No Stupid Questions

It's pretty helpful for medical emergencies and getting through border police as a family.

I think the only correct answer will be "there are lots of different reasons".

My wife took my last name, even though it's not a good one and I suggested that we pick a new one.

Here are a couple of her reasons:

1. She wanted us to have the same surname.

2. She was very close friends with my cousins growing up, so the name didn't seem weird to her.

3. Tradition - she'd always assumed she would change her name to her husband's name, so that seemed the most normal thing to do.

Two short answers: Tradition and simplicity.

If you have different names, which one do the kids get? Also, it's sometimes challenging to fill in school forms when your kid has a different last name than you.

I'm actually gonna be taking my girlfriend's last name. Mine sounds hella stupid and is also slang for an unflattering body part, I got bullied a lot for it growing up so I will spare my children and take her last name cause it sounds super fancy and cool.

Many people are fine with changing their names and the ones that aren't won't do it. There's your answer. Don't rag on the people that like changing their name.

Pew Research has survey data germane to this question. As it stands, a clear majority (79%) of opposite-sex married women changed their family/last name to their husband's.

But for never-married women, only a third (33%) said they would change their name to their spouse's family name. 24% of never-married women were unsure whether they would or wouldn't change their name upon marriage.

From this data, I would conclude that while the trend of taking the husband's last name is fairly entrenched right now, the public's attitude are changing and we might expect the popularity of this to diminish over time. The detailed breakdown by demographic shows that the practice was less common (73%) in the 18-49 age group than in the 50+ age group (85%).

However, some caveats: the survey questions did not inquire into whether the never-married women intended on ever getting married; it simply asked "if you were to get married...". So if marriage as a form of cohabitation becomes less popular in the future, then the change-your-family-name trend could be in sharper decline than this data would suggest.

Alternatively, the data could reflect differences between married and never-married women. Perhaps never-married women -- by virtue of not being married yet -- answered "would not change name" because they did not yet know what their future spouse's name is. No option for "it depends on his name" was offered by the survey. Never-married women may also more-strongly consider the paperwork burden -- USA specific -- for changing one's name.

So does this help answer your question? Eh, only somewhat. Younger age and left-leaning seem to be factors, but that's a far cry from cause-and-effect. Given how gradual the trend is changing, it's more likely that the practice is mostly cultural. If so, then the answer to "why is cultural practice XYZ a thing?" is always "because it is".

I think each woman has her own reasons (some people actually like traditions) but I have the impression that, globally, women are not the same as what we see online. I think today the taking of a surname does not indicate ownership or property, at least to most modern women (and men).

I don't think any woman thinks like that anymore, or perhaps not many, so the motivations would then also be obviously different.

I'm from a different culture than my husband and my last name was a bureaucratic nightmare. Almost didn't make it into university because of computer mix ups, have had issues filing taxes, voting, getting a passport, settings basic IDs, getting insurance... It's endless. Changed my name as soon as I could, and even THAT process was hindered by my original name.

Bonuses: Distance myself from social media I had as a child. Harder for former stalkers to locate me if they decide to rekindle their previous obsessions. Don't need to upset one set of grandparents when you name your children one parent's last name and not the other. People stop asking me where I'm from and making racist assumptions about me. Everyone seems a lot friendlier now that they assume I'm [insert European white race here] instead of [insert non-white race here] and that's despite the fact that I'm clearly white. Racism is wild. My signature is way shorter.

Not saying this should be the norm, but I was happy it was a socially acceptable option for me.

My wife did, despite me saying I'd rather she not. Me changing to her name was not legally possible in our situation (me US citizen, her JP citizen, both living in and married in Japan). (Edit: What I wanted to do was change to her name, but that doesn't happen unless I give up US and my other citizenship, apply for and get JP citizenship, and choose her maiden name as my name or do that but a name combining hers and the sound from the start of mine rendered in kanji).

Her reasoning was that we could quickly and easily remove basically all doubt that we are related with just what ID we both always carry. Her usecase was one of us being critically injured or something and being able to gain access in the hospital or something else like that.

Can’t speak for all women, but I (and I imagine some others) changed my name because I knew I’d be having kids and didn’t want there to be any confusion. Like, if I’m traveling internationally or if my kid ends up in the hospital, I don’t want one of us having to fish out a birth certificate to prove we’re both the parents. Also I’m of the percent that absolutely hated my long last name so the chance for my name to be shorter and nicer was a no brainer.

I took my partner's last name because I like their family more than mine, and I liked the idea of no longer being associated with my family.

But I think most people just want to do what is normal or expected of them, so I would imagine that is why most women change their name. Not doing so would go against the grain, putting them in awkward situations where they have to explain they didn't take the last name.

Yeah but it's easy when both parents already had the same last name 🪕

Because most countries have been patriarchal for most of human history. Old habits die hard.

I went from a "normal" western last name that was ethnically coded (like McCoy) to another ethnically coded name (like Nguyen, or - um - Fink).

My options were to keep a common and dull name that I share with people I don't like, get a new one (that I'd need to spell to every customer service representative ever), hyphenate (HELL NO), or make up something new (which would involve a shitstorm among relatives on both sides.)

