colsmith@iwlcs.att.com (09/13/90)
I know it's a bit late in the discussion, but a friend mentioned to me that soc.feminism was talking about changing names at marriage. In particular, someone asked if any couple had made up a new last name. Indeed that is where Colsmith originated, we made it up and took it as our last name. We are very happy with the name (and the marriage :-)) and would highly recommend the concept to other couples. A friend of mine did the same thing last year, she and her SO picked the last name of Forest. It's nice, you get a name that isn't "mine" or "yours," but purely "ours." A coworker who recently found out about us making up our name was really impressed and said if he had known that you could do it, he and his wife might have done it. Neither of them felt particularly strongly about her taking his name, but they wanted to have the same last name. He didn't know it was legal. Legally it's fairly easy to change your name, and very easy to change it at time of marriage. We haven't had any trouble about it except that my husband had a hard time getting a passport with our new name. The State Department is very sexist, they let women change their names to anything at marriage, no problem, but have different rules for men. Actually I think men would benefit more from the ERA than women, but that's another article . . . Marcia Colsmith
gt5599d@prism.gatech.EDU ("gt5599d TOLBERT,JASON ALAN") (09/21/90)
In article <85454@aerospace.AERO.ORG>, colsmith@iwlcs.att.com writes: > > I know it's a bit late in the discussion, but a friend mentioned to me that > soc.feminism was talking about changing names at marriage. In particular, > someone asked if any couple had made up a new last name. Indeed that is > where Colsmith originated, we made it up and took it as our last name. > This is a good concept but it seems it causes problems in respect to heritage. The system of adopting one's last name is useful in tracing your roots. If was Alex Haley trying to trace his roots back to Africa, I would hate the points that had name changes. Also, last names can clue you in that some one may be related to you. I am not saying that the *men's* name be taken in every case, but that one or the other instead of a whole new name. I like the idea of keeping your own last namewhile adding your husbands name after a hyphen. (e.g. Crimes-Moore or Jacobs-Myles). Moreover, the guys could do it also with their names if agreed upon. As a solution to the geneology problem that can still work with made-up last names goes as follows: Both the man and the woman agree upon a new name. In addition, each party adds the other spouse's previous last name as an additional middle name. Thus, you have your made-up names *and* a convenient way to trace down *both* directions of your family tree. What does everyone think about that idea? [How about women taking their mothers names and men taking their father's? It wouldn't affect looking up paternal lines, and would make maternal lines much easier to look up... --CLT] Jason -- TOLBERT,JASON ALAN Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!gt5599d ARPA: gt5599d@prism.gatech.edu