Here are some photos of Hailey Bieber – formerly Hailey Baldwin – out and about in New York this weekend. It’s looking more and more like Hailey and Justin Bieber considered their low-key civil wedding ceremony at the New York courthouse to be the real thing. Initially, they claimed that while they were technically married at the courthouse, they wouldn’t consider themselves truly married until they did it in a church, or perhaps in some Canadian woods. Last month, Hailey trademarked her married name, and now she’s making the whole thing Instagram-official by changing her official name to Hailey Bieber or Hailey Rhode Bieber:
I’m not even that irritated that Hailey didn’t hyphenate. It’s a choice every woman has to make for herself and you guys have yelled at me enough about it not being any of my business. *shrug* I guess I’m alone in loving my maiden name and not wanting to give it for anyone. If she had chosen to hyphenate, I think Hailey Baldwin-Bieber sounds okay, but if she did Hailey Rhode Baldwin-Bieber, that’s too many syllables. Hailey Rhode Bieber sounds… like a classy girl accidentally married a has-been in Vegas, which is almost what really happened.
All that being said, I totally understand why the “Hailey Bieber” brand is a lot stronger than the Hailey Baldwin brand. Hailey has never worked so much or made so much money locking down endorsements since she started up with Justin. She’s the face of an Adidas line, she’s modeling Chanel sh-t, she’s the latest face of Bare Minerals, she’s getting a ton of editorial and runway work and I guarantee that she’s being paid to wear dumb sh-t in street-style paparazzi photos. Meanwhile, Justin seems fine with taking some time off and not even doing much with music. I realize he has money saved and he can totally afford to never work again, but it amuses me and pleases me that their first year of marriage is all about HER career.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
While I can only admire the acumen in trademarking your married name (you own it now and you will own it forever, even if you get divorced one day), that still stirkes me as a horribly cynical, thirsty and mercenary move. Is it just me?
Nope, it’s not just you. I couldn’t read the part about trademarking without some hard eye-rolling. 🙂
How does trade marking work for someones name? Does that mean that if there was another Hailey Bieber somewhere in the world that they wouldn’t be able to use their name or that they just wouldn’t be able to use their name for a business?
Either way, this makes it seem more like a business arrangement than one of love…
Kaiser you are so not alone about loving your maiden name. My name is me. Some man isn’t going to take that away from me. And yeah, I know it’s not my business, but when a woman changes her name after marriage, I respect the couple less. That’s just how I feel.
@Roux: For a business. Jimmy Choo for example, no longer owns any part of the shoe company and hasn’t for a long time. But he can’t use his name to open a new shoe business, someone else now owns the trademark.
He does custom shoes now under his Chinese name rather than his English name.
Relying to Mika:
Consider that not every woman feels good about her family of origin. My maiden name was from a family of dysfunction. Taking the name of my husband, the first person with whom I have had a loving, supportive, real family connection, was a beautiful moment for me to shed the weight of childhood abuse and neglect.
For me I know that ever since I have changed my name I have lived a TRUE family life. My husband and now our children are my most true and loving family, a family that I never could have imagined having growing up in the dysfunction I was born into. I feel so good about my married name, my married identity, and the family I have created. I feel good that though therapy and hard work and love I have left my maiden name and that whole life behind.
Just something to consider! Each story is unique!
I keep my maiden name because it’s a pain in the ass to change my licensing.
“Some man” isn’t going to “take it away” from you? Hopefully you cherish your husband and adore him and he won’t be “some man” trying to take something from you, my husband has only enhanced my life and while I love my family name I am honored that I can share it with the man I love. And another saying she doesn’t respect the woman as much because she accepted her husband’s last name? Lol wow! Have a lovely life looking down your nose at the majority of the female population around the world then, darling.
Gonna be a headache to change all that back in a year.
My thoughts exactly. Do should we assume it’s all over or that they’re just fighting when one weekend it goes back to “Hailey Baldwin” ??
even if/when they get divorced she may not want to return to Baldwin when Bieber is the $$$$ name. look at yolanda foster divorcing david foster and going back to yolanda hadid.
No kidding Bettytrose. My husband asked me to take his last name and I did just because It seemed to matter to him and I had no preference. But I told him I easily spent 100 more hours getting married than he did. Hours and hours at the dmv, the passport office, social security, on and on. To be fair they seem to have more free time than most of us…
If I had to do it over again, I would keep my maiden name.
