Taking my husband's name is no threat to my sense of self.

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I have to introduce this piece by telling you about my name. If you look at my New York Times wedding announcement, you will see the well-known line, "The bride, who is keeping her own name ..." And indeed I did. I was Emma Gilbey for about three years after getting married. My two daughters have Gilbey as a second middle name—not because I love it so much, but because, if I were to travel alone with them, I wanted us to have the same names on our passports. It was only when we were all checking in for a plane trip sometime after 9/11, and I heard the check-in assistant say, “Keller, party of 3,” “Gilbey, party of 1,” that I decided to change. What if the plane went down? I didn’t want to die alone on a manifest. And that was that. I turned my maiden name into a middle name because for 20 years it had been my byline. (Or as I like to put it, the name of my act.) But for everything else, I’m Emma Keller and very happy that way.

When I read Allison Yarrow’s piece, below, I felt a little envious. I now wish I had changed from the start. But like her, I love both my names, although I agree Emma Gilbey Keller is a bit of a mouthful. I look at it this way. We have such an abundance of choice these days. Sometimes it’s OK to take a little too much.

I was a 25-year-old new Mrs., the average age in this country for getting hitched. Peers and coworkers in a city full of young singles thought I was crazy, but getting married was the easiest choice I had ever made. My most difficult decision was sidelined in the madness of wedding planning, and mysteriously cropped up when I least expected it. One day, cocooned in a mess of tulle and silk chiffon in the dressing room at Kleinfeld, I decided to change my name.

I had, long before the moment of dressing room epiphany, given the name change topic considerable thought. My Jewish mother from upstate New York dropped Schwartz to marry my Cajun Catholic father. She took his name, Gaudet (Go-day), and he converted to her religion, teaching me early on that when it came to marriage, everything was negotiable. Growing up in nearly Jew-less middle Georgia, nobody could pronounce my name, and I could hardly wait to trade up for something phonetic. In a landscape of Williams, Smith, Johnson, and Jones, my name—Gaudet—stuck out. I dreaded roll call. I became Gaw-dette, Gaw-day, and Gaw-dit, and though I was a likable and outspoken kid, I preferred a quick “here” to a disruptive correction. In my native south I rarely encountered a woman whose surname differed from her husband’s. I knew there were women out there who kept their maiden names; I just hadn’t met any yet.

I warmed to the idea of correcting people who fumbled pronouncing my last name, but mostly just when they asked. Answering Craigslist ads for my first New York apartment, I said my full name stronger, and usually without waiting for the question. As a young professional forging my way in a city far from where I grew up, I knew my name was the best branding I could get. Working in network television, I saw for the first time married women in droves who had kept their own names. Out of the five women with whom I worked, only one had taken her husband’s name. Katherine went from Cheng to Chan. Judy was proud to keep her Cuban name Artime, and made it her daughter's middle name, too. Lisa was Mandel at work and Cashman everywhere else. I wasn’t exactly looking for a spouse, but I began thinking that if I found one, I might like to keep the name I fought so long to love.

I met my future husband on the telephone. Ben was working for the William J. Clinton foundation, and I wanted an interview with his famous boss for my NBC health show. I never got my interview, but eventually acquired a husband instead. Ben wanted me to take his last name, but he didn’t pressure me.

A schooled daughter of second wave feminism, I have embraced and fought with old and new to develop a strong sense of self. I realized that taking his name is not a threat to my individuality. It is not submissive. It is an act of love. In an age of “I” and “Me,”—of MYSpace and IPod—“we” needs a lifeline.

College educated brides were five times less likely to take their husbands’ name in 2000 than they were in 1975, according to the Journal of Economic Perspectives. I have plenty of career-minded, female friends who have earned maiden name recognition and balk at the idea of jeopardizing their professional identities. An activist friend berated me at a bar one night, “You’re taking his name?” she intoned, like I was being naughty.

I still miss my given last name. Gaudet is rare enough to spark conversation, old friends still call me by it, and it has a nice spot in the alphabet. About 5,000 people in the United States call themselves Gaudets. The name I officially took last year is also uncommon. In fact, only about 1,250 people in the country share it with me. Yarrow (like borrow), though a serious alphabetical demotion, is a fabulous last name. It invokes the melodic activism of Peter, Paul, and Mary. It is a free spirited, flowering medicinal plant. And it is comfortingly difficult to screw up (though some manage). I had tried on plain Yarrow at my corner coffee shop before having it printed on all my legal documents.

“I’m Allison Yarrow,” I said to the woman behind the counter. She smiled blithely, and handed me my muffin.

