I have a name question that is only partially about baby names at the moment, but I was hoping you could help me out – it will impact hypothetical future children.<\/p>\n
My name is Emm@ V1ctory, and I have recently become engaged to J0nath0n W@rren-Wh1te. His parents each kept their surnames and hyphenated his. He has no middle name; mine is Ann.<\/p>\n
My question is, when we do marry what should our names be, and what surname should we plan on for any future children?<\/p>\n
I love my surname, and he likes it as well. He would have no problem if I kept my name (his mum did, after all).
\nI am not in love with his surname, but I think I would like to feel like we were connected in a naming way – I also feel like I would feel left out if he and the imaginary children shared a name that I didn’t. Perhaps V1ctory could be become both of our middle names, and the kids could either be V W-W or just W-W.
\nAlso my initials would be EW-W – not ideal but also probably not a dealbreaker.<\/p>\n
I’d love to hear your take on what all the options are, and what you’d suggest as the best choice.<\/p>\n
Thank you!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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One reason there are so many ways to choose a family surname is that the symbolism means different things to different people. Perhaps one woman feels as if giving up her birth surname symbolizes giving up her whole family and being absorbed into her spouse’s family, while the next woman finds it romantic to take her spouse’s surname. Perhaps one man worries that other people will think the children aren’t really his if they don’t share his surname, while the next man is thinking he really prefers the sound of his spouse’s surname and isn’t bothered at all by the difference. One couple might want to make a symbolic statement by choosing to go against tradition; another couple might want to emphasize tradition.<\/p>\n
I struggled with this a lot when I was engaged to Paul. I didn’t like the idea of taking his name; to me it did feel like giving up my family and prioritizing his, and I didn’t like that all my children would then “belong” to his family rather than to mine. (I feel like I’m “a MyDad’sSurname” rather than “a MyMom’sSurname,” even though I know I’m just as much a part of one family as I am of the other.)<\/p>\n
But I also didn’t like the idea of bucking tradition: I liked it in theory, and for other people, but I didn’t want any of the options in that category for myself. I don’t like having to explain things, and I didn’t like the idea of people assuming, for example, that my birth surname was my married name. We considered coming up with a new surname, but I didn’t like the feeling of THAT, either: I imagined people saying, “Oh, that’s an interesting surname, what country is that from?”\/”Oh, are you related to…?” and me saying, “Um. We made it up.” I didn’t want to hyphenate, because it was bulky and seemed like a one-generation fix. I didn’t want to keep my own name and then have one of us have a different surname than our children. Paul was willing to take my surname, but even though that SHOULDN’T insult anyone (no one in the woman’s family is insulted if she takes her husband’s surname), we knew in his family dynamic it would be perceived as a huge symbolic slap; plus, I was back to not wanting people to misinterpret the family tree. I didn’t want to do an option such as giving the girls my surname and the boys his surname. I felt really stuck: NOTHING seemed right.<\/p>\n
Eventually what I did was keep my own surname as a second middle name, take Paul’s surname as my surname, and do the same format for all the kids’ names: they have my surname as their second middle name, and Paul’s surname as the surname. It is not a highly satisfactory solution: clear priority is still given to the man’s family, and it’s a one-generation fix. But it was the solution I disliked least of all the options. When there are several preferences that contradict each other, eventually one set of preference has to be chosen above the others.<\/p>\n
That’s the long way to say that I don’t know what you should do in your own case, because so many individual factors and personal preferences need to be considered. What are your feelings about the various symbolisms of surnames, and what are your fiance’s feelings? Which options are you both willing to consider? When you look at the consequences of each choice (having a different surname from your children, for example, or losing the family history of the surname, or causing family-tree confusion), which of those bother you more and which bother you less?<\/p>\n
In the end, you may find yourself in the same situation as I was: ALL the options were wrong, and I finally had to pick one that felt the least wrong to me. I was fortunate that Paul was flexible about the various options: I think if he’d been stubborn about following tradition, it would have been harder for me to make that choice. It was hard enough as it was, and left me feeling resentful about patriarchal traditions without feeling like there was a better solution for my particular set of preferences.<\/p>\n