Care to share your reasons?
I wouldn’t change my either, but am curious about your experience.
mine*
When I got married, it never occurred to me to not take my husbands name. There isn’t anything wrong with it, or him, lol, and we’re happier now than way back then, but the older I get the more I miss my old name. No profound reason, maybe just nostalgia? Lol
I would to, or hyphenate, mostly as an indication of my intention to maintain myself as a fully functional, independent adult entering into a legal and emotional partnership. Which is what I have and am-I can also articulate my feelings about being subsumed into another family much clearer now than ten years ago.
I’ve known my entire life I would keep my maiden name. Like, I was telling people that when I was 10. My husband (then-fiance) was absolutely fine when I told him. Then I had to tell his mother.
We all went to a pub and after she had a couple drinks in her it came up. I said I was keeping my name. There was a looooooong silence. Then she goes, “Yeah, if I could do it again, I’d keep mine, too.” She’s been happily married since she was 21 so it’s not an issue of divorce or anything. Bullet dodged.
I know I’m not supposed to judge blah blah blah, but every time one of my friends changes her name I get really sad. Especially the ones who are huge feminists like me. I just don’t get why you would do it, at all. Unless you have a really terrible last name or your father is a horrific person or something, it’s your name! And it’s 2018. We’re past this.
Out of interest, what name would you give your children?
I would never change mine. Where I’m from not only do we not legally change our surnames but men can take our names instead. And in case of children, the couple chooses which surname goes first.
(Replying to Cas)
I kept my name. When we had kids, we debated hyphenating, but it would have been really long (husband has 7 letters, mine’s 9) and we felt bad thinking of a little first-grader trying to write all that. So we decided to give our daughter my last name, but included his as a middle name. The “usual” default is the other way round (mum’s name as middle, dad’d as last)… but there’s no reason it has to be.
My sisters both changed their name when they married; I didn’t. And my husband has lots of cousins and a brother to “carry on” his family name; I don’t. So we went with mine.
When we had our second child, I asked my husband if he wanted to give this one his name, so it would be equitably split. But he decided he’d rather have the two kids share a name.
People occasionally raise an eyebrow but no one ever gives it a second thought after the first explanation. It’s worked out fine.
My dad was a horrible (drunk) person who told me that I was too dumb to bear his name and I should take my mother’s (this went on from the time I was six until he stopped drinking when I was around 19). But I am a feminist and refused to change my name for some man when I got married. Then I had the little man and it was just easier use the same last name for school and stuff. If I didn’t have my son, I don’t think I’d ever have changed it.
I’ll keep my name. And I won’t be like many women I know who rub their new identities in other people’s faces as if they’ve achieved something. (its not an accomplishment) The X Family invites you to…. like that really annoys me, cos weren’t you proud of who you were before? Why so eager to throw it out the window?
I understand what you’re saying and where you are coming from, but we are not all proud of our maiden names. I had a horrible father, he cheated on my mom constantly and was mostly absent from my childhood, even disappearing for weekends at a time to party. It’s a personal choice for each woman, and I fully support keeping your maiden name if it’s important to you and has meaning, but my maiden name was one I was all too happy to drop in favor of taking my husband’s name. My husband is such a good man through and through – polar opposite of my father, and I’m proud of my new last name and that it represents our marriage and union together.
Lulu, one has the option to change names without marriage though. My SO had a similarly miserable relationship with his father and now he uses his legal middle name as his last name. I personally wouldn’t change my name because career/passport/laziness. Point is this decision shouldn’t have anything to do with gender or marital status.
Lulu – my father wasn’t horrible so much as absent. So when I married, changing my name was a way to celebrate a man who was truly present in my life. My father-in-law is horrible, but for me my last name is about my partnership – to hell with everybody else.
I get all over the place why someone might want to leave their own family name behind, and I get why it’s more appealing to share a family name with your chosen life partner, especially once kids are included, but the gender aspect of it continues to bother me. Men just as often as women have no connection to their birth names. Men just as often as women are closer to their partner/spouse’s family than their own. Men just as often as women are proud of and loyal to the person who promises to love them forever. So, the history behind the woman being the one to change names is about property rights. We all know that, and we all know that doesn’t matter any more, but there’s still some subtle throwback to it when people don’t suggest my SO who gave up his family name (explained above) take mine (I don’t want him to, but just making the point that no one would ever suggest it).
