and one M probably doesn’t sit 100% well with my M mom, especially since homophobes and other ignorant people are always trying to suss out which one is my “real mom” anyway.
On the other other hand, now that I think about it, if they’d both had the same last name, even more people would have assumed that they were sisters or even mother and daughter, an appallingly common assumption, despite the fact that they are less than 10 years apart and look basically the same age.
So, a few things on this. First, my ex had a cousin who had done the combine existing names for a new name thing, then they divorced. And when the dude got remarried, his new wife took the combo husband/previous wife name. That always creeps me out a little bit when I think about.
And second, I’m Ms. Younger Sister. So, I decided to actually ask my s-i-l why she changed her name. Her response – “that’s what married people do. I wanted us to share a name.” And, as people mentioned before, she tends to be the more femme of the two so she knew she would be the one changing her name. I’m still not totally comfortable with it (not that I need to be – it’s not my life) but it’s better then cousins my own age who insist on being called Mrs. John Smith on invites and such.
As much as I’m not a fan of the name change, if my new name might be say, Del Toro, I think I’d make the sacrifice!
This is why I don’t the gay marriage will redefine marriage argument, no matter if it is being talked about positively or negatively. Because in the end the majority of people want to be apart of the status quo and since hetero marriage is the status quo gay individuals will shape their marriages around such.
@ Cimorene – as a lady whose dude took my name, I can offer the following thoughts:
1. for those people who know or find out that he changed his name, it’s nice to throw a wrench into their assumptions.
2. However, now that we’ve moved to a new town, most folks assume I took his. >( . Not the end of the world, but it’s v. strange to have the experience of being read as a name-changing chick, and I think that assumption goes unchecked a lot of the time (I’m not going to bring this whole conversation up at the power company billing office, for example). Honestly, I think that as far as challenging norms, having a guy take on a hyphenated or double name is more efficient.
As for how queerness affects things, I can speak from the position of a bi woman who was ok with the idea of taking a woman’s name back in my 20s. The practical considerations of sharing a name are *huge*, especially when kids are involved, and the gender parity within the relationship means that taking on the other person’s name doesn’t have that immediate ‘I’m becoming his property’ connotation. Now that I’m in my 30s, though, it’d be harder, even if the same constraints (academia on her end, wanting a family name) were involved.
When the ‘more powerful’ person’s name is the one that’s kept, it does reinforce the idea that ‘real’ couples Pick A Name, and that the ‘important’ name wins. Since gay marriages get mapped onto straight marriages, when a more ‘important’ name gets prioritized, it’s still providing indirect support for the ‘men’s names are more important’ camp. However, I think it’s too reductive to say that those name changes support patriarchy, since the marriages themselves are subverting it in certain ways – the queerness doesn’t eliminate the support provided to sexist norms, but it does tweak it.
I’m kinda bummed that this thread has focused largely on hetero responses to the name change thing. No guff to the hetero people out there, but the name change threads always run down the same path without getting us to a deeper level of understanding or action. It’s a personal, painful, passionate problem. I know, I understand why, and I’m about to weigh in myself:
It’s all gotta go. Name changing upon marriage, families with the same name, marriage itself regardless of orientation, all gotta go. Rotten to the core.
I am all for love and relationships however people want to make them, but the state needs to stay out, and the patriarchy needs to be booted out of our love lives and / or partnerships.
As for the naming thing, many many cultures have alternative naming structures, which we USians / westerners can take solace in.
I’m here to support women feeling pressure to conform and change their name. I’m here to call out those who pressure them, and to encourage people to know and understand the history of these institutions we prop up, even if it is “in name only.” That is where we need to focus– on addressing the societal pressures.
“Dad, why is your name more important than mom’s? Does it mean you’re the more important parent?”
“It’s not more important and I’m not more important either. We flipped coins, you got mine name, your brother got mom’s, and we’ll see what happens if there’s a third.”
“Why not hyphenate, then?”
“Because in two generations we’d sound like dad’s Latin American cousins who seem to be trying too hard: Claudia Ballesteros-Hickman-Scomparin de Pedraza.”
“Good point, dad. Coin flip it is.”
But I’m just hyper-rational like that.
My younger sister and I were given my Dad’s surname as my surname, and my Mum’s surname as my middle name. At 6 (I like to think of this as my feminist awakening) I refused to just use my father’s surname as my last name, and started using my Mum’s, without a hyphen. For simplification reasons, Mum and Dad then started using the double surname for my sister too.
I’ve been known by my self-instigated double surname for the last 15 years now. My parent’s aren’t married, but when I asked my Mum (a self-identified feminist) why I was given my Father’s last name, she said that he cared a lot more than she did (I think she was just avoiding a fight). I consider dropping my Dad’s name altogether, but I know that would hurt him.
I am lucky enough to have found a modern man, I guess… I didn’t change my name when we got married, as either of us wanted to change out identity (which, in case of scientists, is also pretty stupid after a few years publishing career…). Our daughter has my last name. We first made a deal that our daughter will get my last name and my husband’s nationalty, but it turned out that she got both our nationalities
I would have been happy with giving her my partner’s last name, but he preferred mine as his is really common and mine is pretty unique, yet easy.
I have informed my partner that I will not be changing my name, but I’m all for women having the choice of changing their name/keeping their name. Feminism is about having agency, and some people might use that agency to choose their husband’s name or wear high heels and make up or stay at home with their children or wear a white wedding dress and veil.
Names are a deeply personal and complicated issue. We can discuss the implications, sure, and I see no purpose in judging women for their choices.
A random thought — would people mistake same-sex same-name people for siblings?
I know this guy whose parents had their names combined. Apparently one parent’s name meant bald michael, and the other’s meant fair stranger; they combined the two to become fairmichael, which I thought was probably better than baldstranger for a last name.
I’m currently living in China, and I’ve not met any women who have changed their last names. It’s also much more difficult to change the surname, because the surname is one character (usually) which is one syllable and the entire name (including surname) is 2-3 characters long. So sometimes changing the surname can make the name just sound funny.
That being said, I’m not a big fan of the hyphenated last name, because I feel like it gets really unwieldy, but not having the same last name sometimes can cause lots of problems. Take for instance Iceland. Apparently most Icelandic people’s surnames are “son of Jon aka Johnsson” or ” daughter of Helgu aka Helgudottir”. So the father, mother, daughter and son can all have different “surnames”, which I imagine can cause problems when they travel overseas.
I still wouldn’t change my last name, with a couple of caveats: if I had to for legal purposes, and if that last name was really cool, and I still hadn’t made an impact in my chosen career with my current name. Then I might consider it.