Last Name Confusion

What follows is a clarification of the various last names of me and my children through the years. This has clearly been a source of some confusion for friends and loved ones, so I hope this sheds light on the matter, and also for anyone else interested, perhaps this post will serve to show some of the thought processes that go into decisions regarding last names.

I learned from a fairly young age to be defensive of my last name. This is because I was asked on more than one occasion before high school to change my last name. The first occasion was some time after my parents divorced, when my mom asked how I'd feel about changing my last name to her maiden name. The situation at the time was that my mother had primary custody of my sister and me, but we visited my father on weekends... Our visitations at that point were somewhat sporadic but I looked forward to them. We'd often stay the night and we were finding that these times were cherished and important in maintaining our relationship with our father. I felt very put in the middle by my mom's question. I did not feel I had enough time with my dad as it was, and I felt that if I abandoned his last name, it would distance us even farther. But on the other hand, I knew the divorce had been painful for my mother and that she'd really like to rid herself of this constant reminder of my father in her life. I also liked my mom's maiden name--it is a unique Irish name that stands apart from the rather common and bland last name of my father. If I'd have been given my mom's maiden name as part of my name at birth I would have embraced it. But I couldn't choose it over my father's last name years later. It just didn't feel right, because by now, my name had become a part of who I was.

Later when my mom remarried, my new stepfather asked about "adopting" me and having me take his last name. This was never an option in my mind. I already resented what I perceived as my stepfather trying to replace my father and my stepfather and I did not see eye to eye, nor did I celebrate my mother and stepfather's union. In fact, in my tween rebellion, I was at first refusing to even be a part of the wedding until my aunt sat down and explained how it would only hurt my mom. I eventually accepted that, while I did not understand her reasons, this was the man she'd chosen, so I would support her in this decision. However, it would be many years until my stepfather and I were civil to each other. Indeed, it wasn't really until adulthood that I would say we could predictably get along decently, and most of that had to do with his inability to control me any longer rather than a true reconciliation. Needless to say, taking his name was not something I would ever have considered seriously, but it did reinforce my name as my identity. This was the one piece of me that could not be taken by anyone, even though in my home life I otherwise felt like a prisoner to circumstances beyond my control.

So when my college sweetheart proposed to me, I automatically assumed I would keep my name. We had discussions about it and, though I think he was disappointed, he respected my decision. Of course we also discussed how we would handle naming of any children we were to have together. This was a little bit harder to decide upon. But I felt strongly that I wanted my name passed down in some way. My father had only one brother who had only one son, and that branch of the family was all but estranged from the rest of us. There was really no one to carry on my father's name. And besides that, I felt that if I was going to carry a baby for 9 months and go through the hard work of birthing that baby, I at least ought to be able to give it my name in some way. Still, I didn't want my name chosen over my husband's, as I felt we would be equal partners in parenting, and we were certainly equal partners biologically speaking, in the child's DNA. So it was difficult to come up with a fair way to handle the naming of our children. When we were expecting our first child, we finally decided on a hyphenated last name, for lack of better options. We chose my name to be the first in the hyphenated name, simply because it sounded better that way than with his name first.

We went round and round about what that child would do when that child had children, but that just made our heads spin. I came up with a theoretical system whereby last names could be passed down "fairly" even among those with hyphenated names: the oldest would pass down the part of the name that came from the older parent, then the second-born would pass down the younger parent's name, and it would continue to alternate that way, according to birth order. We resolved to explain to our child some day how this theoretical system could work, but make clear that how she ultimately handled naming her children would be completely up to her.

Thus my daughters have the last name: Myname-Hisname. That is their last name. The hyphen joins them together as one name. ie. you can't have one without the other--it would be just as incorrect to call them Firstname Myname as it would be to call them Firstname Hisname. Still, I quickly learned that this world is still ill-equipped for this concept. People get confused all the time. Computerized systems don't always allow a hyphen as a possible character. Schools, doctors, relatives, etc. sometimes call them only by Myname or by Hisname. Personally, I don't find this hyphenated concept to be that confusing. We use hyphenated words all the time in the English language, just as I have a few sentences ago. "ill-equipped" is neither "ill" nor "equipped." Those individual words have very different meanings from what "ill-equipped" means. But we generally have no problem recognizing that "ill-equipped" is one hyphenated unique word. My daughters' last names are no different.

Ok, well so far this isn't too confusing. As of the early part of this century, we had a family: the father went by Hisname, I went by Myname, and the kids went by Myname-Hisname. Frankly at that point, what was more confusing was probably that my then-husband also used his middle name as how he wanted people to address him, rather than his first name. Of course this was all going to get more muddled, as this family was destined not to stay intact.

