Article in The Guardian by a man who wears skirts

[Barleymower]

That is progress. One guy reads the story and heads out onto the streets, he finds that there's no big problem with wearing a skirt, especially a utility kilt.

[Coder]

That first response is from someone on reddit (though presumably he sent a comment to the editors)! Cool.

[FranTastic444]

I'm a solid 2.5 on the feminism test from Phin's sister. If I had kids and if I had a wife with an unusual surname then I'd be happy to take her surname in the interest of keeping the name alive. As it turns out, my wife has a common as muck surname and we have no kids so I'll stick with the surname that I was born with, thank you very much Actually, when we did the Ancestry.com thing a dirty little family secret cropped up. My great-great grandfather was born out of wedlock and was raised as his mother's sibling. If the normal practice of the time had been followed to rush the young mom into a wedding then we would have had a totally different surname.

I actually like the practice often seen here in New England where women keep their maiden name after marriage. Not a huge fan of double barrel names (btw, hyphenating a surname is looked upon very dimly by the well to do in some parts of England (particularly in and around the capital) and is seen as being an indicator that you might be a wannabe social climber of low standing). When I was up near Stirling visiting friends, we went to their village church and it was pointed out that all of the women buried there had headstones that used their maiden rather than married name - not sure if this is a widespread practice across Scotland?

Back to the article - it was interesting to dig out some photos of Phin where it looks like he (they?) favour long an flowing skirts over shorter garments - I must get round to trying something like that.

As part of my search, I came across an audio interview featuring Phin. The first 10 mins are somewhat controversial and I won't get into that particular topic. Things get relevant to this forum from 9m 55s into the interview.

[rode_kater]

I actually like the practice often seen here in New England where women keep their maiden name after marriage.

Interesting you say that. I think that in Western Europe the UK is the only country where it is common for wives to take the name of their husband. Here in NL women always retain their maiden name in the civil registry, but they can choose to list the husband's name on their passport. The main reason for this (I beleive) is that all official documentation will require their maiden name, yet any children will likely have the husband's surname. Obviously this varies, sometimes children take the mother's name and it's the father get does the hyphenated surname. Joint accounts will be named "name1 e/o name2". You can ask the civil registry you use your partner's name in letters to you, but that doesn't change your actual surname. A hyphenated name is also a way of indicating to people you're married, which some women find helpful.

Actually changing your official name is actually quite hard, and so rarely done.

Not a huge fan of double barrel names

I guess that's your prerogative, I hope you realise that people aren't doing it to be snooty, but for pure practical reasons. I hear people also feel the same about how Dutch people use "van", "de', etc in surnames, as if we're trying to sound like aristocracy. Nope, it's just the way the surname is spelled.

[FranTastic444]

I think that in Western Europe the UK is the only country where it is common for wives to take the name of their husband.

I was not aware of that - interesting. I'd always assumed that it was a fairly widespread practice throughout the western world and other places where Christianity was the dominant religion. I was really surprised when I moved to the US and found that many women chose not to take their hubsters name.

I guess that's your prerogative, I hope you realise that people aren't doing it to be snooty, but for pure practical reasons.

I think that in the UK there can be a little bit of a negative feeling towards double barreled surnames from some quarters. I was though totally unaware of it having practical applications in some countries / situations, so thanks for bringing that to my attention. My main grumble about such a practice (and it is a *very* minor grumble, I can assure you) is around the length of the conjoined surname and what should happen to a couple who both already possess double barrel names when they marry On that note, I kid you not - I have a new colleague who has a hyphenated forename and a tripple barrel surname!

[crfriend]

I'd always assumed that it was a fairly widespread practice throughout the western world and other places where Christianity was the dominant religion. I was really surprised when I moved to the US and found that many women chose not to take their hubsters name.

When my late ex- and I were contemplating getting married the intent was always that she'd retain her maiden name -- after all, "It took me all my childhood to learn how to spell it!" -- and it wasn't all that important to me as there would never have been children.

We never did formally marry, the rationale being, "Why should we invite the State into our bedroom?" and "There will never be children.", so there it was. She never minded being referred to as "Mrs. Friend" and was always cordial but retained her name nonetheless, which I think was just fine. Oh -- and she was a New Jersey girl, not a New England girl.

Also, I've never been a fan of hyphenated names. One interesting case I know of is a pair of guys who married and both changed their surnames to an amalgam of both. That's sort of cool, too.

[KiltedBigWave]

What a wonderful article, thanks for sharing.

[Faldaguy]

I'd always assumed that it was a fairly widespread practice throughout the western world and other places where Christianity was the dominant religion. I was really surprised when I moved to the US and found that many women chose not to take their hubsters name.

When my late ex- and I were contemplating getting married the intent was always that she'd retain her maiden name -- after all, "It took me all my childhood to learn how to spell it!" -- and it wasn't all that important to me as there would never have been children.