Becoming a full-fledged Yarrow hasn’t been easy. When they called my name at the post office recently, I thought they were talking about somebody else. I introduced myself incorrectly at my husband’s work event. I decided to include both Gaudet and Yarrow in my byline, admitting to everyone that I’m afraid of Gaudet just going away. Ultimately, taking my husband’s name is a gesture that is bigger than me. I’m choosing family, which doesn’t make me any less of who I am. Call me the backlash to the anti-patriarchy backlash. I am proud to be “we.”

Allison Gaudet Yarrow is the assistant web editor at the Forward, where she blogs regularly. She is at work on a memoir about growing up Jewish in the Deep South.
Wedding photographs of Allison Gaudet Yarrow by Inward Studio.

Tags: marriage, taking your husband's name

Emma Gilbey Keller ’s book, The Comeback: Seven Stories of Women Who Went from Career to Family and Back Again is available in paperback and makes a great gift. Emma lives with her husband, Bill Keller, their two daughters and their dog. Follow her on Twitter @EmmaGKeller

Comments

تحميل برامج تحميل برنامج

By: beckham_250 | Sun, 09/20/2009 - 06:45

تحميل برامج تحميل برنامج تحميل برامج نوكيا برامج
تحميل ماسنجر تحميل موبايل موقع دليل مواقع

I think its STUPID

By: Azalea | Wed, 08/05/2009 - 06:42

when people say or infer that keeping your GIVEN last name( even if your parents sucked or were rapists you MUST keep that rapists name to honor feminism!!!), something you had ABSOLUTELY NO CONTRL OVER is more feminist than making a choice on what you will be called. Its like saying keeping a baby just because well, you got pregnant and have a uterus is more feminist than getting an abortion because well you know how men want everyone to abort right?

You don't get a PhD and NOT call yourself "Dr." because the patriarchy had/has a monopoly on it and you don't want to be involved in that. No, everyone must NOT know that you're married, that you're educated, that you *gasp* had the gall to drop your FATHER'S last name. Because after all, you still belong to him- or else you would have dropped HIS name long ago been brave and not had a similar patriarch identifier as the rest of your family and made up your own name. How fun! How's Ms. Imtoogodandsomuchbetterthanthewomanwhodidntabortmetodoanythingthewayshediditbecauseshewasadronefollingsocialnorms for a nice fitting new name?

Can't take the family unity explanation seriously...

By: PGofHSM | Tue, 08/04/2009 - 20:07

... if the idea of using the wife's name was never even under discussion. Maybe the wife's name will be rejected as less aesthetically pleasing than the husbands, or too common, or too uncommon, or too many syllables, or whatever. But for it not even to be raised as a possibility ("Honey, I'd like for us to have the same last name, but I'm not sure which would be best. Should we both have your last name, my last name, a hyphenation, a mashup, or a totally new name for our new family?") makes the claim that one does it for non-patriarchal reasons sound very weak.

I decided at the beginning of college, when I discussed this question with friends, that if I had published something in my field before I was married, I would keep my last name; if I hadn't, I would take my husband's.

Article tagline better than article

By: taxipeach78 | Mon, 08/03/2009 - 09:23

No, of course taking your husband's name doesn't dictate a loss of sense of self- who came up with that idea? Do what's right for you. If you keep your own name because you want to, cheers. If you keep your name because you are afraid of the implications in a post-feminist world, stop worrying so much about what other people think. And really, people get married all the time. Women change their names all the time. People learn and remember your new name, if you take the time to communicate it.
And, if you consider yourself a feminist, quit berating other women for making different choices- it's antifeminist.

My only regret

By: Neon Swan | Sun, 08/02/2009 - 18:50

...was that, instead of taking my husband's name twenty years ago when we married, I'd waited and taken it ten years later, when my father had his midlife crisis, declared bankruptcy, and left my mother for his blond bimbo secretary. Disowning him one night at 3AM (I was sober, BTW) just didn't have the same impact.

jackpot

By: LadyR | Sun, 08/02/2009 - 15:01

My name change was out of pure laziness. My maiden name is 12 letters long and after I married my husband I took his 5 letter last name. We joke that I married him for his last name.

Awesome, Christy!

By: george | Sun, 08/02/2009 - 11:44

I love the part about becoming a Yarrow is like Bella's dramatic love affair. And. Now. I am a Yarrow! Is this like a full transition or just a half transition? Do you get sparkly?

There is some drama here. In her mind, her kids (which she named) and husband over there and her over here with their names. What to do...what to do...

Funny, there is no movement to meet her in the middle. Which leads to the question that if she can change her name in the middle of a marriage...why don't we see more of that? Why couldn't there be a re-affirmation ceremony where the husband and wife join under a name with mutual sacrifice? Hmmmmmm.... It's not over when you marry. I mean, if the man has conflict and loathing of this own family, he can have the option to change his name just like all the women who have conflict and family loathing who change their name. But then, it hardly ever happens that a man has conflict and bad memories in his own natal family (sarcasm). Women are uniquely effected by the self-loathing of their last name.

