Did you change your last name?

[LordKAT]

good thing they are non toxic these days

[barbie]

A tradition of my country is that women keep their surnames even after marriage. Of course, children follow the surname of their father. Actually I first thought it was funny and even patriarchical that a woman changes her surname to her husband's. When I was in the U.S., it was really easy to tell whether a woman was divorced and married again: by looking the change in surname part of her email address. However, nobody thought it could provoke privacy issues.

In my country, some extreme feminists have done bold but successful legal battles against the government. Now, children can follow the surname of their mother if their parents were divorced, but their father does not support them financially. And more, some of them even express their surname as father + mother's surname (in Korean, most surnames are monosyllabic, and those feminists use two syllables, one for their mother, and another for their father).

Most people in the U.S. called my wife as Mrs. (my surname), but it sometimes can be provoking to my wife, not to mention those feminists.

Barbie~~

[LordKAT]

change in surname in email address? Was this a business email set up for the person?  I never use any part of my real name in an email address.

BTW In US many women simply hyphenate their name when they marry, you can take hubby's name, hubby can take your name, children can be named after either parent or neither, You can make up a name or use a household product for a name, long as it doesn't contain digits.

[barbie]

change in surname in email address? Was this a business email set up for the person?  I never use any part of my real name in an email address.

Yes. Some government institutes in the U.S. make it a rule to set up e-mail addresses based on users' surname.

I am rather skeptical about movements on the surname issue, driven by extreme feminists here, although I acknowledge their efforts and contirbutions to gender equality in this country.

http://www.feministmarriage.com/2010/03/to-change-or-not-to-change-whats-in.html

I take further issue with Salie's failure to understand the significant differences cultures have to naming practices surrounding marriage. She says:


It makes me wish we [Americans] were a more progressive country like...Iran. Yes, Iran, where Muslim women keep their names for life. So must women, by law, keep their names in Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Chile, Malaysia, Korea...I could go on...

Now, I don't know much about all of these cultures' naming practices, but my husband is Korean, and I lived in Korea for three years. Yes, women do keep their names after marriage, but if Salie thinks this practice is "progressive," she is sorely mistaken. Korean culture required that a woman retain her own name as she entered her husband's house so that she could always be reminded of her outsider status. She was still expected to give up her identity and connections with her family of birth, but she retained the name to be marked as different and unwelcome. Her children were given her husband's name. She has no choice in the matter.

Barbie~~

[K8]

I kept my last name because I've always liked it and like my family.  It's a bit unsual and I identify with it.

- Kate

[V M]

I thought about taking my mom's maiden name (Scottish) or researching my dad's original birth name (Scandinavian)

But I'm liking the name I came up with which is part of my original name

I love my family but my dad's adopted name has annoyed me all my life

[PanoramaIsland]

Yes. Some government institutes in the U.S. make it a rule to set up e-mail addresses based on users' surname.

I am rather skeptical about movements on the surname issue, driven by extreme feminists here, although I acknowledge their efforts and contirbutions to gender equality in this country.

http://www.feministmarriage.com/2010/03/to-change-or-not-to-change-whats-in.html

Barbie~~

Barbie, I was never never under the impression that the movement for women to keep their own surnames in marriage was driven by "extreme feminists." In fact, that would be rather unlikely - the "extreme" (that is, radical) feminists are typically against marriage altogether.

Of course, I never viewed the practice as unusual, since people in my own family adopted it. My mother and father both adopted a hyphenated combination of their maiden surnames when they married. My brother and I both retained that hyphenated surname after they divorced. Surname retention and combination seem sensible enough to me. They may have different cultural connotations in other countries, but I live in America, not Korea, and since I'm not Korean-American, it doesn't have negative connotations for me. It just means that the two people are genuinely joining together in equal partnership.

[Autumn]

I still haven't changed my name. Yes... it's awkward. A lot has happened and I haven't been able to focus.

However, one of my new partner's close friends is a lesbian who has dated trans women before... and her family are lawyers who handled their name changes, who are expanding their knowledge to help with trans/queer law. My partner thinks that they would be willing and able to help me if I were to ask; her friend knows about my status so I could talk to her about it. So it might end up being a lot less stressful. Plus I've met her friend's mother and sister and they are badass, awesome women.

I went to the bank today and updated my debit card's photograph. I never, ever use my debit card, but I wanted to have some sort of official documentation with my new face on it. She said they could put it on my credit card too, but I said it's usually assumed that my credit card is my husband's and it might be weird to have my face on a male named card. The DMV is 40 minutes away and between school and work and all I just haven't had the chance to get an updated picture on my DL. The personal banker was an incredibly sweet, professional black lady who, after I broke the ice for her and told her a very brief synopsis of the situation, certainly related to my situation.

