January, Again

The year since I last updated this blog has brought a series of dramatic (well, to me, anyway) changes in my life: I decided very suddenly to apply to law school; my boyfriend, Ryan, graduated from his master's program and we moved from Ann Arbor to Washington, DC, where I stopped copyediting from home and started working for a nonprofit; Ryan and I decided, after years of waffling on the subject, to get married; and I decided that I will most likely actually go to law school, now that I've been accepted. Despite all these changes, I'm continuing today with a post I began drafting last January, on a subject of questionable significance that nonetheless grows ever more pressing for Ryan and me as our wedding approaches: who should change his or her last name when a couple gets married, and what should he or she (or they) change it to?

Last year, I had only gotten as far as reading a few other people's reflections on marriage and name changes (most likely I intended to weave them skillfully into this post, but I'll just list them here):

• A Salon article by Audrey Fisch on combination names for children


• Another Salon piece by Carol Lloyd on the historical reasons for giving a child his father's name (Lloyd herself didn't follow this convention)


• A funny and thoughtful feminist defense of marriage by Lisa Miya-Jervis


• A list of options for changing (or not changing) one's name after marriage, on the Feminist Utopia website


• A scholarly article on societal perceptions of women who don't take their husbands' last names

I regret to say that although Ryan and I have been more actively thinking about and discussing name changes since we got engaged in August, the whole issue remains as much a problem as ever. Years ago, when we first decided that we'd stick it out together, but we weren't sure we liked the idea of marriage, we played with the idea of both taking a new last name as a signal of our commitment. We had a couple of friends whose parents had done that when they'd gotten married (in the seventies, most likely), and we liked the idea of choosing a new name to reflect a new union and the beginning of a new family. One friend's parents had combined the letters in their last names to create a new one, and the other friend's parents had taken the name of a little-known writer whom they both admired. Ryan and I have gotten the Scrabble letters out on more than one occasion to try the former approach, but we haven't been able to come up with anything we like. We've also considered adopting a maiden name that was dropped in one of our families. We like that idea because it provides some continuity with our family histories (well, one of them, at least) and also honors a female ancestor who was obliged (maybe) to drop her name. But, again, we haven't been able to find a name we really like.

We've mentioned to a few friends and family members that we're considering taking a new last name, and most of them seem to think it's really weird. Which brings us to another problem--will anyone take us seriously if we both change our names? We're both at stages in our careers where it wouldn't be too difficult to make the switch, but I can imagine some friends and family members, especially older ones, persisting in using our "real" names. So, some days, we're tempted not to change our names at all. I kind of like the Scandinavian sound of mine, even though I don't feel any particular attachment to my Scandinavian roots (perhaps because I come by them by way of Utah?). But we think we may have kids someday, and we'd both like to have the same last name as our kids (although I suspect it's becoming increasingly common for mothers--or fathers--and their children to have different names).

I just realized that nowhere in this discussion have I mentioned the possibility of my taking Ryan's last name, or his taking mine. That option doesn't feel very attractive to either of us. Neither of us wants to feel that his or her identity is being subsumed under the other's, no matter how symbolically. I think the best option really would be to find a new name that we can both take, but we may run out of time to think of one. The trick seems to be coming up with something we like that also feels as though it's ours.