Comments on: What Makes a Man: The (new sur)Name Game

By: jill

jill — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 04:15:53 +0000

hi kevin!
this made me lol.
:)love, your SIL,
jill

By: Lauren

Lauren — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:37:47 +0000

I hated my long, hard to pronounce, last name my entire life, UNTIL I got married to my soon to be ex, and changed it to something short and boring. I can’t wait till I change it back to its 9 letters of gloriousness back, full of people saying WHAT, can you spell that?
uh, no, cause it really won’t help you to pronounce it… ;)

I do like traditions of taking the husbands name or merging your names together, I think it shows committment, but if its the wrong person, like in my case, no name will hold you together, and you will forever miss your childhood surname.

By: Kevin Marshall

Kevin Marshall — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:19:05 +0000

You know? That actually works! At first I thought you were just telling me your real name.

PS You need to insist Lysacek wear the swan outfit to the altar.

By: Amanda Talar

Amanda Talar — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:01:24 +0000

Amanda Talarlysacek.

By: irisira

irisira — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:01:51 +0000

Ellie, I’m the last as well. At least, as far as I know. I think there is at least one distant male cousin floating around out there, but I haven’t seen him since I was four. I remember it well: it was 1986, and hair bands and leather pants were big … so that’s what he wore to my great-aunt’s house. He brought his then-girlfriend, who I adored. However, everytime he tried to come near me, I hid behind the nearest adult. He was a man! WITH LONG CURLY HAIR! I was terrified of him!

Ahem. Anyway. Yes – I have other cousins, but they have different last names. I’m the only one with mine. Fortunately for me, the name itself is quite common, so I’m not too concerned. :)

I am getting married in September, and I am keeping my name. I always thought it would never even be a question about this, and it’s not. I LOVE my name, and the thought of changing it still makes me cringe. But, I didn’t really realize the enormity of the decision until I’m now in the position to make it. I am keeping my name, but I realized, that if my name wasn’t so awkward to hyphen (it’s bad enough with an apostrophe), I might like to hyphen it.

To visit the point of your article, however, I have a friend who recently got married that mashed their names. He was Walsh, she was Jamin, and now they are Walshjamin. I have other friends who did it a bit more creatively – he was Peters, she was Carr, and now they are Carter. Interesting.

By: Kari

Kari — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:19:02 +0000

Like some of the women here, I too feel that I don’t need to take the name of my husband, per se, but that wasn’t always the case. I am one of two sisters of an only child father, hence the name ends with us, unless she or I keep our name and bequeath it to our children. Well, my sister didn’t keep her name, and thus has another name, so it’s essentially up to me. Well, the name will end with me, unless there is some immaculate conception in the future, but as I’m nearing 40, it’s more unlikely. And like you, Kevin, I adore being Aunt Kari, and able to leave the ick at my sisters’ house for the time being. As far as myself & my current S.O., if we joined our last names, it would be awkward, as we both have Dutch ancestry. His last name is translated as Thompson, while mine “of” Alstine. Therefore we’d be sorta Old English as Thompson of Alstine. That’s sorta cool. I certainly wouldn’t name my kid Tom, that’s for certain!

By: theresa

theresa — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:07:55 +0000

We had that situation come up last year when a family member married. They do not plan on having children but they combined the two last names without a hypen and hers is second. It seemed more than a little emasculating…..but he does carry a “murse”

By: Kevin Marshall

Kevin Marshall — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:51:35 +0000

Re: No. 16.

I like that two adults can disagree on an issue and are not only mature about it, but civil to each other as well. Kudos to you both, seriously.

By: just me

just me — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:49:11 +0000

We both kept our names when we got married. When I meet new people and they raise an eyebrow at this, I say, “Yeah, he wanted to keep his name when we got married. Go figure.” Men generally look at me like I am a bit nuts, women get a good laugh out of it.

By: Will King

Will King — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:31:24 +0000

I guess I’m just old school. I’m not old man bitter about people who don’t go about things as they used to be though.

I respect someones right whether to take on someones name or not.

I wanted my wife to take my name and she was 100% in agreeance (thanks Fred Durst) on the subject.

I work with a woman who is adamantly against it, but she doesn’t hate on the fact that my wife took my name because that was her choice.