As regular readers likely know, my husband and I are immigrants, as well as parents to three adorable US citizens. We have been green card holders (i.e. permanent US residents) for over 5 years now, and this year we are filing our citizenship paperwork. Ideally, we will become citizens in time to vote in the upcoming presidential election. Also, I have some overseas travel next year and I would like, for the first time ever, not to have to assemble 7 lbs of paperwork in order to get a visa, which I need if I want to go pretty much anywhere with my current passport.
I kept my maiden name when I got married. I love my maiden name, it's somewhat long and weird by American standards, and it takes me forever to spell it over the phone (it appears that I do that a lot). But it's mine and I love it. I never really wanted to take my husband's name; I don't dislike his name or anything like that, I just like my maiden name better because it's mine, it's part of my identity, and I cannot imagine dropping it in any scenario. And it's got a "Z" in it, which means I get to say "Z as in zebra" whenever I spell it to someone. I still get a kick out of it. Every time. But, I have always been open to hyphenating, although the prospect of spelling two weird-sounding last names back-to-back over the phone, all the time, sounds pretty exhausting.
When I got married, anything other than keeping the maiden name would have also been a paperwork disaster, as it would have taken me forever to first get the marriage recognized in my home country (we got married in the US), in order to be able to change my name there, then get a federal ID there, with which I could apply for a passport, which I could then use to re-apply for everything pertinent to my then student status in the US (change of name on I-20 form, new student visa, school records...) This would have been a very costly and painful process, especially since much of it would have had to be done done remotely, likely forcing my parents to deal with the spectacularly inefficient administration in my home country on my behalf. So I have had my maiden name the entire time I have been married (almost 13 years). I am fairly established in my career right now, under my maiden name. All the documents I have are in my maiden name, including the usual suspects such as the social security number, driver's license, payroll, mortgage, title on the car, health insurance paperwork for the entire family, IRS records, as well as the not-so-usual suspects such as federal granting agencies (e.g. NSF).
Now that I am applying for citizenship, I have the option of changing my name, so I have been contemplating whether or not to go through with hyphenation. I know my husband would be happy if I took his name or if I hyphenated, but he knows better than to press the issue. He has been a patient listener to many of my "women oppressed by patriarchy" monologues and knows about all the things I find unfair or oppressive. The real reason why I am even thinking about hyphenation is that it pains me that I don't have anything in my name that ties me to my children. My husband and my sons have the same last name, and I have a different one. It has come up on several occasions when I flew by air with one of my sons -- my son was asked explicitly by TSA or airline agents who I was to him, because the last names were different. My husband reports never to have been asked the same question.
Now you can ask why we didn't do something else with the boys' last name, like hyphenate theirs instead of me hyphenating mine. I personally think that it's not fair to burden little boys with not one, but two weirdly-sounding, weirdly-spelled names. I have no burning desire to preserve our ethnic heritage; I am not sure that I am even equipped or entitled to preserve it anyway, as I was born in a large metropolitan city, I have had a pretty urban upbringing and urban tastes, and don't feel the connection to most of my country's "country" or "heritage" anyway, which probably explains to a great extent why I don't care to socialize with most of my compatriots that I happened to meet in the US. I also want my children to be as seamlessly integrated into this society as possible and to not feel like outcasts. I don't want my children to constantly have to answer questions about where they or their parents are from, and these questions do come about more often with two weird names ("Your parents must be immigrants!") as opposed to just one ("Someone somewhere in your genealogy was an immigrant, just like everyone else's.") I may be wrong on this one, but this is my perception. [If you are an immigrant and your choices for your family and experiences are different from mine, please know that I don't judge your choices. Mostly, I am too preoccupied stressing and obsessing over my own to think about anyone else's.] But the most important reason behind my sons having my husband's last name is that I think it would have broken my husband's heart if they didn't.
So, I now have a chance to hyphenate my name and share a part of my last name with my children. What I don't know is what this change would mean in the rest of my life. Would I have to update my last name on all of the paperwork I am associated with, or just a select few, like the social security number, driver's licence, and passport? Can I still keep going under my maiden name in most situations, especially those pertinent to my career and possession of property? Have any of my readers managed to pull off a minimally invasive last-name-transplant surgery? Or am I just another would-be-but-ultimately-failing feminist who is instead a hopeless victim of the patriarchy for even considering hyphenating my name?
