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Names

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15:06 / 14.02.06

I'm not double barreled because my surname would be an insane 18 letters long (*********-********* ). Can you imagine filling in forms with a surname like that? My parents apparently could.

18, insane? No, Nina. Meet
Sabine Leutheuser-Schnarrenberger (=25)

Tryphena Absent

15:11 / 14.02.06

I never understood the reasoning behind women balking at taking on their husband's name in order to preserve their own identity, when they're carrying their father's name to begin with.

I'm not!

I want to look my mother in the eye and say "don't worry mother. We're going to break this cycle of patriachy."

Tryphena Absent

15:13 / 14.02.06

I mean, how exactly do you do that if no one ever begins?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:18 / 14.02.06

If your mother was my mother, she'd probably say "that's nice, dear".

15:26 / 14.02.06

I'm totally behind the double-barrel, blaow! blaow!, these days mostly because Hunter-Falconer is probably the best surname conceivable. The woman's name comes first, eh? It's better that way, anyhow.

Oh, and it's right-on 'n' shit, too.

Ex

15:41 / 14.02.06

I have a Big Theory about the connection of illegitimacy, the Paternal Name, feminism, lesbian heroines and the bildungsroman but I might save it for the Headshop unless provoked.

I must say that I never understood the reasoning behind women balking at taking on their husband's name in order to preserve their own identity, when they're carrying their father's name to begin with.

I see the argument, but I've had that name for thirty years - I may have got it via a partriarchal habit, but it's my name now. As soon as I started acting on my own behalf I had input into what it means.
For instance, I wondered at once point whether to use a pseudonym on some of my writing to protect the Family Name, but then decided it was now mine to do as I saw fit with. (You think I'm locked into this paternal designator with you, but you're locked in with me...)

My surname isn't as rare as Nina's, but there's only about eight of us in the country, so I suppose I feel I have a big stake in defining what it means. And I know this is entirely because of my generation, but if you stick it into google you don't get my father, uncle or other male relatives - you get my analysis of the homoerotics of Lord of the Rings.

Oddly enough, about a year ago my father told me that he always gave a false name when ordering takeaways, and wouldn't mind if I changed mine. It was a bit of a shock hearing the Paterfamilias with his nominal authority saying 'It's a bloody stupid name, really.'

Tryphena Absent

16:02 / 14.02.06

If your mother was my mother, she'd probably say "that's nice, dear".

So would mine but then when I protested loudly "but mother don't you agrreeee with me" she'd say "I gave you my bloody name, what more do you want from me child?"

16:30 / 14.02.06

Hunter-Falconer

Sure is better than Robertson-Stewart

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

16:54 / 14.02.06

Morrison-Ellis?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

19:12 / 14.02.06

Hunter-Falconer is the best double barreled name ever. If we had an armory forum, people could announce awesome namechanges properly.

20:01 / 14.02.06

Part of my family consists of German aristocrats, for whom the business of last names is weighty and of much import. Of course, this provides fertile ground for vast quantities of silliness. I have an aunt with the last name zu Stolberg-Stolberg, which I still don't understand to my satisfaction. Who married who?

Some of my cousins could apparently (it was explained to me) switch at will between Graf Praschma and Von Bilkau, which I also find confusing (and kind of doubt now that I'm older, but just can't be sure).

And there was huge family schism recently when a close cousin had her husband take her last name, since he was a commoner and the last name came with a title. Apparently, it's an old, old tradition in Germany (husbands taking aristocratic wives' names), but hasn't been practiced widely in centuries.

Then again, the scheisse will really hit the Ventilator once the Germans twig onto the fact that my cousin Mark, the eldest son of the eldest son, who resides in South Africa, is adopting a Zulu boy. Making him, I think, the heir to the family seat... or at least in line. Scandal!

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

20:22 / 14.02.06

When my parents split and my mother remarried, I was only about 8 but was given the choice of keeping my father's name or taking the name of my (now) late stepfather. My mother, however, has taken the names of all three of her husbands (errr...not at once, mind) over the past 20 years or so. I honestly can't remember if she reverted to her maiden name or not when she and my father divorced, and after my first stepfather died.

My stepmother kept her name, but as I understand it this was mostly for proffesional purposes, as she's a pretty high class talent management consultant, and had, I think, at that point built up a decent amount of name recognition. There was some weird agreement between her and my father that if their children were boys, the boys would have my father's last name. If they had girls, the girls would have HER last name. Sounds reasonable enough...if perhaps a trifle strange as it would create the possibility, however remote, of having fraternal twins who, at birth, had different last names.

Grant, incidentally...that's some interesting family history. I like the idea of a Zulu orphan becoming the heir to a German aristocratic family's family seat.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

20:24 / 14.02.06

When my parents split and my mother remarried, I was only about 8 but was given the choice of keeping my father's name or taking the name of my (now) late stepfather. My mother, however, has taken the names of all three of her husbands (errr...not at once, mind) over the past 20 years or so. I honestly can't remember if she reverted to her maiden name or not when she and my father divorced, and after my first stepfather died.