Is it possible in the US for the man to take the womans name?
My Fiancee and I decided that I will keep my name and he will hypenate since I need more recognizability in my career.
He wanted a family name and since we have been living together for more than 2 years we get invitations for Mr. and Ms. *myname* anyway.
What Lulu said. Her name, her life, her choice.
My name was long, hard to pronounce and spell, and belonged to my cranky father. My married name is simple and goes perfectly with my first name. It was also a pleasure to look for baby names to go with it. Not everyone has loyalty to their original name, not at all.
You summed my reasoning up better than if I’d said this myself.
I think what’s worse than people “rubbing it in” other peoples’ faces, are people who judge other women for making their own choices when it comes to their identity. listen, i will most likely never change my last name, i love it. but, to judge other women who do it is just as wrong as the women you brought up in your comment. not cool tbh
Thank you.
I see the choice feminism strikes again. Just because a woman makes a choice, does not mean it’s a feminist one and should be immune to judgement. That’s not how feminism works.
Why would anybody judge what name you or I choose to call ourselves? Most maiden names come from our fathers, not our mothers, so I don’t see how it is feminist to keep that name anyway. What if a father has molested or abused his daughter? Is she tied to his name for the rest of her life?
>Most maiden names come from our fathers, not our mothers, so I don’t see how it is feminist to keep that name anyway.
They might come from them, but they’re ours. They’re on our birth certificates, they’re the only names we know, and the only ones people recognize as by. If you have the option of keeping the name you were born with, or dropping it after living with it for 20+ years to take on a man’s name…. let’s not pretend these options are equally feminist.
Nope, the name I just happened to be born with wasn’t “my” name. And even if it were, why should I live my life with a name I hated, and inflict that name on my children just to prove some point? My husband’s original last name was as unwieldy as mine. He had always wanted to change it to his mother’s maiden name. Both his parents died before he was 10. So in his early 20s, before we were married, he legally changed it to his mother’s name. That’s the nice last name I’ve had for 40 years and the name my kids have, and I’m very happy with it.
@vvh8 Um, no. They’re not “our names”. They’re names that our patriarchal society chose for us. Giving children the father’s last name is a centuries old patriarchal tradition. Which makes your argument invalid.
Would you like every woman on the planet to legally change their last name to Amazon or Valkyrie or something like that? Would that be feminist enough for you?
I took my ex-husband’s name because I liked it better than mine. I ditched the dude and kept the name because I still liked it.
You don’t get to define feminism for me or anyone else.
My comment is not meant to tell anyone else what to do (no need for the “her name her choice” crap, that’s clear and not necessary here and not what my comment was about at all.
I simply don’t like it. And I am allowed to say it. I DO have a peev against women who just straight up identify as married to and wife of. It gets on my nerves because I tick completely differently.
Actually some of the arguments are in line with what I said (eager to throw out the old name). So….. yeah. Why not just leave other peoples opinion be.
I know it’s not my business, but it bugs me too that so many women still change their last name. None of my friends even considered keeping their last names! I’ve known since I was a child that I would always keep my last name. It means disaggreable, which is perfect for me.
I didn’t change my name, and I won’t. My husband tossed around the idea of him adopting my surname but it just sounded off. In the end, we just decided to remain as we were.
Maybe they are happy to ditch their last names, I was.
I ended up hyphenating “socially” and keeping my maiden name as my legal name. I’m not sure I’d recommend it. I had planned to hyphenate legally, too, but the more I live with it socially the more I’m on the fence. Husband’s entire family still just addresses me as HisLastName (we probably got 10~ wedding gifts personalized as Mr. and Mrs. HisLastName even though id never given any indication I planned to take the name) and everyone else is just apparently a dumbass who has never encountered a hyphenated name before and has no clue what to do with. A hyphenated name. I’m either called Mrs. OrginalLastName or Mrs. HisLastName. I’d say 1 in 3 people get it right, even though it’s literally on my email signature, office door, social media accounts, my web presence, every public thing, essentially etc . Kinda sucks.
Kinda infuriating, to be honest.
Same, girl.
I still hyphenate on facebook, and things like that. But honestly… I go by my own last name legally, and at places like drs offices, work, etc. And it annoys me when it’s an automatics Erinn HisLastName because in the social media age, it takes all of 2 seconds to check the spelling of someone’s name.
