When my parents married in 1977,womens liberation was in full swing and my mother was a consciousness-raiser. She was about as likely to take my fathers name as she was to sport a veil at the wedding. She would remain Ms Tuhus. Nine months later,the surname for their new baby (me) was self-evident. My parents yoked their names into a new one: Tuhus-Dubrow. I knew that was the best I could do, my father told me. As opposed to just Tuhus.
Other parents,albeit a small minority,had the same idea. By the mid-1970s more women were keeping their maiden names,so hyphenating the names of the children seemed like the next logical raspberry to blow at the patriarchy,a stand against the familys historical swallowing up of womens identity.
The problem,of course,is that this naming practice is unsustainable. (Growing up,I constantly fielded the question,What will you do if you marry someone else with two last names? Will your kids have four names?)
I dont have children yet,but plenty of others in my cohort the first in which non-trivial numbers were born hyphenated do. And reproducing while hyphenated brings inevitable quandaries. I encountered several women who kept their own hyphenated names when they married,but gave their children the fathers surname. This scenario seems to deviate the least from the mainstream: after all,many other women with single surnames do the same.
Zoe Segal-Reichlin,33,a lawyer for Planned Parenthood in New York,was typical in her approach to naming her son,now 10 months old. She said she flirted with alternatives: hyphenating three names,picking either Segal or Reichlin to link with her husbands name. But ultimately,none felt quite right,and going with the fathers name won out as the most practical choice. It was the best of bad options, she told me.
Naming decisions raise novel questions for hyphenated men. There is little precedent of husbands changing their names at marriage or giving up the prerogative to pass their names on. Traditional practices grew out of a male-dominated culture and a need for simple rules. But there is another,less obvious motive: to hold men accountable for their offspring. When Daniel Pollack-Pelzner married Laura Rosenbaum,he toyed with the idea of a creative synthesis. But Rosenpollackpelznerbaum sounded like a weapon of mass destruction, he said. When they had a son,giving him Daniels last name seemed too complicated,so they gave the baby Lauras.
In a 2002 paper,Laurie K. Scheuble and her husband,David R. Johnson,a Penn State professor,predicted that the importance of a family name could begin to decline. Thanks to more divorce,remarriage,same-sex unions and retention of maiden names,it is far from unusual for members of the same nuclear family to bear different surnames.
Names frequently convey information about their bearers: Weinberg or OMalley gives you a hint about the person attached to it. But conjoined names,several people mentioned,also say something extra about your parents egalitarian values. (Unless you are British; then it means youre posh.)
What did our parents expect us to do when we reached this stage of our lives? They trusted it would all work out somehow. As Segal-Reichlins parents told her,We figured that was your problem.
