Back in the medieval ages when a woman was married to a man, they were basically considered property for my understanding and treated like an extension of the man’s person and family. So it was customary for women to take the man’s last name since they were being joined to his family. But now here in the 21st century women are fully independent and last names don’t really seem to mean much of anything. I mean what is Smith or McGregor or any last name really mean anymore? Especially in the digital age, lots of people have digital usernames like SarahSmith1727373. So the last name clearly doesn’t mean much anymore… Which leads me to wonder, why do the majority of women still take the man’s last name? Especially when some of them have a horrible last name? I have seen some butt ass ugly last names recently, like Fink, Weimer, Slotsky/Slotsky, Hiscock (no joke this is a last name), Hardman… And then you hear the woman’s name and it’s like something way more reasonable and less stupid sounding like Kingman, or Harrison, Walls, etc.
Especially in the digital age, lots of people have digital usernames like SarahSmith1727373. So the last name clearly doesn’t mean much anymore…
but you also just used 2 names in your example… others here already said the right stuff, but I reiterate, it’s a lot of symbolism helping create feelings of unity in a family unit, but also there are legal issues/benefits for changing a last name.
For me, it was because my husbands last name was simpler than my maiden name.
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.
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.
I am originally from Spain but have since moved abroad where partners changing names is common.
Personally I love the way it is handled in Spain, where you get your family name at birth and won’t be changed by marrying (you could change it but it is not normal to do it when you get married). And the family name is always a combination of both parents. Traditionally it was the first family name from the father and the first from the mother, but nowadays it can be decided which goes first. So officially everyone’s got two family names, one from each parent. Unofficially you can just go as far as you want, so you get your given name, then first family name from one parent, then first from the other, then the second from the first, then the second from the second, etc. So if you track your family tree you can take all family names to make a huge list of them, which is not used for anything but somehow makes you be more attached to all those roots without names being lost.
Of course that makes it a nightmare when going to other places, everyone thinks your first family name is a middle name and dealing with two family names officially can be a pain. And let’s not go into naming your kids then…
When I was marrying my wife she asked me how I felt about her changing her name to mine and if I wanted her to do that. She got her father’s name but her mother divorced him later on and changed her name back and my wife’s father was not much part of her life, so she was happy to just change it. I told her that for me that custom is a bit strange and I didn’t need her to do it but would accept it if she wanted to (knowing her background), so whatever she did I wanted it to be her choice, but notice how in Spain people who share family name are siblings, as it is extremely rare for two persons to share both first and second name if not related, so sharing family name with my wife is really odd in a way…
At the end she changed her name, but because in this country you only have one she only took the first one. While our kids had to take either both of mine or hers (we had our first kid before us marrying and her changing name, so we chose mine), so now we all share the first (and only, in the case of my wife) family name but me and my kids have both my first and second family name (any kids after the first kid must get the same name).
If that was not complex enough, as I got my kids both nationalities, in Spain the rule is always first of one parent plus first of the other parent, and as the first one was born before us marrying, in Spain he has a different family name than he does where we live.