For me at 30, I was just so happy to finally find the right man and get married I was proud to take his name. My maiden name is associated with a lot of racist people and growing up many people assumed I was like that too. It got old and tiresome. My husband is foreign so my last name is unique and I haven’t seen anyone else with it. It only gets annoying when I have to spell it to people even though it’s very simple to spell.
Is your maiden last name Van Helsing? Have you watched Hotel Transylvania 3? Your comment reminded me of that kid’s movie… 😋just being silly…but i’m sure you’d find it relatable in a comical way as i did. My father was…cough…a Hitler fan and sucked royally as a dad. So i was beyond thrilled when i took my husband’s last name. My hubby is an excellent dad and an amazing partner with an ideology of tolerance and acceptance. I’m proud to carry his last name.
I changed my name because I wanted to have the same name as my kids. My first son has my maiden name as his middle and my second son has my Mom’s maiden name as his middle. I love both my parents names and was happy to see them live on in my children.
I completely support keeping your name and
giving your kids a hyphenated last name or any combination that makes sense to the person making it. And I feel good about the choices I made.
Not coming at you, just highlighting another perspective.
J was all too happy to change my last name because my maiden name was misspelled every single time. Many of my friends replaced their middle name with their maiden name so they became First Maiden Lastname but my middle name is a generational family name and I was more attached to that than my last name. I also have several friends who kept their maiden names due to academic or professional accomplishments prior to marriage. My cousin’s husband took her name after marriage. A guy I worked with and his wife made up a whole new last name and they both took it. It’s awesome that now women and couples can pick what works for them and most people DGAF.
I haven’t changed my name. I had a bit of anxiety at the registry when applying for our license that I had to choose right then to change my name for “free” and if I chose to do it later it would cost X amount of money.
I decided to hyphenate it but have done zero to make it legal. I call myself by my husband’s last name when we’re doing something together, but everywhere else it’s still the original me. Part of it is to keep ties to my country, my departed Dad and to not associate myself with his racist family members.
I kept my last name. For me it’s not about father vs. husband, my name (first + last) is MINE. I spent years building my identity, getting an education etc. and I’m not going to essentially erase that person just because I got married. I remember my husband’s aunt saying to me that she tried to look up her old school friends and she couldn’t find any of them because she didn’t know their married names. I think that’s really sad.
Plus, as someone above said, she’s probably going to have to undo it all in a year or so.
I kept my maiden name, no hyphen. I love my husband and his name but my name is my name. It’s a headache fighting for it with every paperwork but my choice.
I HATE the term “maiden name”. It assumes all us women will get married one day and change our names when we are no longer “maidens”. It’s so archaic. If a woman wants to change her name when she gets married, that is her choice. But please can we get rid of the term “maiden name”. It’s a gross word for those of us who don’t want to get married, or who do want to get married but keep the name we were born with.
Yup. Like baby teeth, just here till you get your proper ones.
I changed my name. I didn’t really want to but i did because it was important to my husband. Now that i did it, i love it. My maiden name was Gee and i constantly had to spell it for people, they just didn’t get it when i said it. My new one is better, i dont have to spell it and sounds better w my first name.
It’s so weird to me that Americans change their name. I know some people do it because they want to have the same last name as their children, but it just seems so unnecessary to me. In my country it usually goes first name + middle name + mother’s last name + father’s last name. I honestly try to understand why some women change it but I just can’t.
I felt no connection to my maiden name. My dad is crap. He was adopted and his family is crap. I don’t care for the association with them, so I was happy to take my husband’s last name. He’s a wonderful man and I love sharing the last name as my children because I certainly wasn’t going to give them my maiden name. I’ve already decided that even if my husband and I end up divorcing I will still keep his name.
My aunt on the other hand gave my cousins her last name even though she was still with their father when they were born because she wanted my grandfather’s name to continue. My mom wishes she had given me her name and I wish she had too. I probably wouldn’t have changed my name when I got married if she had.
In Quebec women do not change their last names because they are legally not allowed to (a law implemented in 1981 prohibits it).
To this American, that sounds kinda weird; a bit of over-reaching on the State’s part.
honestly, I dont believe it
I got married 2 weeks ago and it was never a question of whether I would keep my last name. For one, it is unique and Latino, and my white husbands last name sounds very strange as my last name. Also, my dad adopted me when I was 2 years old and his family immediately accepted me as his own- he was the first person to choose to be with me for the rest of my life and I want to honor that.