15 comments:
Socially, I know a lot of women receive mail under the last name of their husband. Informally, there's nothing to stop you from going by your husband's name or a hyphenated name in social situations or when interacting with your kids' school (except when signing legal waivers). The more formal, official documents are the place where you have to be legally scrupulous. Why go through all that hassle? I'm getting ready to move to a new place, and that's enough paperwork hassle with updating records, why compound it?
Professionally, I don't know how many people publish under a last name different from their legal one, but plenty seem to publish under first names different from their legal ones, if a nickname is what their colleagues know them by. OTOH, if you change you name legally, I'm sure you'll have to use your official name on grants. So now there's a grant for Dr. Jane Zaharanov-Bohm (or whatever) but the CV only lists papers for Dr. Jane Zaharanov? Seems like an unnecessary complication.
agree with Alex. also haven't changed my name exactly for the same reason and I don't see the need to complicate situation unless I quit my job and do something which doesn't care who I am.
I think you can change your name legally but then just use one of the names in publications and perhaps also on grants.
Since you brought up the subject, I will mention our convoluted name story. I had a Russian maiden name. At the time of my marriage I had had more success as an artist than a scientist (no publications). I took my husbands last name which has two parts (not hyphenated, btw) - the first is slavic the second is arabic. I have since published using that last name but continue to exhibit artwork under my maiden name. Husband, when he initially started out in the US had the arabic last name and the slavic name as a middle name (immigrations screw up that he didn't bother fixing). For a while we had different last names even though I took his name! When he got his green card he changed his last name to have both slavic and arabic parts and has since been publishing under the full name so he has publications under both. His employment paperwork is still under the old name. Our bills go every which way. So do signatures and introductions. To be honest, I am rather fond of this mess - but the best part is that people assume the slavic part of my last name is my maiden name.
Wanted to add that I changed my name because it sounded prettier. Husband was quite against it.
In USA, legally you may use whatever name you would like, in any context, as long as you have no intent to deceive.
There is a long list of caveats to this statement. For example, flying and traveling is difficult if not impossible if the ticket name doesn't match the drivers license & passport name.
You can write a statement that claims your name and whatever other names you use, and get it signed and notarized. This was helpful for me when I did some foreign travel with my son who has my husband's last name.
I use my name I grew up with in most contexts. This is the name on my passport, drivers license, and is my professional name.
In many family and son's school situations I use my spouse's last name, because it is also my name.
Increasingly, the whole family is using a clever and funny hybrid name that comes from combining the first parts of my name and his name.
I don't know if what I did was the way to go, but it's what the fellow said when I got my passport. Put all you names in the following order. So for example on my passport it says
first name, middle name, maiden last name, spouse's last name
Then you can choose whatever combination you want.
I second Dr. Sneetch's suggestion. Both my husband and I have our individual first and middle names, then my maiden name, then his "maiden" name. We pick and choose which combination we use based on the circumstances. At our kids' school we are the "his last name only" family, but among our friends we are the "hers-his" family. At work, I publish under both unhyphenated "hers his" last names, while he uses just his. Since we are in the same subfield and the same department, this helps to distinguish ourselves from each other.
I did not change my name when we got married for much the same reasons as you (extensive paperwork hassle, need to give up passport whilst residing away from home country and needing it for travel/ID etc., career and publication trail established under maiden name, husband's name impossible to spell). I'm not that attached to my name in any other way and my daughter has my husband's name...but the hassle of travelling with her on my own is substantial. I take her birth certificate everywhere I go and I still get crap from people everywhere even within EU borders wanting to know what we are doing and where my husband is, despite my wielding paperwork at them. Like you the only reason I would consider changing my name is to prevent this hassle, but on the other hand surely border controls have to learn to evolve to deal with this at some point? Putting both parents' details in the kid's passport would be a good start, and for the extortionate amount that my home country charge for a passport, especially if you're resident overseas (sorry guys, that exchange rate that you quoted is totally fictional, I'd be cheaper to fly home and do it there!) this should be easy to do. However yes, like you I also feel that there would be something nice about sharing a name with my child. Hyphenating however is out of the question since our names hyphenated would make us sound like uber-posh morons of the first order... If you figure out a way round this that leaves you emotionally satisfied in every respect let me know....
