- From an early age, I knew I didn't want to take my husband's last name when I got married.
- I broke the promise to myself in my first marriage, but vowed to keep my last name when I divorced.
When I was 14, in 1969, my mother won the raffle at her women's club, and when the monthly newsletter arrived in the mail, a picture showed her proudly wearing her prize, a caramel-colored mink stole. The caption, however, did not print her name.
Instead, it read "Mrs. Raymond Garrison," and I thought it bizarre. She had won the prize, not my father, yet it was his name that got the attention. The entire business made me strangely sad, and I added this cultural expectation to the growing list of things my brothers didn't have to do, but I did, like washing dishes and dusting.
I decided I'd never change my last name
One day I told my mother that I was thinking I would use my own name when I got married, like actresses. She said Hollywood was different. Actresses' careers depended on their names being recognized and remembered. That didn't hold for regular women.
"It's just what you do," she said, "and besides, no man would put up with it. And, what about your kids?"
My spine stiffened, as it always did when she insisted that I stay in the box that held all the rules and restrictions for women, many of which I found unfair and suffocating. At that moment, I vowed never to change my name.
Then, I took my first husband's name
Ten years later, I broke that promise. I was young and married with a budding career in journalism, insecure and wanting my husband to be happy with me. I dutifully fell into line. But my new name felt as comfortable as an itchy sweater, and the sense of accomplishment when my articles appeared in print was muted. It was his name in the byline, not mine.
Ultimately, I struck a middle ground and used both, but his name always won out in conversation and how I was introduced and referred to by friends and colleagues. When the marriage ended, I petitioned the judge to get my own name back and renewed my promise never to let it go.
When my marriage ended, I vowed never to change it again
Thankfully, when I got engaged again eight years later, in 1992, the entire matter wasn't an issue. My fiancé was fine with my decision, telling me, with a wink, that he wouldn't want to change his name either. When our child was born in 1995, he agreed to give her a hyphenated last name.
But others were less accepting. At neighborhood gatherings, when introduced to people for the first time, at dinner parties and sometimes in business, people — most often women — wondered how I could do it and why I would, and whether it confused my child (it did not). They made sure to tell me that they could never keep their maiden names, as it would "make me feel like I wasn't really married," "hurt my husband's feelings," or be "a problem for the kids."
People are still judgmental
Thirty years on and remarried again — to a man whose last name I also don't share — veiled judgments persist. In fact, they have increased. When I mention that my last name is different from my husband's, it can stop the conversation with a surprised "Oh," followed by my hurried (and what should be unnecessary) assurance that my husband is perfectly fine with my decision.
A 2023 survey from the Pew Research Center found that only 14% of women in opposite-sex marriages surveyed kept their own name, so given the rarity, I try to be understanding. I don't judge others for embracing tradition.
My feminist friends assume I kept my own name as a reaction to the patriarchy, but in truth, it was rooted in my desire to feel comfortable and true to myself as I moved through the world. And to me, that should be the goal for any woman, no matter what she calls herself.