Wow Gabriella!! That was so sweet!!! ❤️
Congratulations!!!
Of course she changed her name publicly to her meal ticket, sorry, one true love. It’s good business. The Baldwin name has taken a beating because of her dad and uncle.
YUP sorry this was my first thought. Maybe I’m a cynical bitch, but the fact she chose the week her father was outed for pretending to be a homeless man to cheat on his wife to change her name seems like no coincidence to me.
Do what?
Exactly, its her meal ticket and it distracts from the fact that she was caught stalking Selena’s fan page and didn’t want the focus too much on that.
She was caught stalking Selena’s fan page?! Oh wow! 😮
My husband and I both kept our names and for more than 25 years it hasn’t been the problem some people predicted. I do get annoyed when someone takes it upon herself to address correspondence, like wedding invites, to Mr. and Mrs. HIS name” — it’s not their business to tell me who I am, and I never said I go by my name only “for professional reasons.” And if it’s a lot to fit on an envelope, there are other solutions. Don’t change my name. There is no me-approved alternative.
Same here, it is super annoying when even close family members insist on sending things to “Mr and Mrs Husband Name” and there is one family member who got totally high and mighty about “the importance” of a woman taking her husband’s last name. *eyeroll*
It’s very strange for me but I wish more men would change their names or hyphenate their name! This is what me and my fiancé want to do – hyphenate both of our names!
Baffled that Hailey is being attacked for changing her name. Most women do. I do think partially it’s for the notoriety but I think she would have changed her name if she married the garbage man. Most celebrities trademark many variations of their names so others can’t use it and take advantage.
I took my ex’s name because I wanted to feel like a part of a family, to feel that I belong and that we are one. And I’ve always been a feminist and had my own life and made my own choices. This name thing doesn’t have to be an issue unless you make it so.
Was there a discussion around him taking your last name?
Exactly. If this was simply about being one, you could have both added each other’s names to your previous ones, or created a new one for both of you. But it almost never happens, in 99% of cases it’s the woman giving up her identity to take on her husband’s name, and it’s important to acknowledge that those choices are not made in a vacuum.
A name is not an identity. I hated my last name and didn’t like my father. I was happy to adopt a new name. Frankly, it’s nobody’s business.
What does that have to do with my wanting to take his name :)))? If you want to paint your hair pink you don’t ask your bf or gf if they want to do it too. If that’s what they want to do they will and should be able to without a discussion. It’s a non-issue because it’s a personal and free choice.
I couldn’t wait to change my name when I got married. I was so happy to be marry my husband and I wanted the world to know. I get it.
ME TOO! I was so excited to take his last name. No hate if you don’t, but don’t hate on me bc I did!
She really strikes me as the sort who’s going to make lots of public statements in the near future about how it’s sexist and unfair that people only ask her about her husband and relationship and not about her accomplishments and work. It’s going to be HILARIOUS!!
With my first marriage, I kept my maiden name because I was a tenure-track professor at a major university and had already started publishing. I needed my name to be recognizable professionally at conferences and on publications. Plus, I think some part of me knew that my first husband was an asshole (he turned out to be an alcoholic and a narcissist–as in, an actual diagnosed narcissist–who was resentful of my professional success). So keeping my name in that situation made me feel like there was a small part of my identity I still held onto.
That said, my maiden name is 11 letters and difficult to spell and pronounce, and has always been a low key hassle. When I met my now husband, and we decided to get married and have a baby, I opted to take his much shorter, easier to spell name. I’ve loved not having to repeat and spell my last name everywhere. And my husband loves and respects me as a true partner and equal, so I think it just doesn’t feel like something I need anymore, if that makes sense. I do sometimes feel a twinge of irritation at the fact that the name change issue is something that women have to deal with. Systemic patriarchy sucks. It’s like how only women get asked questions about work life balance.
I wish the name change question could simply be a question of what makes the most sense for each couple.
Agree! That’s why I changed mine, and it’s sad to see how some women would think of me as less of a feminist. My husband was perfectly happy with my choice either way, and he also considered changing his to mine, because e wanted the same name for our kids.
My maiden name is now my pen name when I write, so it’s still in use 🙂
I’m changing mine legally and leaving it professionally. I recently went from journalism into PR and I want people to still know who I am, but I also know my father won’t mind, my new husband would love if I took his name and I prefer the sound of it (my own name means “frequented by wild birds” – I mean yikes, that has haunted me since I found out in grade school). Sometimes you can sort of have both.
