Some of the many species Jeffrey Combs has evolved into:
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.
Yeah it’s not the changing, it’s the expectation. My mom told me one “women don’t have last names”, meaning there is no matrilineal naming convention here. So basically she didn’t care about changing hers because it was her dad’s name or her husband’s, but found it problematic. Why does “family name” follow the men like that, when the kids are born to the mothers?
Needlessly Patriarchal is a good way to put it.
