Any married AA moms keep maiden name?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know a number of AA moms who kept their maiden name including myself. I didn't want the hassle of changing, felt I was a person in my own right, and was used to my own name.

Wait, taking your husband's name makes you less of person in your own right? What an interesting and completely WRONG idea.

to a certain extent you do become another person when you adopt somebody else's last name. you grow up Mary Brown, go to elementary, middle and high school, make tons of friends, go to college, move from one town to another, have a career and all of a sudden, at 35, you become Mary McCarthy. but for all the people who ever met you from birth on you are Mary Brown and Mary McCarthy is a stranger. your current good friends will know, but others will not. professionally, it can be difficult, in many other countries women do not change their last name, so if your career involves contacts will people abroad, changing name will not help you.

ask your husband to change his name to yours, and then you will see how suddenly keeping one's own name become important.

Yeah, no, sorry. I'm the same person. And professionally I'm fine, and I do quite a bit of business overseas. Shockingly enough, my contacts are educated enough to know that lots of Americans change their names! It sounds like you have issues.

New poster. PP does not have issues. Names are tied to identity. Giving up your name means giving up part of your identity. And I agree--if there is no loss involved in changing your name, why don't you see husbands eager to do it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know a number of AA moms who kept their maiden name including myself. I didn't want the hassle of changing, felt I was a person in my own right, and was used to my own name.

Wait, taking your husband's name makes you less of person in your own right? What an interesting and completely WRONG idea.

to a certain extent you do become another person when you adopt somebody else's last name. you grow up Mary Brown, go to elementary, middle and high school, make tons of friends, go to college, move from one town to another, have a career and all of a sudden, at 35, you become Mary McCarthy. but for all the people who ever met you from birth on you are Mary Brown and Mary McCarthy is a stranger. your current good friends will know, but others will not. professionally, it can be difficult, in many other countries women do not change their last name, so if your career involves contacts will people abroad, changing name will not help you.

ask your husband to change his name to yours, and then you will see how suddenly keeping one's own name become important.

Yeah, no, sorry. I'm the same person. And professionally I'm fine, and I do quite a bit of business overseas. Shockingly enough, my contacts are educated enough to know that lots of Americans change their names! It sounds like you have issues.

New poster. PP does not have issues. Names are tied to identity. Giving up your name means giving up part of your identity. And I agree--if there is no loss involved in changing your name, why don't you see husbands eager to do it?

I do not see this way and it may just be a matter of perspective. I hyphenated and my kids have DH's last name. When I married, I viewed it as a union and a new begginning. I was not losing my idenity, I was adding a chapter to the one I already had. Expanding.

[Anonymous]

I haven't changed my name, but DH would love if I did. We have a baby now, so I may consider in the future for a lot of the reasons PPs noted. Not to hijack, but related question, do you think AA men in general are more opinionated about their wives changing their names? I feel like I have a lot of AA friends whose husband's basically insisted they change their names, but I don't hear that as much from white friends

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't changed my name, but DH would love if I did. We have a baby now, so I may consider in the future for a lot of the reasons PPs noted. Not to hijack, but related question, do you think AA men in general are more opinionated about their wives changing their names? I feel like I have a lot of AA friends whose husband's basically insisted they change their names, but I don't hear that as much from white friends

Yes I think so

[Anonymous]

I'm black and I kept my maiden name.

My kids were actually born out of wedlock and we married several years later. People always assumed that we were married and I was in fact called Mrs. ____ for many years prior to us getting married. I think that the visibility of the spouse is what actually governs people's assumptions. My husband did drop off more that 50% of the time, went on field trips, and attended parent conferences. The out of wedlock assumption was never a problem for us.

[Anonymous]

Kept my name. Kids have hyphenated last names. Divorced now and glad I never switched.

[Anonymous]

A black woman with a hyphenated name is looked at as someone who wants to show off that she is married.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A black woman with a hyphenated name is looked at as someone who wants to show off that she is married.

hmm interesting. that never crossed my mind

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A black woman with a hyphenated name is looked at as someone who wants to show off that she is married.

I don't think that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A black woman with a hyphenated name is looked at as someone who wants to show off that she is married.

I don't think that.

Black woman here who has never thought nor heard of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly OP why would you care what a bunch of strangers think? Please do not allow the racists in this world to dictate how you live your life and the choices that you make. I did not take my husbands name and I dont care what anyone thinks and the fact is that most people know that we are married - I wear a ring, I talk about my husband and most important, he is pretty visible in our day to day life. I would be less worried about your name and focus more on making sure that you have a partner who is going to be an active participant in your children's life. This at the end of the day is what will make a difference in their life not whether random people think that they are "another black child born out of wedlock".

Agreed. If anything, I believe people need to see more variation to lessen the assumption that X + Y = Z.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm black and I kept my maiden name.

My kids were actually born out of wedlock and we married several years later. People always assumed that we were married and I was in fact called Mrs. ____ for many years prior to us getting married. I think that the visibility of the spouse is what actually governs people's assumptions. My husband did drop off more that 50% of the time, went on field trips, and attended parent conferences. The out of wedlock assumption was never a problem for us.

My ex does pickup and I handle drop offs. We were never married, yet people often refer to me as Mrs. _____ as well. It's probably assumed that we're still together since DD is with us both daily. In reality, we were apart by her 1st bday. Our experience totally refutes the so-called data.

This reminds me of AA parents who feel inclined to use "White" or racially ambiguous names to avoid discrimination down the road. I intentionally picked a pretty, but ethnic name for DD. Condoleezza Rice and Barack Obama have done well for themselves, unique names and all.

[Anonymous]

Why do so many black women have kids out of wedlock? Or is that another thread?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know a number of AA moms who kept their maiden name including myself. I didn't want the hassle of changing, felt I was a person in my own right, and was used to my own name.

Wait, taking your husband's name makes you less of person in your own right? What an interesting and completely WRONG idea.

to a certain extent you do become another person when you adopt somebody else's last name. you grow up Mary Brown, go to elementary, middle and high school, make tons of friends, go to college, move from one town to another, have a career and all of a sudden, at 35, you become Mary McCarthy. but for all the people who ever met you from birth on you are Mary Brown and Mary McCarthy is a stranger. your current good friends will know, but others will not. professionally, it can be difficult, in many other countries women do not change their last name, so if your career involves contacts will people abroad, changing name will not help you.

ask your husband to change his name to yours, and then you will see how suddenly keeping one's own name become important.

Yeah, no, sorry. I'm the same person. And professionally I'm fine, and I do quite a bit of business overseas. Shockingly enough, my contacts are educated enough to know that lots of Americans change their names! It sounds like you have issues.

New poster. PP does not have issues. Names are tied to identity. Giving up your name means giving up part of your identity. And I agree--if there is no loss involved in changing your name, why don't you see husbands eager to do it?

I disagree with this. There are kids/people with names of fathers that they've never met and had no relationship with whatsoever. What exactly is Johnny Brown Jr. identifying with when he's been raised by his mother Susan Jones his entire life and never met Johnny Brown Sr. or his Brown extended family?

My best friend took her husband's name and couldn't wait to do so because she carried the name of a man who hadn't been a part of her life since she was a toddler. Sometimes, surnames are simply meaningless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do so many black women have kids out of wedlock? Or is that another thread?

If ur trying to be funny u should look at stats, white community isn't to far behind as quiet as its kept. Also a lot of working class blacks shack up for years before they marry. My cousin had two kids by her now husband before they married. So that's technically 2 kids born out of wedlock even though they are now married