My wife kept her last name, because she preferred the sound of it. We agreed that male children would get my last name, female children would get hers. It worked for us (25th anniversary coming up tomorrow).
I officially changed my name because we were facing a hostile green card situation (I was the US citizen).
I get a lot of bills and my passport is in my married name. More substantially my family business (daughter's school, etc.) is all done with my married name. I just continued to use my maiden name for work and never changed my social security (ss) card.
Recently I had to get a new ss card and had to change it to my married name, as that is my legal name.
I will start a new job soon and hope that the institution will be OK with giving me an ID card and for all intents and purposes refer to me as my maiden name. My science identity in my mind and the community is inextricably linked to my maiden name. I am viewing this as a bit of a test of my new institution, which is in a red state. I really hope some IRS-related baloney isn't going to mess with my science identity.
I think you should do whatever feels right to you. But since I just last week lost a good two hours to this, I have to say.... if you change your name legally and then use your old name professionally, somewhere, an IT person will curse you. Not because we actually care what name you use, but because there are some systems where you will need to use your legal name (e.g., payroll) and other systems where you'll want to use your professional name (e.g., email) and somewhere, those two sets of systems will collide and it will be a headache. If you're lucky, the headache will just be for some IT person, and not for you. But someone is going to have to deal with that disconnect! It is a pain in the butt to change your name in all of our systems, but at least it is a straightforward pain that we can just work through. The two names thing is always throwing up new and interesting ways to be a pain.
(Personally, I kept my maiden name, largely for professional reasons, and the kids have my husband's name, and that doesn't bother me- but I haven't traveled internationally yet, so maybe I will yet regret it.)
It's certainly up to you, but my personal opinion is that since you're established, this is going to be far more hassle than it's worth. I understand wanting the tie to your kids, but the *only* time it has come up for me is when flying. My older son has my ex's last name, and my last name and his are completely different (mine is hyphenated maiden name and husband's name). One TSA agent wasn't going to let us through security so he could fly (I was just accompanying him to the plane), but another agent, when called over, looked at the first agent as if she's sprouted two heads. Other than that, it's been a non-issue. I have had to go through name changes three times now, and I've decided that no matter what happens in the future, I'm not dealing with it again...
Good luck with your decision.
My husband and I are both immigrants with relatively difficult last names.
When we got married, my husband had the plan to take my name (legally but not for his science) and name all our kids with my name. His stated reason is that my name is easier to spell. In reality, my name is only marginally easier, but my husband somehow felt good about this name change plan, maybe because it sounds so progressive and he likes the idea of honoring me.
However, my husband has not taken my name in the end because he is very established as a scientist under his name, and he fears the paperwork and other complications that may result. There was never a question of my taking his name. I also have a scientific track record under my name, and I am too much of a feminist to change my name anyways (though maybe if my husband insisted a lot, I would consider options).
Our first born son took my name as planned. However, our second son took my husband's name. This is because there was significant conflict with my dad (whose name I have) and my husband could no longer bear the idea of all our family carrying that name.
Given the hassle of changing names, I don't think we will change any longer. However, I should mention that we did not have any trouble at airports so far.
I feel changing your name is too much of a hassle. If you really want to do it, what about adding your husband's name as a middle name? This is probably less disturbing for your science. My papers are only under my first and last name so adding another middle name would make no difference.
I kept my last name while kids have my husband's last name. I, too, haven't traveled internationally. I didn't even think of the hassles! Ugh, I guess I would have to carry their birth certificates, which I assume has my name on it (better go check now..) I do like my last name a lot and it flows with my first name. My FIL and SIL have made comments, jokingly?, but my husband doesn't really care and I don't care what inlaws and SIL think.
" Or am I just another would-be-but-ultimately-failing feminist who is instead a hopeless victim of the patriarchy for even considering hyphenating my name?"
Yes! Please don't do it!
Your kids will get older and their names being different from yours won't matter, but this feminist's morale will forever bear the scar of yet another little chip in its resilience.
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