I have been a Gibson my whole life. My family was big on Gibson pride. At one point my father bought us all T-shirts with the family crest on them, so we could display our loyalty on our chests. It could also have been to prevent possibly forgetting our last names, but nonetheless, it stilled deep paternal pride.
As a kid I dreamed about getting married. In my family, it was validation of all things feminine. When I use the word feminine in terms of my family’s use of it, I mean helplessness and vulnerability. You got married to procreate and to be protected and taken care of, so I started planning at an early age. My friends and I would giggle about who we would marry and tell each other we’d be each others’ bridesmaids. Everytime I had a crush on a boy I would practice signing my name with his last name. It was the signifier of a huge crush. At the time, it was fun. Now, it gives me the creeps.
As soon as I got engaged I started thinking about my last name. Although any word is only as meaningful as the power we give it, and my last name is only a word, it has meant a lot to me. The thought of abandoning it completely, and taking another name has not been appealing to me. What’s even more distressing is that it is expected of me. People automatically assume that since I am getting married I will take my partner’s last name, because I am female and he is male. Most people find nothing wrong with this, because it is the way it has been. I think it says a lot about society’s expectations of married life.
First of all, by establishing the last name as an identifying label, we assume that the bride takes on part of the groom’s identity by taking his last name. Abandoning the maiden name assumes that a woman takes on a new identity when she marries, and that who she was known as before marriage isn’t very important. There is also the idea of passing 
down the name to their children. A woman’s job is to bear children that can carry on the identity of the man, or you could also consider a woman to be the vessel that bears the man’s children.
The other idea behind this that really gets under my skin is that people may address me as Mrs. Andrew McGuire. That insinuates I have lost all autonomy, and now am known as the counterpart to this man. I am not my own person any longer. In addition to the new identity of his-first-and-last-name is the title of “Mrs.” The abbreviation of the word misses includes an “R” which suggests ownership to the Mister. Angry yet?
Don’t get me wrong. I like my future husband’s last name. It’s a good name. I just don’t want to give up a part of who I am for the sake of continuing a demeaning tradition. I don’t understand why a man isn’t expected to change his last name to the wife’s name. Here’s where a double standard exists. If a man were to change his last name to the woman’s he would be seen as weak, because it insinuates the woman has more power in the relationship by using her last name. A woman is seen as normal by taking the man’s last name, and contributing to the harmony of married life. It is her duty.
So what are the options for name changing when someone gets married? One can change their last name completely to that of their partner’s, or make up a completely new last name for both partners to change to. You can also hyphenate your last name to have both your name and your partner’s last name, or not change your name at all.
I’ve finally decided to hyphenate my last name. It took a long time to come to that decision, but I feel like it is a good compromise between retaining my identity through my surname and participating in unifying two people legally through a shared last name.
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