Would you take your wife's name?

[bayo000]

The women I will marry later this year

Not sure if to be jealous or pity you

 

[Raelthorne]

I'm not married but if it was my previous SO (I'm single), then no. Feminism, male pride, emasculation doesn't bother me and I'm not opposed to doing so in other cases. However in that one, I'd end up in a Neville Neville, or Roger Rogers style situation

 

[Mr Jack]

Not sure if to be jealous or pity you

Multi-personality disorder, innit

(Well spotted, you eagle-eyed pedant!)

 

[Sao_Sin]

I think it's generally reasonable although it will yield ridiculous results sometimes. Compound words have long been common in names in many places, including Britain, and cumbersome combinations generally get smoothed out into something more usable. It's a workable method. It's generally been used for the names of places and things rather than families, but it could be used for the names of families.

Double barreling is silly. It's only a couple of generations to an impractical number of family names and only 19 generations to over a million family names per person. It's like the classic fable of grains of rice on a chessboard - when you double at each step the numbers quickly become vast.

Interesting, I honestly hadn't realised it was a fairly common practice!

 

[Angilion]

Interesting, I honestly hadn't realised it was a fairly common practice!

For names of places and things, yes. It's one of the problems in etymology because the current name very often isn't the original. Scunthorpe, for example. "thorpe" is one of the many names used to indicate a settlement, but "scun" doesn't mean anything. It's not the original name. It was probably named after a person called Skuma or Skuna. Skuna's Thorpe --> Skunasthorpe --> Scunthorpe. Probably. It occurs often in words other than placenames too. "Midwife", for example, was originally "midwifman". Three Old english words made into a compound word - mid (with, connotation of support), wif (female) and man (person). Straightforward...and too cumbersome so in usage it was shortened and smoothed out.

As far as I know it wasn't a common practice in family names...but it could become one easily enough.

 

[dowie]

I think it's generally reasonable although it will yield ridiculous results sometimes. Compound words have long been common in names in many places, including Britain, and cumbersome combinations generally get smoothed out into something more usable. It's a workable method. It's generally been used for the names of places and things rather than families, but it could be used for the names of families.

Double barreling is silly. It's only a couple of generations to an impractical number of family names and only 19 generations to over a million family names per person. It's like the classic fable of grains of rice on a chessboard - when you double at each step the numbers quickly become vast.

surely you have a similar issue with both - assuming no one wants a triple or quadruple barrelled name then in either case you need to drop some information in each successive generation - with double barrelled name then that would be a whole name, with compounding then that is perhaps part of one (which could be the only part that was derived from a particular name)

 

[Tosno]

I would.*



*If I were beta

 

[Adnams Drinker]

In the run-up to our wedding, my fiancée asked me if I'd consider taking her surname - it wasn't a right-on, feminist thing, quite the opposite: more the fact that with her parents having had two daughters, her surname would effectively end when her and her sister married.

I politely declined on two counts: a) the tradition that a bride takes her husband's surname (call me sexist if you want ) and b) given that me and her Dad both already have the same first name, I just thought having two blokes with the same name as father and son-in-law was bound to lead to confusion. She was fine about it and didn't bring the matter up any more ...

We'll be divorcing later this year, so the irony is she'll probably revert to her maiden name anyway, unless she immediately decides to marry her boyfriend ...

 

[Deleted member 66701]

Sure, why not.

+1

It's just a name.

 

[joey1211]

Yes, surely.

Don't call me Shirley.

 

[Jean-F]

Agreed it is just a name, and there are bigger things in life, but the sense of attachment to a name is important to some people, myself included.

That’s very true, I’ll give you an example, which is not in keeping with the thread title.
Some time after my first wife divorced me, she met a guy who moved in with her, and they eventually married.
He was a nice guy, good to her and my two boys, he probably still is a nice guy, although I haven’t seen him for years.
I digress, one weekend, on my visitation with the boys, I took them to see their grandma, my mother.
One of the boys showed her his report card from school, while looking at it, she said, “Jean, have you seen this?”
When I looked, my son’s surname was printed as my wife’s new husband’s surname.
There was no drama about it, when I took the boys back to their mother, I simply said, “Their names have to revert to mine by the next time I see them, or I’ll start the ball rolling legally.”
She wasn’t happy, but she accepted that they were my children, they should have my name.

 

[dazza13]

My wife still uses her maiden name for work but has changed her passport/driving license to mine, although it did take her years to do this. The kids have my name and that would always have been the case as my family name is fairly unique and her's is a very common UK name. And i feel a responsibility to keep my family name going as it was something that was important to my Dad and my Granddad.

 

[SC0TTRS]

There's no real need to take the missus maiden name, but I don't think I would mind that much, only because she has a cool surname.

Just need to complete a doctorate, switch surnames and then be known as Doctor Fear! muhaha!

 

[Angilion]

surely you have a similar issue with both - assuming no one wants a triple or quadruple barrelled name then in either case you need to drop some information in each successive generation - with double barrelled name then that would be a whole name, with compounding then that is perhaps part of one (which could be the only part that was derived from a particular name)

You're right. I hadn't thought of that aspect of compound names.

The easiest solution would be if everyone was called Bob (sometimes short for Kate)

 

[BowdonUK]

No I wouldn't.

But any kids 'we' might have could get a double barrelled surname.

 

[GhostWKD]

Not sure if to be jealous or pity you

"I'm no stranger to pain.... I've been married.... TWICE!"

As others have mentioned as well, for me I feel the responsibility to continue my family name given it ends with me if I don't have children or they don't take my surname when I do.

 

[Amp34]

If they don't call their child Morgan, that's a missed opportunity.

Only if they decided to double barrel their surnames...

Morgan Morgan-Morgan?

Honestly I don’t care. I find it odd that my GF would take my surname if we married. I don’t see the point of marriage anyway, especially as common law is recognized here so we get all the benefits without having to stump up the cash for a wedding/ring.

 

[Amp34]

For names of places and things, yes. It's one of the problems in etymology because the current name very often isn't the original. Scunthorpe, for example. "thorpe" is one of the many names used to indicate a settlement, but "scun" doesn't mean anything. It's not the original name. It was probably named after a person called Skuma or Skuna. Skuna's Thorpe --> Skunasthorpe --> Scunthorpe. Probably. It occurs often in words other than placenames too. "Midwife", for example, was originally "midwifman". Three Old english words made into a compound word - mid (with, connotation of support), wif (female) and man (person). Straightforward...and too cumbersome so in usage it was shortened and smoothed out.

As far as I know it wasn't a common practice in family names...but it could become one easily enough.

Could it not be argued it’s common for names of people too?

The origin of names like Wilson, Fitzgerald etc. is much the same as your Scunthorpe example, except rather than settlement it denotes they are the son of a someone (William for example above). Son as a suffix is extremely common in peoples surnames, perhaps due to the requirement to come up with an official family name in the past (as you mentioned earlier) or as a formalization of a practice of familial recognition prior to that?

 

[mark1284]

no

 

[Irish_Tom]

To all those who have said no: would you / did you expect your wife to take your name? If so why?

I know a few people have already explained their reasoning but I’d be interested to know how many put it down to tradition or keeping their family name going or just because it’s “alpha”.