Before Econo Boy and I officially tied the knot, I thought I had a good solution to the name change game. I decided to keep my maiden name professionally — all of the CVs I’ve sent out on the job market have been under my maiden name — but change my legal information to read “Firstname Newlastname.” That way, my academic credentials wouldn’t get lost in the name-change shuffle, but I can still share a last name with my husband and any future children, and not have to constantly explain “yes, I’m his wife/her mother, I kept my maiden name” to people. We ordered cute return address labels that listed us as “The Newlastnames,” were introduced at our reception as “Mr. and Mrs. Newlastname,” and I figured we were good to go.
But now that I’m actually staring at the paperwork to change my name, I’m having serious second thoughts.
I’ve never considered myself particularly attached to my last name — it’s all a product of patriarchal traditions anyway, so I didn’t feel like I’d be striking a blow for feminism by keeping my dad’s last name instead of my husband’s. But as it turns out, my original first name-last name combo is a bit unusual. Not “child of Hollywood celebrities” unusual, but unusual enough that if you Google it, the first hits are about me — my work, my writing, awards I’ve won. But when I tried to sign up for a Gmail account in my married name, I found that the username I wanted, “firstname.newlastname@gmail.com,” was already taken. I Googled it and found out that Firstname Newlastname is a consultant for Dell who lives in Texas.
And suddenly, I felt like I was about to erase my identity. Now, when people searched for my name, they wouldn’t see the things I accomplished in college, the articles I’ve written, the awards I won as a grad student. They’d find … nothing. A bunch of stuff about a nice woman who works with Dell Computers, but nothing about me. And there would be little opportunity for me to assert myself in my new name because of my decision to use my maiden name professionally. I would be creating two personas — on the one hand, the professional me, the person I consider the “real me,” and on the other hand, Econo Boy’s wife, a person who exists solely for the purpose of making social situations easier.
It doesn’t help that the government seems determined to make changing your name annoying and difficult. I should explain that I hate, hate, HATE dealing with bureaucracy and government forms. I’ve had some pretty awful experiences with this kind of stuff in the past, and so far, the name-change thing has not been any less Kafkaesque. I spent a total of 40 minutes on hold with two different Social Security Administration offices clarifying their very confusing instructions about the necessary documentation for changing your name (sample dialogue with an actual SSA employee: “Well, I don’t really know the rules. Can’t you just go down to the local office with what you’ve got, and come back later if they say you need something different?”), and I’m facing an hour-long trip to get to the local SSA office to make the change.* And after that, the real fun starts. I have to change my name with my bank, my credit cards, my employer, and worst of all, the DMV, the government office that has been the most problematic for me in the past. And, perhaps unfairly, I’m starting to get mad that I’m the only one who has to do this. Econo Boy is super-excited about the idea of us sharing a last name, but he doesn’t have to lift a finger. The pile of paperwork and the travel to various government offices is all on me.
* I could mail the application in, but that would require me to surrender all of my original identity documents to the tender care of the USPS, which I’d rather avoid, especially after they lost my most important postdoc application last month (and yes, it had a tracking number on it, that’s how I know they lost it).
Honestly, I feel a bit silly for getting so upset about all of the work involved in changing my name — millions of other women (and a handful of brave men) have done this, why is it so hard for me to handle? Is it that I’m more ambivalent about the name change than I’d realized? Or is my fear of bureaucracy talking me into taking the easier road (legally speaking)?
Right now, I’m leaning towards the Hillary Rodham Clinton route — sticking Econo Boy’s last name onto my name, but including my maiden name in there as well. This does involve the bureaucratic headaches, but at least I feel like I’m still me, just with another last name added at the end. I’m also toying with the idea of hyphenating, an option I always kind of wrinkled my nose at, but one that guarantees my maiden name won’t ever get dropped.
What about you married ladies out there? What choice did you make, and why?
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