The only real options were A and B. I was undecided until we were leaving the county courthouse after we were married. He asked me "are you going to change your name?" He didn't care. He thought it was a weird custom and was curious. And I realized - this is an opportunity. It's a relatively easy and socially acceptable way to shed your old name.

I took it.

The new name honestly messes with quite a few people who are meeting me for the first time, and it's interesting to see how they react. I've had people ask straightforward questions (I prefer that - there's an easy and straightforward answer), get half-way through a straight-up racist comment before they stutter to a stop (helps me get to know them), get all the way through a racist comment (again - helpful to know where you stand), or just not comment at all (just fine by me).

I've found that it's not the worst way to get a read on someone.

tldr: part spite, part novelty, part legitimately helpful when your profession means you need to meet strangers and get a quick read on their personality/potential biases/willingness to be straightforward when there's no reason to be weird about it

She takes my hoodies, my snacks, my cash, the blankets... why wouldn't she take my name?

(She didn't take my name.)

I've dated a few people who seemed progressive, and I'm a woke-ass queer, but names were a sticking point. I have a complicated welsh travesty of a name I would happily trade in for something shorter - so when I got engaged and I didn't like his name either, and neither did he, I suggested we both pick something new and change our names together. I mean, if it's no big deal for me to change my name, it shouldn't be for him either, right? Anyway, I'm single now.

I suspect a lot of women despite not wanting to be considered property, still place value on belonging with their partner. The western tradition of the man being the figurative head of household is still pretty prevalent. These two factors (and more, I'm sure) likely have some influence.

One other reason I imagine is to establish a single family name, especially with children in mind. I'm not sure it actually works better than a double damily name, but it probably seems so to some.

Well, my last name isn't my mom's last name, it's my dad's, and her last name was her dad's, then her husband's. So why do I care, I don't get a matrilineal name anyway.

I hyphenated, because we both had kids when we got married, and it made it easier to deal with the school stuff for my stepkids.

Otherwise, I really just don't care because my family name is my dad's name and it was only my mom's name because she changed hers to his. Not that I didn't care about my dad, was closer to him than my mom. I just mean I don't feel like it means anything.

ETA: as the OP says, though - I really, truly don't understand it when a lady has a cool last name and the man an awful one and they still use his. I used to work at a payroll place and saw this happen over and over, someone would be calling up for us to change their last name from, say, Valiant or DeLeon to Assing, or Fuckler or something . Really, why wouldn't he be the one happy to change in that scenario?

I took my husband's last name because it was important to him, and I wasn't super attached to mine. Also, it has 2 Z's in it, and that's one of the coolest letters.

My husband and I were not married when our kids were born. I wanted to have the same name as my kids So I gave them my maiden name. I never really liked that name and I wasn't particularly close to my dad, so when my husband and I got married, we all changed our names to his.

My SO and have talked about possibly changing both of our last names when married. Neither of us are tied to or really care about our current names for any reason so why not just start fresh.

At least for my ex-fiancée it was about the link between husband and wife, plus tradition. It was basically "I'm married, you see?". Just like a ring.

(We talked a fair bit about this stuff, as back then I was planning to add my maternal surname to my legal name. She was OK taking either surname.)

A. Many men would not marry a woman who didn’t take their name.

B. Makes parenting more difficult in social settings by not sharing the last name of your kids. I.E. Picking up your kid at school or making medical decisions about kids and having a different last name as the child forces you to jump through a lot more hoops.

C. Women tend to grow up knowing they are going to change their last name it’s not even an afterthought. My girlfriend told me her and her friends would often talk about what their name would be if they married a guy they liked.

D. In some states it is very difficult for a man to change their last name but for women the processes is already in place.

Tradition, mostly. When I discussed this with my fiancee she just wants to - I certainly don't care. My one cousin went with both hyphenated, in alphabetical order so hers was first.

I had discussed it with my wife. I didn't want her to feel obligated to do so, and I know it would be awkward at her work to change her last name, but ultimately she wanted to - so I guess that's one reason?

There is a degree of closeness from it that I think some people appreciate. If you all share a last name, perhaps you feel closer as a family? I've known some people that don't share the same last name as their kids, or people that went double-barrelled, but didn't with their kids, and some of them had either changed later, or regretted not having the "same" name.

My wife didn't and years down the line she says she wish she had. We have to go through more with medical things and such to show we are related and it was like a simple checkbox for her to do it when we got married but to do it now is a major pain in the ass.

This isn’t a thing in India unless there is a ‘value’ in the surname.

My wife took my name because she liked it better than hers. Although if we had known that where we live, you can change your name to whatever you want when you get a marriage license, then we would have picked something cooler.

We couldn’t decide on something on the spot though.

To all the people here arguing that it's easier to have a family name, especially with children: It's also possible that the husband takes the wife's name. But from anecdotal evidence in my acquaintance, most men are very opposed to this idea. So if the woman wants a family name she has to change her name or have endless fights about it. That's why most women I know did it.

I have a coworker whose maiden name is Dykes. She was very happy to change.