{"id":15768,"date":"2022-02-23T13:37:41","date_gmt":"2022-02-23T17:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=15768"},"modified":"2022-02-24T13:32:16","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T17:32:16","slug":"baby-naming-issue-naming-a-daughter-partly-after-her-mother-dividing-the-rest-of-the-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2022\/02\/23\/baby-naming-issue-naming-a-daughter-partly-after-her-mother-dividing-the-rest-of-the-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Naming Issue: Naming a Daughter Partly After Her Mother; Dividing the Rest of the Name"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

I would love your thoughts on a question of parent-name balance (FEMINISM) for a baby girl due in August. I have loved your posts on this topic!<\/p>\n

When we got married, we each kept our own last name. My name is\/sounds like Clare Kristianson and his name is\/sounds like Casey Surappis. We don’t like the way our last names sound together, or the fact that the baby would end up with an 18-letter hyphenated surname. We are instead considering the name Clara Elliot Surappis. Elliot is for Casey and his mother: Casey’s mother wanted to name him Elliot, but her family made fun of it so she switched to Casey. He and his mother have always felt Elliot would have suited him better. This baby will be our first, and we are not sure if we want more.<\/p>\n

Do I want to make a human’s name my feminist stand? My family are traditional Midwesterners: I am the only woman to keep her name at marriage, and it has been hard for people to understand why (I tell them repeatedly, BECAUSE I WANTED TO). I am worried I’m in for a lifetime of comments that (1) I am egotistical, or (2) it’s confusing for us to have similar names. To them, I imagine saying (1) are all the men with Man Junior sons also egotistical?, and (2) I have a PhD, you may call me Doctor Clare if it helps you tell us apart. In real life, though, I worry that I, and later she, will get tired of explaining our choice rather than celebrating her name in its own right.<\/p>\n

Side question: Is the division of first name for me, middle and last for him, too him-sided? I rationalize it by saying that he doesn’t get much flexibility on his last, and the first name gets the most use, and I do genuinely like Elliot for a middle. Will I regret this?<\/p>\n

Thank you!<\/p>\n

Clare<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

You and I both know that (1) it is no more strange to name your daughter after yourself than it is for a man to name a son after himself (especially when you are not even using your actual name, let alone ALL THREE of your actual names, as men often do), and also that (2) many people will perceive it as strange anyway, because patriarchy. Your phrasing of the question (“Do I want to make a human’s name my feminist stand?”) seems extreme, though: I don’t think in a day-to-day way your daughter will feel her name is her mother’s Feminist Stand—the way she might if, for example, you made her a junior. I think there will be a flurry of interest right after the name is announced, and then it will come up much less often; and in the meantime, you have your responses prepared. My hope is that in the long run you would be pleasantly surprised by how non-reactive and\/or positive-reactive people were—but on the other hand, you have family who don’t yet understand the better-established practice of a woman keeping her own surname, so we might have to wait a couple generations for some of us to catch up.<\/p>\n

I am more concerned about the plan to give the child your husband’s surname. What is the plan for future children, if you do have more? Will you alternate your surname and his, or does keeping your own surname mean you’re the only one excluded from the Husband’s-Surname Household and that you’re the only one who has to go through life clarifying that you’re the parent of your own child(ren)? You mention not wanting to hyphenate, and I like to assume people know what they want and are able to think through their own various options; but on the other hand, I don’t think it hurts to make sure we’re thinking this through thoroughly—just to avoid accidentally sliding down the patriarchal path of least resistance. Is “not liking the sound of it” (it seems like we don’t require the father’s surname to pass that test) and “it has 18 whole letters” (that does not seem like a big deal—and, again, if the father’s surname were that long, I don’t think we’d be saying we shouldn’t use it) really enough reason to avoid that option? And if you really genuinely do not want to hyphenate, then I don’t think that means your surname drops from consideration—even if you are being represented by the first name. I do think it’s nicest when a couple can choose a balanced name that represents both families, but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way—and in those cases, it’s nice to be able to contribute to SOCIETAL balance, and to the advancement of the concept that women (and their names) are as important as men (and their names).<\/p>\n

Re-reading your letter, I feel like we could use more information about why you want to use the name Clara. Is it because you both love the name, and it happens to be a variation of your own name? Or are you going for feminism\/namesake? If you’re going for feminism\/namesake, I’d suggest using your own actual name, and perhaps using Clara as a distinguishing nickname. I would further suggest at least CONSIDERING, if only for the thrill of it, Going For It: all three names the same, just as with fathers\/sons; perhaps that would make it easier for everyone to understand. Or perhaps let your husband choose the middle name, as some exceptionally accommodating and fair-minded husbands are willing to do even though it means their sons won’t be juniors. (I have not heard of any sort of general trend of men saying that if a son is getting a variation of his own first name, the middle name should be chosen by his wife, and the surname should be his wife’s.)<\/p>\n

If you don’t want to do that, then I still feel as if you might be thinking that because you get one (1) child with a variation of your first name, you have to give everything else (possibly including the surnames of any further children) to your husband. To me, the fair division here is Clara (variation of your name) Elliot (name representing your husband) Kristianson-Surappis. The surname is indeed long. If I could show you the yearbook from my kids’ high school, I think you might feel better about that: there are LOTS of long hyphenated surnames. But if you really don’t want to, and we’re going to make this decision based on the SOUND of the last name, then I think it should be yours: it’s a much nicer sound. Or perhaps the system could be YOUR surname for girl children, and HIS surname for boy children. (I prefer the idea of giving the girls his surname and the boys your surname, but I also think it’s pretty important to do the non-traditional thing for the FIRST child, to make sure it doesn’t Just Seem Easier to keep going with the father’s surname.)<\/p>\n

Actually, you know what I think would be really, really nice, if you KNEW you were having more children AND that the next one would be a boy? Name THIS child Clara ______ Kristianson-Surappis. Name the NEXT child Elliot _____ Kristianson-Surappis. (Or, if you don’t wish to hyphenate, Clara _____ Kristianson and Elliot ______ Surappis.) Well, we don’t know and we don’t know, so it’s probably not worth the risk of losing the name Elliot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle, I would love your thoughts on a question of parent-name balance (FEMINISM) for a baby girl due in August. I have loved your posts on this topic! When we got married, we each kept our own last name. My name is\/sounds like Clare Kristianson and his name is\/sounds like Casey Surappis. We don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-46k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15768"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15771,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15768\/revisions\/15771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}