We never did formally marry, the rationale being, "Why should we invite the State into our bedroom?" and "There will never be children.", so there it was. She never minded being referred to as "Mrs. Friend" and was always cordial but retained her name nonetheless, which I think was just fine. Oh -- and she was a New Jersey girl, not a New England girl.

Also, I've never been a fan of hyphenated names. One interesting case I know of is a pair of guys who married and both changed their surnames to an amalgam of both. That's sort of cool, too.

This brings a bit of amusement given both the hyphenated practice in a number of cultures and our Barista's surname. Here in Costa Rica, like many Spanish speaking countries; it is pretty much expected you have two last names and nearly all official forms account for that. A few years back I was seeking to wire money to an ex-pat British friend here whose last name happens to be Friend, with no second last name. I filled out the US wire form to convey the funds to Peter Friend -- imagine my surprise and frustration when it was returned stating I could not simply send it to Peter, my friend; with insistence from the Tico bank that I supply both proper first and second last names! We eventually got around it by using his middle name for one of the blanks.

[rode_kater]

I was not aware of that - interesting. I'd always assumed that it was a fairly widespread practice throughout the western world and other places where Christianity was the dominant religion. I was really surprised when I moved to the US and found that many women chose not to take their hubsters name.

And I thought it was an Anglo-Saxon thing and assumed that in the US they always did. Live and learn. Bugs me in Australia when they have as a security question "what is your mother's maiden name?". The one in the phonebook you m*rons! It's not a secret.

My main grumble about such a practice (and it is a *very* minor grumble, I can assure you) is around the length of the conjoined surname and what should happen to a couple who both already possess double barrel names when they marry
On that note, I kid you not - I have a new colleague who has a hyphenated forename and a tripple barrel surname!

That's unusual, indeed. At work I have one colleague that has a real double name, and I saw in the directory that one person has actually listed both names (including their partner). People can choose how their name is rendered.

By Dutch standards my name isn't that long, but in Australia the computer printout at school only allowed 20 characters for the surname & first name combined. Which basically meant only the first few letters of my first name appeared on the printout, and the first day of each school year was spent explaining to teacher what my name was. It didn't help that the name I'm called by is not the first name in my passport.

[shadowfax]

Hi rode_kater

I found this Wikipedia article about the Dutch footballer, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, who once played for Celtic, in Scotland and for The Netherlands national team.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Venne ... _Hesselink

Here's a quote from the Wikipedia article which details how the footballer's surname came about.
"Name
British newspaper The Guardian researched Vennegoor of Hesselink's unusual-sounding name in 2004. It found that in the 17th century, there was a marriage between the Vennegoor and Hesselink farming families of Enschede, and due to the prestige of both surnames, they kept both. The 'of' in his name means 'or' in Dutch."

Back around to The Guardian, where we started!

[familyman34]

Hi rode_kater

I found this Wikipedia article about the Dutch footballer, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, who once played for Celtic, in Scotland and for The Netherlands national team.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Venne ... _Hesselink

Here's a quote from the Wikipedia article which details how the footballer's surname came about.
"Name
British newspaper The Guardian researched Vennegoor of Hesselink's unusual-sounding name in 2004. It found that in the 17th century, there was a marriage between the Vennegoor and Hesselink farming families of Enschede, and due to the prestige of both surnames, they kept both. The 'of' in his name means 'or' in Dutch."

Back around to The Guardian, where we started!

In today's Guardian there was a follow-up article to the original article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ear-skirts

[Dust]

I was not aware of that - interesting. I'd always assumed that it was a fairly widespread practice throughout the western world and other places where Christianity was the dominant religion. I was really surprised when I moved to the US and found that many women chose not to take their hubsters name.

And I thought it was an Anglo-Saxon thing and assumed that in the US they always did. Live and learn. Bugs me in Australia when they have as a security question "what is your mother's maiden name?". The one in the phonebook you m*rons! It's not a secret.

In the US, women keeping their last names is not unheard of, but it is definitely not the norm. It's usually only done by professional women, and was briefly popular with a certain generation of feminists. I would say that it's only somewhat more common than hyphenated (double) last names.

Occasionally you see other edits made to a woman's name when she gets married as well, since they can do so without having to change all their documents an extra time. It's more unusual, but they might make their maiden name their new middle name, make a middle name they go by their actual legal first name, or Americanise a particularly ethnic first name. Making the change isn't that hard do, legally, it just requires changing it a lot of places afterwards.

In some Spanish cultures, listing your mother's maiden name (and sometimes her mother's, and so on) after your surname is an old fancy/formal thing, I'm told. I've even seen Spanish speakers get confused by the term "last name" used in place of "surname" on forms (because they are not used to listing it last), causing some real headaches on official documents.