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Comment by Aardwolf | Hacker News Reader

> "I’ve been coached through changing my name, which is a gendered professional experience that none of my male peers had dealt with."

How about ending that convention in countries that have it? In Belgium most people do not change their name upon marrying, and I do not see the point of doing so. Person X and Y marry, there's a contract already, no name change is needed for that.

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There are plenty of reasons to change your name that don't have anything to do with marriage. The answer to systems being inflexible and not coping with name changes is not that people shouldn't change their name. The process should be easier and less painful, and all systems need to deal with names that change, including usernames that change (since people often use part or all of their name in their username).

(Also, some people do enjoy that convention, while others do not. It shouldn't be expected, but it should certainly be permitted.)

This conversation reminds me of this article: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b...

Tangentially, this article about names and cultures is also a great resource that makes a strong recommendation: just use one field and be as flexible as possible https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names

Yes but marriage was implied in this sentence.

Agreed, "permitted" is ok, "expected" not. Seems like "expected" in many places...

I, a man, changed my name when I got married. It was surprisingly easy, at least here in Florida, and I'm glad I did.

I got my name changed to that of my stepfather when I was too young to understand. Don't enjoy representing them, don't have any attachment to my rather ugly sounding birth name, so your plan makes sense to me.

So what do the kids take for their last name then?

Both parent's last names.

In a few generations we're going to need to increase the database field size for last name.

Then what do their children take for last names? Each generation we have a doubling of name length?

  Gen 1: FirstName P1-LastName P2-LastName

  Gen 2: FirstName P1-P1-LastName P1-P2-LastName P2-P1-LastName P2-P2-LastName

  Gen 3: FirstName P1-P1-P1-LastName P1-P1-P2-LastName P1-P2-P1-LastName P1-P2-P2-LastName P2-P1-P1-LastName P2-P1-P2-LastName P2-P2-P1-LastName P2-P2-P2-LastName

and so on...

Spain has an interesting system here, a person born into a Spanish-speaking family is given a first name followed by two surnames, the first being the father's family name (or, more precisely, the surname he gained from his father) followed by the mother's family name (or, again more precisely, the surname she gained from her father).

Or in your example:

Gen X: FirstName P1-First-LastName P2-Second-LastName

In Quebec, it can be any combination but there's a limit of two last names to avoid that exact issue.

What is the problem with that? Hard disk space is getting cheaper. :P

That gets pretty long after a few generations.

You might know Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Mártir Patricio Ruiz y Picasso under a shorter name...

One of the parent's names. Or two as done in some countries. One is more common afaik.

There is a trend towards using most rare last name as opposed to the more traditional name of parent of one particular gender

Confirming. I think I know at least two friends who have chosen the least common last name even if it was hers. And I belong to what would often be described as a very conservative group ;-)

Belgium law is quite restrictive. Up until recently you were required to use the father's surname if known. You're now allowed to use either or both unless one parent is unknown, in which case you have to use the other.

Do any countries actually require it? I think in the US, UK and probably other western countries you choose to change your name and either the man or woman can change if they want - it’s totally optional either way isn’t it?

Not sure, but I'm baffled why people choose to do so. If you've published anything, for example, don't you want to keep your name attached to it?

For many couples it’s a traditional part of the change a marriage brings and the symbolism is worth the inconvenience. Women wear wedding rings and they’re not materially useful either and have a cost. Inconvenient symbolism isn’t an unusual part of human culture!

Some people continue to use their original name professionally, but their payroll and tax forms have to be filed under their new name.

IMO the main reason is that your kids bear the father’s last name. Convention has it that kids bear the father‘s name, and this „works better“ if everybody in the family has the same name. I‘m not saying it is good or anything.. but this is the reason why many in my country (Austria) marry before the first child arrives.

So in Belgium most people don't change names, and it causes zero problems and makes it seem weird why anybody would ever do such a thing, I mean when I first heard about this I was totally baffled: What about your email address? Your publications? Your personal projects? Your github? It's crazyness!

If you can remember different first names, why couldn't you remember different last names?

As for kids: it's pretty simple, pick a name of one of the parents. Nothing confusing about it. A name (first+last combo) is an identifier of a person.

> it seem weird why anybody would ever do such a thing

Are you seriously baffled why people choose to do symbolic things to show their love for each other and show how they are bringing their lives together, even when it isn't convenient to do so?

If you genuinely are then I can't imagine how you are living day-to-day in human society because people do all kind of things like that in all parts of society.

The writer of the original article seemed to be not particularly happy to have to "deal with that experience", so was it a choice, or was it an expectation of society there?

It's not a constructive expectation of a society to have imho. A name is an identifier of a person. You need a first and last one to have less same-name clashes.

You'd have to ask her. She may have wanted to change her name, and was just disappointed that the process wasn't easier, such as publishers having some kind of system to help you, or something like that maybe. But yes I guess it's possible her mother nagged her to do it or some other kind of social pressure, that's possible. But as I say you'd have to ask her.

