For decades, brides and grooms played the name game by a largely unchallenged set of rules. Wives gave up their so-called “maiden” names and began married life with a new identity: His.
Then came the sexual revolution, women’s liberation, and millions of working women. By the mid-1980s, many brides said “I do” to their husbands and “I don’t” to dropping their last names, either keeping single monikers or hyphenating.
Now, at least one measure of matrimonial custom seems to show a solid majority of women returning to the ways of their mothers and grandmothers. Bride’s magazine, in its bi-annual survey of 6,000 readers, reported that 87 percent of wives-to-be this year plan to take their husband’s name–up 14 percent from 1992.
As the nation’s name experts will lament, the Bride’s survey results are nearly impossible to verify with vital records data. There is no national data bank that records married name statistics; on a local level, the Cook County clerk’s offices tracks marriages, but no numbers on how many newlyweds do or don’t change names.
Even Bride’s editor-in-chief, Millie Bratten, looks at the jump with a cautious eye. “It seems like such a big departure for it to swing up like that,” Bratten said.
Those in the marriage business say the survey results appear to make sense. “More brides take their husband’s names than in the past,” said Nancy Enderle, an associate pastor at Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago. Enderle has a unique perspective on the issue; she weds couples in her job, and herself tied the knot two years ago.
The name “Enderle” is her husband’s, and taking it was neither easy nor automatic. At first, she tried using her family name of Hutchison at work and Enderle in private life. “That was a paperwork disaster,” she said. “I ran into tons of snarls with banking, health care plans.”
When she switched, “I gave it a lot of thought,” Enderle said. “One of the things it came down to, as a feminist in predominantly male profession, is that the whole feminist movement is about choice.”
Choice indeed is the crux of the matter. Brides of the ’90s have a wide array of options when it comes to those few syllables that follow their first names. And the old-fashioned way is no longer something society foists on a woman–if she adopts her husband’s name, it’s because she wants to do it.
“It’s the younger brides that take their husband’s names easily,” Bratten said. “They say everything from `it’s traditional’ to `it’s part of his heritage and I want to be part of his heritage.’ “
Whether it’s a trend marker or a statistical hiccup, the Bride’s survey calls attention to an irrefutable fact of modern marriage: The list of new alternatives is nothing short of daunting to some couples.
Instead of using hyphens, some women now turn their last name into their middle name–or, like Enderle, try using different names in their professional and personal lives.
Some couples create a whole new identity with hunks of their respective last names (“Fitzpatrick” and “Johnson,” for example, might become “Fitzson” or “Johnspatrick”). Bratten has even heard from a few guys who dropped their last names and took their wives’ to preserve her branch of the family tree.
What’s more, hyphenation order has become an issue, with some husbands giving their wives the second (and presumably more influential) half of the dash, Bratten said.
“It’s not the overwhelming choice, but we are hearing it more and more,” Bratten said. “We also got a letter from a groom who said his fiancee would keep her name, but the kids would have his name.” (But that’s another story.)
Nor are these decisions irreversible. A woman who dropped her family name in a first marriage might take it back with a second husband, and a wife who began married life with her own name might take the husband’s once children enter the picture.
“That usually comes down to practicality; `If I have an emergency with my kids, will the school know how to reach me?’ ” Bratten explained.
The Bride’s survey sounds believable to Edward Callary, a linguistics professor at Northern Illinois University and a past president of the American Name Society. “I’m surprised the percentage is not even higher,” Callary said. “We’ve become more traditional in the last years of this century. Bob Dole was right.”
The current state of nomenclatural flux is both a source of delight and bewilderment to name gurus like Callary, who argue that all these naming schemes offer a window into the national psyche.
“Only in America do we have these choices,” Callary said. “In other countries, France for example, you could only give a child a name that was on an approved list until last year.”
But considering all the options, some name mavens find it hard to accept that nearly 9 of 10 brides are taking the traditional route. “That number sounds too high to me,” said Leonard R.N. Ashley, author of “What’s in a Name” (Genealogical Publishing, 1989). “The problem is there’s no registration of this on a national level. You can’t give statistics, just impressions.”
Ashley traces all the fuss back to Lucy Stone, the first American feminist to turn down her husband’s name. After being pursued for seven years by Henry Blackwell, Stone agreed to marriage, but first drew up a contract that allowed her to keep her family name.
“Stone had the idea that women should not take their husband’s name because that meant they were the husband’s property,” Ashley said. “But Lucy Stone was a little weird. If she objected to being owned by a male, she had her father’s last name. She should’ve changed that.”
Try telling that to Gina Trimarco of Western Springs. No matter the trends or how long the marriage (she’s been hitched for 11 years now), she intends to carry the name on her birth certificate to her grave.
“Without insulting any woman who changes her name, I saw no reason to do it,” Trimarco said. “I don’t get it. It’s a really antiquated tradition.”
Some traditionalists, including Trimarco’s mother, didn’t see it that way. “My mom had a problem with it at the beginning,” she said. “Some people still haven’t caught on, distant friends and relatives. They know what my last name is, but they refuse to use it.”
An urban planner with a Chicago firm, Trimarco has heard of working women who keep names to preserve professional reputations. That might have played a small role, but it wasn’t the main reason Trimarco refused to change.
“I just remember reading the newspaper when I was in 4th grade, and I’d see `Mrs. John Smith’ and her maiden name in parentheses. I thought it was stupid back then,” Trimarco said.
So why not use her husband’s last name, which would make her Gina Piper?
“It’s a very nice name,” Trimarco conceded. “But it isn’t mine.”