In your case, you have some very nice things to work with. For one thing, you know that whatever you choose is not going to be perceived as a slap in the face to his family, since his mom kept her own name and his parents hyphenated their child’s name. For another thing, your husband is accustomed to a hyphenated name. For a third thing, because he has two surnames and you have one, there is some room to play around with combinations.<\/p>\n
If you’re willing to hyphenate, I might suggest a new hyphenated name, with your surname and one of his surnames. The two of you could be:<\/p>\n
Emm@ and J0nath0n V1ctory-W@rren
\nEmm@ and J0nath0n V1ctory-Wh1te
\nEmm@ and J0nath0n W@rren-V1ctory
\nEmm@ and J0nath0n Wh1te-V1ctory<\/p>\n
If I were looking at that list for myself, I’d eliminate Wh1te-V1ctory because that selection\/order seems to have its own symbolism. I also might eliminate W@rren-V1ctory for sounding like “war and v1ctory”—unless that were my favorite choice symbolically and I were willing to patiently endure the recurring “Oh, heh, that sounds like war and v1ctory!” (which I might very well be, and it makes the name easier to remember). If it were down to V1ctory-W@rren or V1ctory-Wh1te, I’d be influenced by which surname belonged to which of my fianc\u00e9’s parents (I’d be more inclined to carry on his mother’s name, since I’m annoyed that it’s often the mother’s name that gets dropped in the next generation of hyphenated names), but also by how he and I each felt about each of my fianc\u00e9’s parents (if, for example, one of them had been a poor parent to him, or if I found one of them very difficult to get along with).<\/p>\n
Then you could give that same hyphenated surname to all of your own children, and your whole household would share the same surname.<\/p>\n
Another option is for you to each keep your own surnames, and use one of those new hyphenated options for your children: you’d be Emm@ V1ctory, he’d be J0nath0n W@rren-Wh1te, and your children could be FirstName V1ctory-W@rren, or FirstName V1ctory-Wh1te. This strikes me as the most confusing of the options.<\/p>\n
Another option is the one you suggest, where both of you take your surname as a middle name, and then both use his hyphenated surname. This pleases me less, similar to my dissatisfaction with my own solution: it so clearly prioritizes his names. I think it feels even more that way to me in this case, since you’d both be taking TWO of his surnames, and he has no middle name to sacrifice: you’d be giving up so much, and he’d be giving up almost nothing. But I like it better than the option where you give up your surname completely and he doesn’t change his name in any way.<\/p>\n
To me, the reassuring thing is that in the long run it doesn’t seem to matter very much. I still get little flashes of resentment about my surname, but I don’t REALLY care very much, and there’s no solution I wish I’d chosen instead. I’ve adjusted to Paul’s surname, while still feeling satisfaction when I see my birth surname in my name and in my children’s names. I know of other families who made different choices, and the minor hassle of the parents having different surnames than their children, or the spouses having different surnames than each other, or of the family using a surname not previously used in their family trees, doesn’t seem to have greatly impacted their lives: so many people go different routes, I think society has adjusted to it. The two of you can do what you like best out of the options available to you from your own particular circumstances.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name update!<\/strong><\/p>\n Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n Thank you so much for answering my question on choosing surnames.<\/p>\n We were married last Saturday and were introduced as Mrs Emm@ V1ctory and Mr J0nath0n W@rren-Wh1te. The imaginary future kid will be a V1ctory-Wh1te so another generation can deal with hyphenation!<\/p>\n Thank you to your and readers for helping out. There are lots of options available and I think for my generation (early 30s) people do not necessarily expect a name change anymore. The general attitude in the comments seemed to be ‘do what’s right for you’ which was really good advice!<\/p>\n Thanks again, <\/p>\n Update to the name update:<\/strong><\/p>\n The hypothetical future kid became a real live baby this year – and was given my surname, at my husband’s suggestion!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Emm@ writes: I have a name question that is only partially about baby names at the moment, but I was hoping you could help me out – it will impact hypothetical future children. My name is Emm@ V1ctory, and I have recently become engaged to J0nath0n W@rren-Wh1te. His parents each kept their surnames and hyphenated […]<\/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":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2kD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8967","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=8967"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14318,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8967\/revisions\/14318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nEmm@<\/p>\n![\"cake](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/cake-from-carla-169x300.jpg\")
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