Re: Spousal names

On Thu, 26 Oct 2000, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:

> On Thu, 26 Oct 2000, Carlos Thompson wrote:
> > Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> > > One of my HS classmates didn't
> > > understand me, because she thought taking a husband's
> > > name was "romantic" (and there's nothing wrong with
> > > that POV if you don't try to force it one me).
I use Boudewijn's name, not because it's romantic, but because it
happens to be a lot better than my maiden name, which I was
thoroughly fed up with. It gives me *trouble*; people expect married
women to be "modern" use their own name and I have to go to great
lengths to convince official institutions that, yes, I want them to
address me as "Rempt" or, if they have to, "Rempt-Drijfhout". I'm
proud to be married, and glad to be married to someone with a decent
name :-)

> > She would have become Luz Beatriz Baquero de Thompson
That's beautiful.

> <nod>  I *believe* that in the U.S. a wife is not legally required to
> take her husband's name, but a) a lot of people don't know this and b)
> most would probably do so out of tradition anyway.
In the Netherlands, a married woman has the right to use her
husband's name, but one's legal name stays the maiden name (suffixed
with "spouse of..." if necessary). It turns out to be very hard to
exercise that right when dealing with officialdom.

> God forbid I would *ever* subject any of my kids, if I had any, to that
> sort of confusion!  I'm bad enough with names as it stands.  =^)
When we found out we were having twins, we'd already decided on
"Rebecca" for a girl, and we didn't want to call the other one Rachel
(a fine name otherwise) to spare them having the same initial.

   Irina

--
           Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
irina@valdyas.org (myself)     http://www.valdyas.org/irina/valdyas