The way Western countries handle last names or surnames in marriage and pass them on to one’s children seems well-ingrained in the culture, but from an outside perspective, is quite strange.
One party in marriage, most often the woman, is expected to either delete their maiden name entirely, or move it to their middle name, which is adjacent to total erasure as people, whether it be in a business setting, on social media, or face-to-face, are rarely introduced with their full legal names. Plenty of young women are actually excited to change their name in marriage, yet the act of taking a spouse’s surname erases a part of their identity. They are addressed as “Mrs” so-and-so, instead of by their name. “Mrs” suggests that they are an extension of their husband, not their own person. Again, many look forward to this as they see it as an act of loyalty and love, but it lends others to think of it as ownership. This precedent goes back a number of centuries, to when women were legally their husband’s property. Even though that is no longer the case in 2025 in the U.S., a majority of states require a court order for the husband to take his wife’s name; If it doesn’t signify some sort of ownership, why can’t it easily be done the other way around?
Those with more generic surnames might see less of a conflict in this than those with more unique ones. For those with unique names, their names give them a part of their identity. A unique surname might tell a story. Hyphenated names are the go-to for parents who do not want to legally change theirs, which could happen for a multitude of reasons: business profiles, brand identity, or personal identity. The hyphenation of two different names makes that new double last name almost one-of-a-kind, and because of its rarity, prompts those with hyphenated names to want to keep them. However, some complications may arise in passing that name on to one’s children.
Say someone with a hyphenated surname wants to pass it on to their children, but their significant other wants to preserve their name as well. Do they give their children a triple-hyphenated name? Or do they keep one of their names and hyphenate it with their significant other’s? The practice of combining two names into one rather than hyphenating them is rising in popularity, and might be a solution. If practiced in marriage, the couple ends up with a new name entirely that is made of their original names. This might be more fitting for what marriage actually means: the start of a new family. If the family is new, a new family name seems like an appropriate symbol for it. Passing this on to the children also makes sense; why only pass on the father’s name if the child is made from both parents?
Hyphenation and combination do interrupt the centuries-long standard of passing on the father’s name, and although it has become more popular recently, it is still rare. Some could see this as the erasure of tradition, trying to fix something that is not broken. However, progressive reform across the last century sought to fix precedents that benefitted the demographic(s) in power, precedents that those demographics saw no problem with. Most men see nothing wrong with their wives-to-be giving up their names, but it is easy to see no harm in it when it is not your name, or your identity.