My stepmother kept her name, but as I understand it this was mostly for proffesional purposes, as she's a pretty high class talent management consultant, and had, I think, at that point built up a decent amount of name recognition. There was some weird agreement between her and my father that if their children were boys, the boys would have my father's last name. If they had girls, the girls would have HER last name. Sounds reasonable enough...if perhaps a trifle strange as it would create the possibility, however remote, of having fraternal twins who, at birth, had different last names.

Grant, incidentally...that's some interesting family history. I like the idea of a Zulu orphan becoming the heir to a German aristocratic family's family seat.

20:33 / 14.02.06

I´ll have you know, we got rid of our aristocrats in 1919, when on the 11th August the new constitution became effective, thereby abolishing royalty.

The only possibility for a German to be an aristocrat is to have another passport. For example the husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco is royalty, because he also has the British nationality.

These days "Graf" or "Baron" are just part of the name, they´re not a title.

The main reason we could get rid of them was their being stupid. They always wanted to be officers or better in the army and so had to actually fight. In World War I most of the male German aristocrats got themselves killed, and so couldn´t vote against the new law.

20:34 / 14.02.06

But then again, I heard Prince Harry is off to a trip to Iraq?

21:53 / 14.02.06

Well, royalty, yes. The aristocrats (some of them) still seem to take the whole family title thing seriously. This may be a language difference ("aristocrat" not really meaning "in line to inherit rulership of a country" as literally as some other terms in other languages, or, well, meaning that as much today as it once did). (In other words, I think it really is all just in the name, too.)

The Stolberg-Stolberg thing puzzled me, so I started snooping around and just found my grandfather's listing in The Peerage. Mother and uncles are there, but only the first of the middle uncle's three daughters, not the eldest cousin (or, by extension, his Zulu son). I don't know why.

If you scroll up from there, you can see my Aunt Jeanine, daughter of a Graf Praschma, took the last name Von Bilkau. I still can't figure *that* out.

My mother, even more confusing, is equally cavalier (ho ho!) about her first name, switching between German and Slavic versions depending on her mood. The monogram is ever-changing.

22:56 / 14.02.06

Grant, are you sure I didn't make you up?

01:08 / 15.02.06

No, I'm not, actually.

12:58 / 15.02.06

No, grant is my creation!

What about non-name-change-name-changes? It seems very common now for women to use their husband's name day-to-day but still have their maiden name be their "legal" name (which, in U.S. terms, means it's the one attached to your Social Security number).

This comes up a lot when you're doing tax work; my firm has a gajillion clients who file under different last names but "go by" just the one. I myself do this, as does my mother (I think) since she remarried.

13:14 / 15.02.06

My wife Ophelia refused to take my name, but when asked for reasons will simply arch an eyebrow at me.

14:18 / 15.02.06

I have a Big Theory about the connection of illegitimacy, the Paternal Name, feminism, lesbian heroines and the bildungsroman but I might save it for the Headshop unless provoked.

ex, I provoke thee!

Names are a big deal. I do get irritated by the argument "you're just keeping your father's name so you're not challenging anything..." I kept my name, which anyway is only about 2 generations back and was taken from the name of the family farm in Scandinavia (and is, admittedly, WAY better than the spouse's). I was embarrassingly young when I married so keeping my name was important for me, symbolically, to say: this marriage is not going to run on traditional terms. It does not signal a radical break with my past identity and a "melding" of my identity INTO his. It's a partnership.

I had a friend with an unusual last name who moved around a great deal as a child. She kept her name on marriage, which turned out to be a good thing, because it was the only way a girlfriend from the 6th grade, in a town she'd moved away from years before, was able to reconnect with her. This friend is now one of the few connections she has to her childhood, as both her parents died when she was young.

And I know so many women who are in the situation described up-thread, who wind up stuck with an ex-'s name, having built a career with it, and unsure what to do afterwards, not really wanting it, or to leap back 20 years to their birth name, nor feeling like a "new" name is right for them at that point, either.

This is one of those issues where young women, especially, seem prone to think that keeping your name is like not shaving your legs ["we're so over that now! it's not oppression anymore! What you older women don't understand is that our generation is so free that we can freely choose to make this choice, under absolutely no pressure, and not be affected by it!"]. Me, I just think that view's a little naive. But then I'm a bitchy old school feminist.

A

14:22 / 15.02.06

I must say that I never understood the reasoning behind women balking at taking on their husband's name in order to preserve their own identity, when they're carrying their father's name to begin with.

When I got married, my wife-to-be wasn't on speaking terms with her father, and didn't want to have his last name, so she wound up taking my last name. I did feel kinda weird about it- there does seem to be this connotation of "property" about the whole thing.

Anyway, after we broke up, she wound up legally changing her name to her grandmother's maiden name, which is highly irregular, but she seems happy with it.

20:32 / 15.02.06

Grandmother's maiden name? I have a friend who did that... she hated her own last name, and her mother's maiden name was worse. Germanic names, monosyllabic, with "u" in the middle. The grandmother's maiden name was a nice Irish one. Suited her much better.

21:05 / 15.02.06

Schultz?
Kunz?
Hurz?

08:30 / 16.02.06

I have a Big Theory about the connection of illegitimacy, the Paternal Name, feminism, lesbian heroines and the bildungsroman but I might save it for the Headshop unless provoked.

*pokes Ex with stick*

15:40 / 16.02.06

One of them... was Klump.

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