She’s probably going to need to change it back to Baldwin after a year (if that). I do not see the marriage lasting very long.
I kept my maiden name. Never legally changed it. Didn’t see any need to. I occasionally hyphenate
What I always find interesting about some women who change their name on marriage is they sometimes claim to have always hated their surname, or that they don’t want to keep their (terrible) father’s name. Is it not allowed to just change your name legally without getting married ? I did that when I was a teen, and it was really easy. I assumed all countries had a way of changing your name legally, but from the stories I’ve heard, it seems that might not be the case.
Reading through all of these comments criticizing women for changing their last name after marriage is disheartening. I’m the only woman in my family to have changed mine. It never even occurred to me that would be considered anti feminist. I never had a strong attachment to my maiden name and no one could ever spell it correctly. My maiden name even appears in a national database spelled incorrectly. I actually prefer my husbands last name, so it was a no brainer for me to change it.
I know some people have mentioned in this thread that if you didn’t like your maiden name why wait until marriage? Because changing your name is a pain in a$$ and I don’t see the difference between that or taking your husbands name. It’s your choice and people should respect that.
Agree! I feel like many of the people judging are also the same people who rail against judging moms/parenting or complain about people not understanding why they cut out toxic family members (both rightfully so). So, why can’t people see this is similar in that it’s a personal choice! For some people, their identity is not in their last name. Or their first. And it’s ok either way!
I will probably legally change my name but keep my maiden name at work because it’s how the many people I work with through digital communication connect with me. Honestly, I’m lazy, so it really depends on the extra work I have to do 🙂 Many men and women have done it, and survived and thrived. However, my career persona and my worth would not change if I did decide to changed my last name and I think people need to remember that.
I’m a bit baffled here.
It is NOT easy to change your name, esp. last name, here in Germany.
By law, you have to have a “good reason”, and simply not loving it or the person it comes from doesn’t count.
Which is why, even though I’m a fierce feminist, I can’t wait to take my husbands name, in order to ditch my absent father’s.
I suppose there’s different laws in different countries, so maybe try not to judge women so quickly.
I kept my maiden name because I love the way my name sounds and it’s mine. My children have their father’s name because we don’t want his more unusual last name to go away. Feminism is about choices not what you choose but being able to choose at all. I wish people would respect that I do not have the same last name and stop calling me by my husband’s last name. I am not MRS anything. Maybe that’s why those of us who kept our names get irritable.
My only problem is with her and Justin. She got a major boost by getting married and meanwhile he seems listless, depressed, lost, and confused. That’s not how anyone should feel immediately after getting married (or before getting married, you know that thing about being of sound mind). I just don’t think it’s going to end well; and I think she know it, which is why she’s going to try and get every dollar she can while her husband appears to be on the edge of a breakdown – I find the whole thing gross.
They don’t have a pre-nup so even if her career doesn’t “take off” she’ll be loaded from the divorce ! I mean I hope they have a long and happy marriage, but just sayin…
I’m with you Kaiser. I would never give up my maiden name; it’s my heritage, fits perfectly with my first name (thanks mom & dad) and its been mine all my life. Why should I change it just because I got married?. A woman can still be and feel married without changing her name. And yeah, Hailey is just going to have to change it back in 12 – 18 months.
I got married about 6 weeks ago and chose to take my husband’s last name … I am not close to my father or his family and my father-in-law was incredibly welcoming and loving to me before he passed so changing my name really felt like joining the whole family. About a decade ago I was engaged to someone whose last name sounded awful and if I had followed through with the marriage I definitely would have kept my maiden name… so for me this is a pretty situational, drama-free decision. My mum, for example, remarried after my dad (to a much better person!) but kept her original married name because her priority was having the same name as her kids. To each their own.
I got married ten years ago and took my husband’s last name. I’ve had a great relationship with my parents. I changed my middle name to my maiden name. I am a feminist but I’m traditional where this is concerned. I wanted to have the same last name as my kids. And if we’d hyphenated the kids to Mary Allison Jones-Foster then she married a John Allen Jackson-Lawson what happens to their child? Margaret Ashley Jones-Foster-Jackson-Lawson?
Look to Spain and South America for an answer, it is done in many places.
