Posted on 07/15/2006 4:49:25 PM PDT by Pokey78
NEWLYWEDS in America are “meshing” their names in an attempt to banish the sexism that comes when a woman takes her husband’s surname. Much as the tabloid newspapers have christened film stars Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes “Tomkat”, couples are opting to mix and match elements of their names as a sign of togetherness.
Gary Ruderman, 43, a playwright and architect, got married last year to Jodi Wilgoren, a writer for The New York Times. The couple now go by the name of Rudoren. Ruderman’s wife-to-be first raised the subject, saying that she would love to share his name but on an egalitarian basis.
“I have a lot of respect for Jodi so I considered it,” he said. “Some clients couldn’t wrap their heads around it, but very few people I talked to said, ‘Oh that’s stupid’.”
One friend teased Ruderman that “married life has taken the ‘man’ out of you” but even his parents came around to the idea. “They felt it was a little bit unusual, but I think they were just happy that, at 42, I was getting married,” he said. “My mother has taken to introducing me as her son Gary Rudoren.”
Jodi Rudoren, 35, ruled out hyphenation when her nephew pointed out that “our name wouldn’t fit on the back of a sports shirt”.
One name-meshing pioneer is Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles, who combined his name of Villar with his wife’s name of Raigosa in 1988.
“I was planning to take his name,” his wife Corina recalled. “But he said, ‘Really? But Raigosa is your name’.
“He said, ‘I’ve been thinking about it and why don’t we combine our names to make one name? If you are willing to take my name, I should be willing to take yours’.”
Villaraigosa recalled that “guys made fun of me” but the voters of Los Angeles have long since forgotten it.
The feminist custom of retaining one’s maiden name is going out of fashion. According to Claudia Goldin, an economics professor at Harvard University, the number of college-educated women in Massachusetts who kept their original name at marriage dropped from 23% in 1990 to 17% in 2000.
“It’s gone the same way as feminism,” Goldin said. “There has been a shift even among liberals towards more family-oriented values.”
Those who begin by hyphenating their surnames often give up, Goldin added: “They have these long names and then they have problems with the school district or the plumber. It gets too hard.”
Nope they got it wrong. This has noting to do with meshing of names. It is the result of the new spelling taught at public schools.
They simply cannot spell there name so ... here we are.
So stupid. The whole reason to take names is for history and family line. Creating a whole new name just defeats the purpose. AARGGHHH...why are people so dumb!
Ever notice they're mostly used by liberals? Just read the editorial page of any major newspaper and you'll see them aplenty.
Another possibility is for a woman to take her husband's name for most uses, but retain her own for some others. For example, if a novelist were to get married in the middle of a series of novels and had been using her real name before her marriage, it would be logical for her to continue writing under that same name (now her maiden name). Given that many people write under assumed names anyway, such usage would probably cause less confusion than if later books in the series used her married name.
Or a Ralph Nader supporter. My half-sister kept her maiden name when she married a couple of years ago. She is as far to the left as I am to the right. It's hard to believe we share the same Dad. BTW, Before he passed away, Dad too was a conservative and a fan of Rush Limbaugh.
how about gary and jodi assclown? that is a mesh of what they both are.
I was very pleased when my 28 y/o daughter took the name of her new husband the day of their marriage in March. She has her masters degree in a technical field and is published in a few research papers under her maiden name, but chose to go the traditional route.
“Some clients couldn’t wrap their heads around it, but very few people I talked to said, ‘Oh that’s stupid’.”
It is stupid and so are his clients and friends.It won't matter much though after the divorce
The spanish have a culture of tagging on a name. It had nothing to do with feminism, but was simply a way to honor the other family name.
Then children, when they marry drop one name and pick up another.
I have no interest in adopting it, but it isn't femism, it just culture.
It used to be fairly common to name a child after the mother's or maternal grandmother's maiden name. Passage of such maiden names is now usually done via a "middle" name (e.g. the daughter of Bob Smith and Susan Johnson might be Anne Johnson Smith [no hyphen]) but it used to be commonly done with first names as well, especially from what I understand in cases where there would be nobody else to carry on the name in question.
I prefer Rodhton.
Yessir, after the divorce he'll just be known as Mr. Poorman;)
goofy
My first thought was oh no, genealogy is hard enough! (I have a lot of ancestors named Unknown) Although, when I research in PR, it's very handy that the married women retain their maiden name and it gets added on to the childs name.
Or naming their children after places:
Aspen
Sierra
Boston
...or colors:
Cienna
Indigo
...or topographic/geographic features:
Bridge
Ford
Delta
Savannah
...or occupations:
Hunter
Ryder
Taylor
Hahaha, that cracked me up.
And moving out of the basement.
So if Doty Goodman married Truman Capote
her name would be Doty Capote?
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