The Maiden Name Debate: Difference between revisions

 

Not a completely [[Universal Trope]], as many cultures do not expect a woman to change her name (Korea, Vietnam, China, Quebec, Muslim countries, the majority of Latin America), and some do not use surnames at all (Iceland, Indonesia). In the former Soviet Union, the choice to change one's name is part of the (civil and very bureaucratic) ceremony, and the man changing his name is not unheard-of (though less common than the woman changing her name or there being no name change at all). In Japan, if a woman's name is from a family that is extremely high on the social ladder, then it is possible for the husband to take her last name. This is not common.

 

Almost always, if an [[Only One Name]] person marries a Two-Named person, regardless of gender, he or she will take the Two-Named person's last name.

** Maybe he just wanted to lose the "Rokubungi". Even in Japan, that doesn't make the cool name index.

** There's some implication that Gendo had a dark past he wanted to get away from as well. Getting a new name would be a symbolic way of starting over.

* Fate Testarossa from ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' became Fate Testarossa-Harlaown (or T. Harlaown) after being adopted by Lindy Harlaown in order to respect both. She is later integrated into the "Takamachi Family" but just keeps her previous hyphenated last name. Both because it would be [[Hide Your Lesbians|too obvious]] and a tad wordy.<ref>Or invoke this trope over whether she would take the name Takamachi, Nanoha would take the name Testarossa-Harlaown, or go with the triple name</ref> In the second ''Megami Sound Stage'', she apologizes for how long "Testarossa-Harlaown" is, noting that "both Testarossa and Harlaown are (her) real last names".

* Itoshiki Rin from ''[[Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei]]'' looks forward to the day she can get married and change her [[Unfortunate Name]]. Sadly, the Itoshiki family is very high-ranking, so she has trouble finding an acceptably prominent suitor. In fact, her brother's friend who is in love with all things old tries to marry her in order to acquire an old name.

* In some ''[[Ronin Warriors]]'' [[All There in the Manual|side-materials]], Shin Mouri (Cye of the Torrent) is troubled because his Ronin duties conflict with him becoming the heir of his family's traditional pottery business. To solve this, his older sister and her boyfriend agree on him marrying into the Mouri family and taking up the surname.

* In ''[[Kimagure Orange Road]]'', Kyousuke and the twins's Kasuga surname is actually their mother Akemi's maiden name. Their dad Takashi married into the Kasuga clan since Akemi was the only daughter... which certainly explains why [[Muggle|he's the only Kasuga]] without [[Psychic Powers]].

 

== Comic Books ==

* For [[One True Threesome|the same reason]], this trope also comes up for Fate in ''[[Relationships Series]]''.

* This is constantly a question for writers of ''[[The X-Files]]'' fanfiction that feature Mulder and Scully as a married couple. While a large question is whether or not Scully would change her name, the larger question is: since they're on a [[Last-Name Basis]] and they got married, would he still call her Scully?

 

== Film ==

* In ''[[The Wedding Singer]]'', Julia Sullivan bursts into tears when she realizes that after she marries Glenn she'll be "Mrs. Julia Guglia".

* Inverted in the film ''Whipped''. The main character, a [[Henpecked Husband|hen-pecked boyfriend]], briefly considers changing his last name to his fiance's. {{spoiler|They split up before the marriage.}}

 

== Literature ==

** In Lancre meanwhile, there's a sort of tradition of matrilinearity, at least amongst witches. So when Miss Gytha Ogg got married, she became Mrs Gytha Ogg and her husband became Mr. Ogg (as did her subsequent husbands—well, the ones that [[Really Gets Around|were actually hers]]). Her married sons, however, are still Oggs, because none of her daughters-in-law are brave enough to explain to Nanny that they shouldn't be.

* ''A Love for All Time'' by Bertrice Small begins in Elizabethan England. Queen Elizabeth commands one of her courtiers, Conn O'Malley, who is a troublesome Irishman, to marry Aidan St. Michael, who is a titled Englishwoman, and to take her name along with the title that went with it. He agreed, mainly because of the title. One of the queen's advisors pointed out that this would effectively make Conn an Englishman.

* The [[Bruce Coville]] book ''Monster of the Year'' has Michael McGraw, whose mother (Elsa Adams) changed her name to her husband's when she got married, changed back after they divorced, and said she'd stay with her maiden name for the rest of her life. Michael, on the other hand, had his name changed to match his stepfather's. As he puts it, "This confuses outsiders, since they can't figure out who I really belong to, but it suits the three of us just fine."

* In the ''[[Amelia Peabody]]'' books, after Amelia marries she goes by "Amelia Peabody Emerson", but her husband Radcliffe continues to address her as "Peabody".

 

== Live Action TV ==

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

* In ''[[Peanuts]],'' Sally decides to write to [[Mrs. Claus]] instead of Santa. At one point Charlie Brown mentions that he had heard she was called "[[Punny Name|Mary Christmas]]," and Sally congratulates her on deciding to keep her own name.

 

* There was (and still is, in many places) a significant [[Double Standard]] about this. For women to change their names after marriage was a simple procedure, while for the man to take his wife's name required moving hell and earth. The most famous person to do this is probably the NFL's London Fletcher-Baker, who adopted the Baker to honor his father-in-law.

** Legal issues aside, you can hear any number of stories from women who decided not to change their names getting "Ohohoho, well, we know who'll wear the pants in ''this'' marriage!" from friends and family, as if keeping her own name was somehow a display of dominance over her husband-to-be instead of ''the clearly neutral option''. And if ''he'' changes his name, well, they're obviously a Lorena Bobbit story waiting to happen.

* Similarly, [[Agatha Christie]] was Agatha Mallowan from 1930, but she kept Christie as her pen name.

* An interesting case with [[The Daily Show|Jon Stewart]]. His birth name was Leibowitz, and he chose Stewart as his [[Stage Names|professional name]]. About a year after he married Tracy McShane, they ''both'' changed their legal last names to Stewart.

* During the 1984 U.S. presidential campaign, Senator Barry Goldwater insisted on referring to vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro as "Mrs. Zacarro."

* This is also an issue for same-sex couples since obviously there either isn't a wife or there isn't a husband in the picture. Therefore, there's no tradition to go by. Some take just one of their names. Some hyphenate. Some even pick out an entirely new name for themselves. Lately, there's also been a discussion brewing about how male couples who change one or both of their names are supposed to refer to their old name(s) since "maiden name" obviously doesn't work.

** Of course, "maiden name" also makes less sense for women these days, given that they're no longer assumed to be "maidens" before they're married.

** Dan Savage wrote an interesting piece about trying to figure out what last name to give their son when he and his husband (then boyfriend) adopted him. They compromised by giving him his birthmother's last name, which seemed like a sweet gesture at the time, but wound up leading to a lot of trouble later on - it was hard enough to convince workers at airports and national borders that they weren't two strangers kidnapping a baby even *without* having to explain why the baby didn't share either of their last names.

 

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[[Category:Wedding and Engagement Tropes]]

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