On 9.27 when we got our marriage license, the woman tried to bully me into taking his last name after he pointed out I wanted my last name as was written on the paperwork. We didn’t notice she changed my last name STILL after we had new paperwork printed! Now, we have decided to go for solidarity and have the worst last name! Wilson no hyphen Walker!
Hailey Rhode Bieber sounds like the name of a “leaked” sex tape from the 90’s.
I am not a native english speaker and still my twisted mind went there too. Lol. I am glad I am not the only one
Just because a person isn’t attached to their name or doesn’t like the people it came from doesn’t mean they would go out and change it without a natural opportunity to do so. I never would have changed mine without a marriage. I think my whole family would have been really offended, and it would have made clear my feelings about them that I didn’t necessarily want to make explicit. I had a complicated attachment to my maiden name. I was adopted. My father has not been a great father and was a terrible husband. His family has a different last name because his father died in the Korean War and his mother remarried. I never felt like I fit in on that side of the family. I also didn’t feel like I fit in on my mother’s side, which was Baptist while we were raised Jewish. My maiden name was very Jewish and hard to spell. But I kept it during my first marriage. I think I was worried it might not work out and I was asserting some independence. But my now husband’s family was incredibly welcoming to me. And he has a lovely last name. I kept my first name and middle name, neither of which I particularly like either, but this was a practical compromise that feels like it gives me a fresh start with a new family. It was a total pain to do all the documentation at my age. It requires changing your name on everything, not just drivers license and passports but 401ks and bank accounts and deeds and titles. I really don’t get why so many people here have a hard time understanding how a person could lack an attachment to a name but also hesitate to proactively got out and change it to something you’d have to come up with yourself and commit to having the rest of your life, and then make an enormous amount of clerical work and errands for yourself to go put into practice. It’s amazing how some people can’t put themselves in someone else’s shoes.
Thank you. That was poignant and moving.
Mere, you articulated exactly how I feel. Some of us feel indifferent to our names in a way others can’t relate to. With that being said, the hours of errands and clerical work it takes to legally change your name is tedious. Not to mention the offense you may cause to your family if you decided to commit yourself to a different legal name without marriage involved. No matter what your decision is and what your motivation is to change it should never be judged.
Cynic here but I give this marriage 3 years. Bieber is a trouble boy-man (who seems to live on fast food) and she comes from a family where the dad constantly had and still has major financial problems. Neither had stability in their childhood.
Looks like she pumped up her lips?
A loong time ago.
My dad took my mother’s name when they married because his one was a swear word. I am now the only person in my family with the name because my mum remarried, my dad took his old name back and my only sister also married and took her husband’s name. I would never change my maternal last name. I had a boyfriend who wanted me to consider taking his name if we ever got married because he was an only child. Sorry, bro, my name situation is even lonelier than yours…
My family is Korean and Korean women always keep their maiden name after marriage. To me, it just seems natural to keep my name. I also wouldn’t want to lose my ethnic name if I marry my white bf. It would be really strange to suddenly have a white person’s name. However, I don’t care what other women decide to do and I don’t think it’s for anyone else to judge.
I love my maiden name so much that I gave it to my son as his first name! 🙂
I would have been happy to keep it, but I was also excited to have the same last name as my husband and I still am. It’s easier with the kids too; in my opinion.
With that said, i did keep my maiden name as my middle name. It’s not hyphenated, but it’s there.
I think people should do whatever feels good to them!
I hate my maiden name (it’s annoyingly not spelled like the word it actually sounds like) so would happily swap it for a husband’s name, as long as it had a better ring to it.
In fairness, for a lot of women, the maiden name is a patronym, anyway, so it’s just trading one dude’s name for another. *shrug* I’m applying to medical school in the fall, so unless I magically marry during college, I probably won’t change it mostly because the licensing would be costly to update.
Personally I find it more disturbing that she married him at all over the fact that she took his name.
Rhode is a pretty middle name.
That’s all I’ve got.
Not very interested in these two…Does anyone know who makes the sweater/coat she’s wearing? Now that’s gorgeous!
As a feminist without any bad feelings toward my own born name, it never even crossed my mind to take my husband’s name. But it might have if my born name was really weird or awkward. It’s nice to be able to choose to do so just because you have that freedom — not because it’s an expectation.
Our kids have their father’s name, because his name does have a better ring to it. No other reason.
I’ve never come across any confusion or inconvenience having a different name from the rest of my family.