My husband and I divorced and agreed on shared custody of the children. I selfishly would have preferred primary custody, but knowing how much I missed my father growing up, I didn't want to put my girls through that. I knew my girls had a good father, and if he wanted to be involved in their lives, I thought it was important for their sake, to continue our approach of being equal partners in parenting. The divorce was the easy part--no need to change any names. But a few years later we each remarried with the weddings taking place within a year of each other. First my ex's new spouse took his last name. This was a no-brainer for her as she was eager to ditch her ex-husband's last name. Then came my wedding. By this time, you'd think I would make the same decisions as I had in the past, but I didn't think it was fair to assume the same choices should apply to my current partner that applied to a previous partner.  This was a new partner and a new marriage and I was not even the same person I'd been when I got married the first time.  Thus I thought it made sense to at least re-examine the last name question.

Professionally, I had already been published under my maiden name as an author on a scientific journal article.  That lent for a strong argument for keeping my maiden name.  On the other hand, my soon-to-be father-in-law had only sisters (no brothers), and my fiance had one brother who was in a serious relationship but not yet married and so my in-laws did not have anyone yet to carry on their name (similar to my situation before my first marriage).  We knew we were expecting a child when we got engaged, and I had already had the opportunity to pass my name down with my first two children, so this made a strong argument for taking my husband's name.  Then again, would it be confusing to my girls' school, friends, etc. if their mother's last name did not appear at all in their hyphenated last name?

It was hard to know what to do.  But finally I came back to my original reasoning for having kept my name in the first place--my identity.  I asked myself to reflect on my name and my identity, and what I concluded was that I didn't really have one singular identity anymore, but more of a multi-faceted identity.  Over the years I had gradually taken on many different roles and identified with different aspects of what made me me. I wore different hats at different times.  Sometimes I wore the "mom" hat.  Sometimes I wore the "astrophysicist" hat.  Sometimes I wore the "soon-to-be-wife" hat, or the "pregnant woman" hat, or the "daughter" hat, or the "aunt" hat, and I'd worn other hats over the years in the past, too:  the "nursing mom" hat, the "teacher" hat, the "student" hat...  I concluded that I wanted the kind of flexibility in my name to put on different hats as I assumed different roles.  I wanted to be able to go by my maiden name, or my husband's name (ie. a married name), or a combination of the two.  So what I ended up doing was tacking on my husband's name to my name, with a space in between.  ie.  I became Firstname Myname Hisname2 (note that the "2" is used in this example to distinguish this as my second husband's name).

The space in between is important and different from a hyphen.  It means there are two names, not one name joined by hyphenation.  This means that either name or both are equally valid, sort of like you might use a string of adjectives to describe something.  If you called me "that smart, friendly lady,"  it would be equally right to say that I was "smart" or that I was "friendly."  Maybe in some context the "smart" would be more important, say if you were discussing my student achievement, and in another context the "friendly" might be more important, like if you were talking about my qualities as your friend.

So using both names with a space in between gave me the freedom I was looking for.  Professionally I could just go by Firstname Myname as I always had.  Taking on the wifely role, I could be Mrs. Hisname2.  To avoid confusion with my daughters' affairs I could go by Myname Hisname2, which would make it obvious that we share some name derivative, but also introduce the idea that Mr. Hisname2 was their stepfather.

When our son was born, I felt that I'd still like a piece of my last name passed on in some way.  But I didn't feel as strongly that it needed to be a part of his last name, since I already had two children with my name as part of their last name, whereas my husband had none.  So we chose instead to give our son two middle names, one of which was my maiden name.  This way, if he choses to, he can still pass it on in some way (perhaps as part of his children's middle name), and yet it keeps things simple enough, too, because the three of us can still be "The Hisname2's" to my son's future school, friends, etc., and my in-laws know their name will be passed on.  Of course, it turned out that my brother-in-law got married the very next year after my husband and I did, and I have a sneaking suspicion that my son will not be the only one to pass down the name :).  But at least we got things started...

Ultimately, there's no easy solution to the last name dilemma. Some women never had a relationship with their fathers or had a poor relationship with their fathers and see no need to carry on the name they were given at birth.  Sometimes you see couples that come up with a new last name for them both to assume, and sometimes there are husbands who take their wives' last names.  I support all these choices and others.  I think the important thing is to do what feels right to your family, even if that's simply doing the traditional thing of the wife taking the husband's last name and passing it onto their children.  In fact I believe there's absolutely nothing wrong with a woman taking her husband's last name, but I do think there's something wrong if she feels she had to do so despite her wishes or if the husband just expects it as his right regardless of his wife's feelings on the matter.  No one should bully anyone into last name decisions, and when decisions have been given thought and made carefully and freely, they should be respected.  I don't expect everyone to choose the same way I have, nor do I expect everyone to never be confused, but I hope that, at the very least, everyone can understand the reasons that went behind my decisions with regard to my last name and my children's last names.  Indeed that is my wish for all families' naming decisions--that others empathize with their reasoning, even if they would choose differently, since these choices are rarely simple.  And my wish for all women is that they enter decisions on their last name and their children's last names freely and with an open mind.