Tasha Mente, a 31-year-old marketing vice president in Oakland, Calif., had a note in the program on the day she married Joe Mente, a 34-year-old engineering manager.
“Traditionally, in heterosexual marriages,” read the program, “married women are expected to take their husband’s last name. Neither of us believe that a woman should be expected to lose her identity in favor of a man’s if that is not her choice. We wanted a mutual last name so that it was clear from the onset that we are a family.”
Their solution was to establish Mente, the Spanish word for “mind,” as both their last names (hers was Peláez, his Schneider), reflecting their commitment to mindfulness and their admiration of each other’s intellect while honoring the bride’s Colombian roots.
Name changes like these aren’t yet commonplace — a 2018 study in the Journal of Family Issues found that just 3 percent of men changed their names upon marriage — but they’re gaining popularity as couples seek to join their identities while acknowledging their status as equals.
Kelsey Johnold, a 34-year-old business analyst in Seattle, and her husband Nate combined their surnames Dippold and Johnson. Jenny Bristol, a 46-year-old writer in Arizona, and her husband chose an entirely new name, Bristol, simply because they liked it.
Celebrities and public figures have even made headlines for unconventional name-changing decisions. The actress Zoe Saldana’s husband, Marco, adopted her last name. In 1987, the former Los Angeles mayor, Tony Villaraigosa, chose a name that is a combination of his original name, Villar, and his then wife Connie Raigosa’s name.
Colie Christensen, founder of NewlyNamed, which provides online and shippable name change kits for newlyweds, said the most common alternative name changes she sees are couples combining their last names into one, both spouses taking a hyphenated name, and husbands taking wives’ names. In the latter case, it’s less often a political statement than a result of the husband not liking his last name, she said. Hyphenated names are becoming especially common, as they allow children to have both parents’ last names, according to Ms. Christensen.
Some of the first people to do this have been L.G.B.T.Q. couples, for whom the default of both partners taking a groom’s name often isn’t applicable. Scott Clover (formerly Marquardt), a 36-year-old intuitive healer in New York, and his husband, Michael Clover (formerly Florentino), chose their last name because of their love of nature and their affinity for the symbolism of the clover. “We wanted our union to represent my individuality as well as Michael’s, and that our bond would create a third energy,” Scott Clover said.
Shanna Katz Kattari, a 34-year-old professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work, and her husband, a trans man, combined their names Katz and Pittari to create their last name. “We wanted to have a shared last name but didn’t want either of us to feel like we were giving our name up,” she said. “Plus, it felt like a way to queer a really heteronormative institution.”
Society isn’t always set up to accommodate these kinds of name changes. Ashley Stull Meyers, a 31-year-old arts administrator in Portland, Ore., who combined her maiden name Stull and her husband’s name Meyers, was told when she renewed her driver’s license that she couldn’t have a two-part last name without a hyphen.
“Some administrative people just don’t seem to be able to wrap their minds around it, while others insist their computer systems or government forms won’t allow it,” Ms. Stull Meyers said. Samantha Bellinger, an event planner in North Hero, Vt., has found that the women she works with can usually change their last names with just their wedding certificates, whereas men sometimes have to appear in court.
Laws around name changing vary from state to state and can get quite technical. Maxine Seya, a 26-year-old journalist in Newport Beach, Calif., and her husband were unable to create the name they originally wanted, Sera, because of a California law that allows couples to take “a name combining into a single last name all or a segment of the current last name or the last name of either spouse given at birth.” Their original idea combined her name Yang and his name Cser, but “ser” and “a” weren’t considered segments of each name, defined as two or more letters.
Tracy Brisson, a wedding officiant in Savannah, Ga., said grooms she works with have been allowed to take their brides’ last names in Georgia, but one had to petition the court to do so in Ohio. Georgia presents its own obstacles, though: It only allows one spouse in a marriage to take on a hyphenated name.
Name changes also may present challenges for those looking to keep their lineages traceable, though Ms. Christensen said this isn’t as much of an issue as one might think. “Most name changes are public record and well documented,” she said. “If your name change requires a court order, in most cases, the public can access the court filings online.”
Despite some couples getting inventive with their last names, the tradition of brides taking grooms’ last names is still the norm. A 2015 Google Consumer Survey conducted by The New York Times found that it was becoming increasingly popular for women to keep their maiden names, but still, only 20 percent of women were doing so, and only 10 percent were choosing alternative options like hyphenated names.
“The norms are changing, at least in urban areas, when it comes to the bride changing her name — but whose name will future children take? If the answer is automatically the child’s father, then the traditional system is still in play,” said Kathryn Stamoulis, a psychologist specializing in women’s issues. “Weddings can be an area that is hard to buck tradition because weddings involve two families. It involves expectations, opinions, hopes and dreams of people we love, or hope will love us.”
Still, Ms. Christensen expects the popularity of inventive last names to grow.
“Traditions and rules are evolving,” she said. “It becomes a decision for the couple to make together rather than the default. Your last name is a big part of your identity, and I think couples will continue to take advantage of their legal name-change rights to choose a last name that works the best for their relationship.”
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