I don't really like having to out myself to random people without explanation. But if I'm forced in a professional setting, then I do actually take the opportunity to show people that I'm just a normal girl. I'd like to think that occasionally touching peoples' lives like that and giving them a face to associate with some strange concept they might barely know anything about might make a difference for someone some day. Virtually everyone has been so good to me so far.

[Linus]

I decided to not change my last name. I'm kind of lucky to have good family support. Additionally, I've already gone through last name changes when I was a kid (long story but having been adopted by a step-parent and then re-adopted by my biological father). I also have my family's crest on my left bicep so...

[insanitylives]

I see no point in changing my last name, regardless of parental connection.

it's too common

[Walter]

I haven't changed my last name because I couldn't afford it when I changed my first

I'd like to change it someday though. I've tried a couple of last names and the one I used the longest was Armando. I used that name for like two years straight (which is an extremely long time for me to use any name lol)

[cynthialee]

I kinda changed it. I added in a variation of my moms second name as a 'maiden name'. So I have a hyphenated last name now. I figured it would fit right in with my sisters and cousins who all tend to use hyphenated last names.

[aydan_boy]

I'm planning to change my last name. My last name only belongs to an estranged ex-father, so it aint gonna hurt anyone. I'm stuck between Ortez or Dallas.
Maybe i'll use one as a  middle name....When i can afford it. And when i'm of legal age to change it by myself.
D****** Dallas Ortez. Sweet!

[Evan]

I get why some people would feel the need to do this.. but for me it doesn't make a difference. Living "stealth" isn't something I'm trying to do, and my family (especially my grandpa) is happy to have someone that can continue the family name now.

[Alyssa M.]

I intended to change my last name, largely for reasons of stealth (kind of), but it became completely impractical. I have put so much effort into getting various bureaucracies I have to deal with on a daily basis to change my first name that I'm simply exhausted. I just don't care any longer.

[Nero]

A couple of you had mentioned not being able to change your last name the same time as your first?

[Alyssa M.]

No -- this was all pre-legal-name change (which still hasn't happened; I've been ridiculously busy; right now I'm unwinding from another super-long day). Basically, I had to make it possible to deal with school-related issues. I could change both names (legally) at any time (provided I go through the really long hassle of paperwork, court dates, etc.), but I finagled the school into changing my directory listing. There are various computer accounts I had to mess around with as well. It's a mess, basically resulting from my needing to go full-time before I could deal with the paperwork. It's far to complicated to describe; I must admit much of it is my own doing, for not sticking with some plan -- but in some ways, I couldn't do my transition that way. I basically charged ahead trying not to completely fall apart in the process from stress, dysphoria, or some combination. So this is where I ended up.

[Ryan]

I kept my surname. Didn't really see a reason to change it. It would have been nice to cut off ties with people who knew my surname, but I didn't really want to.
It would be nice to carry on the family in my name and all that

[FairyGirl]

I changed all my names, and probably the hardest thing I encountered was the deeds office clerk, who couldn't seem to wrap her head around the fact I used to be <male name> when I went to change the name on my house deed. In the end I paid a title company to draw up a quit claim deed transferring ownership of the house from "him" to me. The clerk actually knew how to deal with one of those so problem finally solved lol

[Alyssa M.]

That's been very much like my experience, Chloe. There tends to be basically no useful documentation of name changes (except, perhaps, with the "legal" part -- the one that involves going to a courthouse or whatever). Every institution is different. With the university, it came about by talking to a computer help desk person, and I basically told him "I need to be able to use this email address for school-related issues, and I need the 'from' and 'reply-to' fields not to say what they do now." He said he could only change first names, and only to "nicknames," so i told him that my nickname is "Alyssa." He said he would put a request through, and magically a few days later, when I logged into the email servers website, it said, "Hello Alyssa." And I can now send and receive mail under an appropriate email alias (alyssa.lastname@schooldomainname.edu) The student billing office and the records department (grades, etc.) hasn't changed it -- but a library fine was sent to "Alyssa" and that's how it appears on the online university directory. Then there was the student medical center, which was a complete nightmare. I had to see a doctor for something (non-transition-related), and he wrote a prescription to "Alyssa," and an outside referral (also NTR) was for "Alyssa" as well -- which is how they billed me.

So ... yeah, bureaucratic magic. Don't even get me started on my research-related computer accounts.