> What about your email address? Your publications? Your personal projects? Your github?

What portion of people do you think have any of those other than the email address (which for many people's personal addresses doesn't even include their full name)? For my wife at least, the email address is what convinced her to change her name because it made it possible for her to get the address firstnamelastname@gmail.com.

A lot of professional women (in the US, at least) run into that problem-- They either don't change their name and deal with the social problems that entails or they change their legal name but still publish under their previous name and deal with the professional implications. Publishing under a new name is also an option, but, as you said, makes it much harder to get your work connected to you.

That's what I mean: what social problems? Who is forcing to change a name?

Nobody's forcing anyone to do anything (in the countries I'm aware of). This whole thing is people about what two people choose to do between themselves, so I don't see why anyone should have any opinion on it at all.

It's not forced but where it's culturally common it's often the default presumption.

My wife didn't change her name but that meant she has a different surname to our children. That can cause minor annoyances in airports, for example. It's not a big deal, and it's fairly predictable, but it's a thing.

> and deal with the social problems that entails

Can somebody explain a bit on what social problems can women expect in US for not changing names?

The main social problem comes when you have kids: if partners have different names, the kids will have names that don't match one of the partners, or will need a hyphenated-combination of the two.

The ramifications of this will depend on how common it is for women to not change their names in your particular locale: if it's uncommon, there will be some confusion when people expect children and parents' names to match, as well as people wondering about whether the child is actually your stepchild, etc. Of course, those judgmental/insensitive reactions are inappropriate, but they do happen.

Kids name not matching is a much smaller deal than changing your name.

Because it doesn't affect anything in practice what their name versus parents name is, a name is an identifier of a person.

Changing a name on the other hand gives practical problems such as for any copyrights, email address, source code, publications, etc...

> Kids name not matching is a much smaller deal than changing your name.

That's easy to say, but that's just your personal feelings on the matter. My sister left her name alone when she got married, but changed her mind (and her name) when she got pregnant, specifically because she wanted her kid to have the same last name as her.

I would probably make the opposite decision if I were in her shoes, but it was her decision, based on her desires and what makes her the most happy; not mine, and not yours.

> Because it doesn't affect anything in practice what their name versus parents name is

Depending on where you live, there can be social confusion and even a stigma. Maybe you're lucky in that where you live that isn't a problem, but that's not the case everywhere.

> Changing a name on the other hand gives practical problems such as for any copyrights, email address, source code, publications, etc...

No one's saying there aren't practical problems, but if the name change is worth it to you, then by definition you have accepted that trade off as also being worth it.

Basically none. You have to explain it to family members and other people occasionally. It's not like the hospital's going to ask for your last name and demand a marriage certificate if it differs when you go to see your sick spouse.

I changed my name when I married (am male). I haven't had any problems or repercussions changing names, professionally or personally.

Some reasons why I changed name:

1. My kids and I now share all surnames.

2. I had no relation to any parts of the family that shared my previous last name.

3. It felt a teeny weeny bit progressive being the male who changed.

Not everything is black and white and needs to focus on business needs... :) Accounts were easily renamed (except Skype, bluh) and no one has asked me for any of my papers or research. Just add them to your profile as you would before you changed name.

Because when you have kids, you will all have the same name. Otherwise, one of you will have a different last name.

In the US marriage is not a federal institutional but a state one. I don’t know other state rules, I would be surprised if any require names to change.

I know that in California, at least when I got married, both people are allowed (or just one person) to take the others name or some combination of both names.

I was curious at the time, but never checked, if the combination could literally just be any combination of the letters of both. My guess is it would be the county clerk you deal with who’d decide to accept it or not.

I know that Japan requires married people to have the same name. By massive convention that means that the woman takes the man's name.

France surprisingly keeps your official name as your maiden name: https://www.connexionfrance.com/Archive/State-must-use-maide...

Laws on surnames for children are prescribed: http://french-genealogy.typepad.com/genealogie/2012/06/chang...

And you're not allowed a tilde: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/14/french-court-bans...

Names having to be approved by the government is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.

Here's a recent English case, where a mother wanted to call her two children Preacher and Cyanide.

(This is the appeal) http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/...

Here, the mother was already involved in care proceedings, and the local authority child protection social workers weren't able to just force her to pick different names, but had to go to court in front of an independent judge.

It's a pretty detailed document and it shows, I think, how uncomfortable English judges are with exercising this power.

Surnames are basically a government invention.

For purposes of taxation I believe.

Theres a few reasons for it. In France's case, it's for centralization and the enforcement of Parisian norms over, say, the local culture of Brittany.

There's a less malign version in Iceland, which basically just makes sure that it's possible to use someone's name grammatically in Icelandic.

So how do you use a foreigner's name in Icelandic?

If you take Icelandic citizenship they issue you a new, compatible name.

> In Belgium most people do not change their name upon marrying

That's presumably because the law says you can't [0]. Unless you go through the equivalent of deed poll.

[0] https://diplomatie.belgium.be/en/services/services_abroad/re...

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