TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name

Every time I see one of his shit takes on here for a moment a think of the actor Matt Walsh and think “oh no the funny guy is a shitbag?!”

But no it’s always this other asshole, at least I hope

As someone who slept on enterprise for a long time, 100% agree. Everytime I see antennae I know I'm about to be in for a good time, and I'm just a stupid pink skin.

I recommend Dax

Hot tip, change HIS last name prior to the wedding and she gets the name change free.

I know a couple that waited until after the wedding to do that and the husband changed his name, then the wife was given the option of keeping her old name, or switch to his old name.

She ended up having to go through the entire name change process without the benefit of the auto-name flip from the marriage.

I've known other people who do that.

I just feel like any name change that you don't need (i.e. you're transitioning) is just more bother than it's worth.

I know Romania does this

I don’t mean this as a “gotcha”, but my understanding is that in the vast majority of places where marriage doesn’t change names, the children are still always named after the parent with an outie. I just want to push back against this “western bad” meme.

I believe most countries in Central Europe do it. But it’s also possible to take the wife‘s name of course

They do it in other English-speaking countries for sure.

My wife meant to take my name, but then we never did the paperwork. So we just left it.

If having a matching name is a big deal with you, then you can change your name.

'Why should I have to change? He's the one who sucks!' -Michael Bolton

It seems reasonable for each partner to continue to use their original family name if they want to, even if it's only the husband's name on the marriage certificate.

If you go down the legally hyphenated name path, after a few generations, this could potentially devolve to family names like: Jones-Smith - Smythe-Johns - Longbottom-Allcock - Junior III (etc).

So curious what your first name is.

You both share three same first name as well? That sounds very confusing for your peers

Yeah my wife has agreed that taking my name would be nice, but it’s a pain in the ass. And omg yes I love your attitude. Part of why I wanted to share a last name is so we can be Ms. and Mrs. Lastname.

Take hers!

Generally, women are expected to change their last name to their husband's last name when they get married. It's viewed as wrong because it's needlessly patriarchal.

I'm in a similar boat of my name not being a big deal to me (also male). However, if a name is arbitrary, why should you change it? If it doesn't matter whether it's your original name or the name of your spouse, why on earth go to the trouble of changing it in the first place? "That's how we've always done it" has never really held much water for me as an argument. If it's of merit, it should stand up to scrutiny without the appeal to tradition.

However, to many people, names aren't arbitrary. From a historical point of view, marriage used to be considered a transaction of property, and a woman's last name had the connotation of ownership. Were I a woman, I would find that quite abhorrent, and even though that connotation has diminished I still don't think I could stomach it.

For some specific cases, names hold recognition. I'm a singer and have friends & mentors for whom performing is their full time job. To change your last name after building name recognition can do serious harm to your fame, and thus income. So most of them in that situation will retain their maiden name for job security more than anything.