What’s in a (Last) Name?

“The overwhelming majority told me that their wives did not understand why they had to follow the ‘age-old’ tradition of changing their name to the name of their groom, and asked their groom to change his name.” – Jake Wolff, CEO of Hitchswitch™ speaking about newlyweds, February 7, 2012. 

Some women choose to keep their given last name after marriage, while others assume their spouse’s surname, with or without a hyphen. Now, in a type of role reversal, a trend is underway where men have been changing the family name to match that of their wives’.

Is this another milestone on the way to gender equality? In the future, should actor Brad Pitt be called “Mr. Jolie” or Patriot’s star quarterback and potential football Hall of Famer Tom Brady, “Mr. Giselle Bundchen?”    

Gaining parity

The tendency for women to keep their last name after marriage is not merely a 21st century phenomenon; it has been going on in the United States since the early days of the Women’s Rights Movement.

In her article for The Huffington Post, “Should women change their last names after marriage?”, published August 16, 2011, contributor Katherine Bindley offers a brief history about spouses retaining the same identity after the wedding:

“The practice of women keeping their last names, first introduced in the U.S. by suffragette Lucy Stone in the 1850s, adopted by members of the Lucy Stone League in the 1920s and popularized during the Women’s Rights Movement of the early 1970s, peaked in the 1990s at 23 percent. By the 2000s, only 18 percent of women were keeping their names, according to a 2009 study published in the journal Social Behavior and Personality.”  

According to Bindley, some experts say the number of women in the U.S. who are keeping their names after marriage has dropped to 8 percent as of 2009.

The newest movement

It turns out grooms taking on a bride-to-be’s surname is not an isolated tendency. According to GalTime’s Consumer Watchdog, Mary Schwager, there are more men following that modern path than one might think. In Schwager’s piece “More Men Taking Their Wife’s Last Name?”, published February 7, 2012, she provides some of the specifics:

“First we told you how a growing number of men are starting to wear “management rings” (male engagement rings). Now we’ve learned there’s a new trend on the rise: Men in the U.S. are taking their wife’s last name, or hyphenating it with their own.”

Let’s see, Brad “Pitt-Jolie” and Tom “Brady-Bundchen.” Out of the two, “Brady-Bundchen” has a nicer, albeit longer, ring to it.

Everyone with the same last name

Some not-so-famous grooms, like Mark Tyler, have already taken their wife’s last name. Tyler, now married to Carol, was interviewed by Mary Schwager for her column. Schwager says:

“The couple started talking about it before they got married and decided it was important they both have the same last name so their children would as well. According to Mark, Carol said, ‘If we all have the same last name, why can’t it be mine?’”

In the same piece of writing, Schwager details how another woman did the same and for similar reasons:

“Gayle Brandeis and her husband did the name swap for the same reasons when they got married: Kids and career.”

“We liked the idea of everyone in the family having the same last name,” Brandeis told Schwager.

How many are following this trend? CEO Jake Wolff of Hitchswitch™, a service that assists newlyweds change names, revealed to Schwager that since June 2011, of the two thousand couples he’s helped, “Five percent of the clients have been men. Out of that five percent about three percent of men take their wife’s last name and the remaining two percent create a hybrid or hyphenate their last name.”

Wolff is seeing a definite increase.

Acquiring a wife’s last name shouldn’t present too much of a problem for most grooms. It’s the women with just one name that could be problematic. Can you imagine saying “Mr. Madonna,” “Mr. Cher” or “Mr. Adele?” “Brady-Bundchen” sounds much better.