But after the marriage license is issued, you can always do something else with the name of the household and marriage later. It's not over, it's not set in stone. Of course, the choice of getting the man to change is somehow conventionally deemed, rude, while the submissive wife is a flower always in season. I think that last phrase should be the title of Yarrow's next book.

I can go you one further, George

By: christyw | Sat, 08/01/2009 - 16:07

Here's my review of the article:

How I changed my name to my husband's and gained my family (that I had)

And U can too! Don't lose out on your family, girls!

OMG You guys! I was several years into my marriage and I totally realized my last name wasn't matchy with my kids and husband! It was like they were over there and I was over here and it was all.... I mean, my kids totally didn't know who their mother was! Well, girls! I decided to change my name to his to gain my family back! I mean, I was totally all convictionly when I got married about the value of a woman's name, but, pshhht! Crap on that! Having your own name is haaarrdd. And totally NOT matchy. A girl has to be matchy, doesn't she?

And, you guys! It turns out there are a WHOLE lot of good reasons to ignore all that feminist stuff about names. I mean, everyone knows most women hate their last name. It's hard to pronounce. And most women have bad memories of controlling mothers and bad childhood stuff. And, don't you want to stick to those butch feminists who are actually soooooo jealous they don't have a man??? I KNOW I do. Those feminist can't tell us what do do! So let's do what is least wave-makey! And what pleases our man the most -- I mean it's all romantic and stuff to take his name!

Well, girls, when you get married you can leave that all behind and start with a clean slate! I've almost got the sads for men -- poor men, they can't do this stuff. And it would be RUDE to ask! And again, so unattractively wave-makey!

And PS to all you feminists out there! Me and Mikey-boy are NEVER going to get divorced. Men don't divorce or cheat if you take care of all their needs and aren't too, like demandy. Ours is a pure love with his name on it. I'm going to transition and fully become a YARROW. It's so white wedding and romantic! It's like Bella's love for her man. She totally changed for him and all. (although the birth scene, which was really her birth scene was kinda gross). And if we do get divorced, PS, I'm going to keep his last name anyway, because I'm taking a stand on this by sticking it to women who are so, like, progressive and stuff. You know it's kinda Hard doing what is totally rewarded, uncriticized, and expected by the patriarchy and do what most do! So hard. Oh, but YOU GUYS, OMG, I think there is totally a book in it. How I Wasn't Wave-makey and U Can Too!

I changed mine

By: LisaH | Sat, 08/01/2009 - 09:21

My husband didn't mind one way or another what I did. He never even said if he had a preference. And for a long time I said I'd never change my name for all the reasons pointed out below.
But as we were planning the wedding, like this author pointed out, I started to think about it differently. My impending wedding had brought out a nasty control game for my mother that finally opened my eyes to the depth of what my childhood had really been about. The decision about changing my name was less about feminist ideals and more about how I wanted to be identified.
Eventually I decided that we were starting a new family and I wanted to break from my name b/c of the weight it carried for me. So I took his. One of my bridesmaids berated me for that, saying I wasn't a feminist anymore at the top of her lungs. How is it feminism to say I MUST do something b/c that's what a society (in this case, of women) says so? Isn't that what we get so frustrated with when it's a society of men? I did what was right for me and I don't miss my maiden name at all. It may not be right for others and that's fine too. I just think it should be a conscious choice, one way or another.

When your husband doesn't insist you change your name . . .

By: Meredyth | Sat, 08/01/2009 - 07:53

why should you nevertheless insist he consider changing his? For the sake of bucking the "patriarchy"? That he's apparently a part of by accident of birth? Even if he's 100% on your feminist team, is not threatened by your succesful career, encourages your further advancement in your male-dominated profession... No, that's not enough, we must insist that he change his name, even if the name change idea is solely your own. If it's insulting to women for men to so insist, it is also insulting to men. That's not equality; that's tipping the balance in favor of the matriarchy. And, frankly, I'm not all that impressed with the matriarchy either. You ask why we would choose to change our names. Dissatisfied with the reason, you imply some submission on our parts or domination on the parts of our husbands. Honestly, my husband didn't care, and my reasons are difficult to articulate without sounding cute and trite. It was not wrenching; it was kind of fun, along the lines of picking out dishes at Williams Sonoma. But it was my name to do with as I liked. If the matriarchy doesn't like that I didn't conform to her standards, didn't politicize my marriage, didn't make demands on my husband that he did not make on me, that's the matriarchy's problem. I'm going to go back to worrying about chapter 11 debtors, now, and continue to build my career, which has flourished under both names. Hopefully, the matriarchy is at least satisfied with that.

Taking My Husband's Name Is No Threat to My Sense of Self