To change your name or to not

The age old question - for women.

I’m at the age where everyone I know is getting married. Every day, I log into Instagram and see another beautiful white dress, a happy couple surrounded by fresh flowers, a close up of a ring. These images mostly make me happy. Weddings are fun and marriages are special. The moments of alarm come when someone I knew growing up changes their last name on their Instagram handle. I look at the new name and shiver. Who is that? Why did they change their name? The simple act magnifies the passing of time in my life while simultaneously showing that the world is slow moving.

Since I was a little girl, I’ve dreamt of my future wedding. I quietly seethed at the girls in rom-coms who didn’t care about every detail of their weddings, who rolled their eyes at the healthy debate over what song to play as you enter your reception or if you’ll ask people to stand when you walk down the aisle or if you’ll do a first look with your groom. I enjoy daydreaming about the little details of my future wedding. I get into rowdy debates with my mom over where it will be, who will be invited, and what my bridesmaids dresses will look like. Am I engaged? No. Am I in a relationship? No. But have I planned my bachelorette party? Yes, yes I have.

But weddings are more than just a party. They symbolize the joining of families, a union of two people becoming one. And often, a wedding means the ridding of the bride’s last name for the groom’s. According to a 2023 Pew Research study, 79% of women in opposite-sex marriages took their partner’s last name.

This tradition has always felt itchy to me. I have never once thought I would take my future husband’s last name. I like being Tess Hill. My name makes sense. It has two s’s and two l’s. It’s eight letters and it’s me. But more than that, I’ve always bristled against the idea of taking a man’s last name. Why would I take his last name when he could take mine? Why don’t we both just keep our own last names and hyphenate for the children we definitely want? The assumption that women take men’s last names has never sat right with me.

Of course, when I say this, the rebuttal is, “Well, your last name is your dad’s last name. Your dad is a man.” The cycle of the patriarchy means that whatever name I choose, either my own or my future husband’s, is tied to a man. This piece, the power of the patriarchy, complicates my argument. Maybe it would be more powerful to choose my own name. Or to become Tess Isabelle - my middle name was my grandmother’s first name, that’s not patriarchal, is it?

And this hemming and hawing, this dedication to self over family, is not a dilemma unique to me. In the Pew Research study, they also asked unmarried women if they wanted change their name after marriage. The majority said no, they would not fully change their name. They’d either keep their last name or hyphenate with their husband’s. It seems that once women get engaged, have the wedding, wear the white gown, they are swayed by the traditions and thus, change their name.

I took this debate to Instagram. I asked my married, engaged, and single followers, “Did/would you take your partner’s last name? If you did/would, why? If you didn’t/wouldn’t, why not?” While not surprising, no one identifying as a man responded to my questions. Only women and nonbinary followers chose to consider the possibility of giving up the name they’ve had their entire life.

The answers were thoughtful and kind and showed the divide in this debate. Those who didn’t want to take their partner’s name - like me - felt it was like an erasure of self. We like our names and feel deeply connected to them. Some of my followers wanted to keep their last names for their professional work. Many just really, truly love their names. Others wanted to keep their names because they are tied to their ancestors and their cultures.

“I think there is something very powerful about carrying the name of your ancestors forward,” my friend wrote. “And mine makes me feel connected to my ancestry.”

My followers who chose to change their last name shared that changing it to their partners made it feel like a new era. Some believed that the name change is a sign of a familial unit. The most common answer I received for women changing their last name was to have the same last name as their kids. And this is when I get itchy, annoyed, bothered with the way the world is.

In 1987, when my mom and dad got married, my mom wanted to keep her name. But my dad, who is pretty nontraditional for a man in his 60s, asked her to change it. It was important to him. So she became Rebecca Greiner Hill, dropping her middle name Ann. While I love having the same name as my mom, if she chose to remain Rebecca Greiner, I truly, deep to my core, think I wouldn’t have noticed. She is still my mom no matter her last name. I don’t think it’s radical to say that children and parents don’t have to have the same name to be a family.

But the real itchiness, the piece that makes my ears redden with anger, is the assumption that the children that we as women carry for 9 months and bring into this world have to bear the name of the husband. The notion makes me want to scream. I’m not unaware of the historical practice. That women were once legally considered their husband’s property once they were married. And if I lean into my romantic side, I understand the appeal of uniting under one name, declaring once and for all that we’re a family. But, why does it have to be the man’s last name? The sheer idea of a man owning his wife makes me want to rebel against the tradition entirely.

I’ve discussed this dilemma often with friends and we never really come to a conclusion that is a fit for everyone. A lot of my friends want to keep their last names once they get married, but just as many want to change it, even while acknowledging the patriarchal practice. Some of us want to hyphen, then get nervous about the not so distant future in which everyone has hyphenated last names and nothing fits onto a scantron test. To change your name or to not. There is no correct answer. There is no one size fits all. There is just seesawing and mulling it over and finally landing on something that fits for your family. But I know that I’ll always be Tess Hill.

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For those catching up….