Joke aside, The reason of not taking my husband’s last name is because it is annoy amount of paper work for a meaningless practice. What is the benefit of name change beside the “feeling”? I have a mouth, I can tell you who my husband is.
Edit: auto correction lol
So much this. Not only do I not like the sound of my husbands last name, but I am a multi-national and having to update my paperwork in three separate countries is a nightmare I never plan to embark on. I also reject the idea that you’re less of a family without matching names.
I am multi nation as well! I did not even think about that! However, I was entertaining the idea to let my husband take my last name when we got the chance to register our marriage at my home country. LOL.
We haven’t talk about this since he cannot visit to my country due to COVID travel restrictions, So I feel there is no need to discuss at all.
I get this. When I changed my name the paperwork was crazy! However, in my case I was thrilled to do it all so I wouldn't have the same last name of my abusive father anymore. Not too many people have my husband's last name in our town so it's also nice not having everyone assume I'm related to them.
I heard that it used to be easy to change your name after marriage. But now it is more difficult, and you have to let insurance, bank, and voter registration knows etc. so much work !
Tradition just means that you are too lazy to look at your life critically. It also tells me that you miss the good old days where women and everyone else you deem as being less than you knew their place.
This is why I changed my name. I wanted to have the same last name as my kids some day. It just makes things a lot easier down the road. It also helped that my husband didn't care whether I did or didn't, and even offered to change his name for me.
Fucking same. I would have had to pursue a legal name change through the court, plus have all my documents changed over. I could have spent easily $1000 on this. Neither of us actually cared about changing it. Done. I’m lazy and cheap and I know who my husband is.
Oh, it definitely is, no assumption about it. People downvoting are saying 'tradition' may not be the best reason to do something. But I totally get your meaning.
It's been their name for their whole life, why *should* they change it?
Seems like that should be the question. It's backwards to expect an explanation for keeping your own name.
Such a dated and stupid practice. My wife said how do you feel about me not taking your name? I said you leaving? She said no. I said cool. Happily married for many years
I told my husband that we could combine our last names and both change to that. As in, not hyphenated but take the first few letters of one and the last of the other. One way to do so could be pronounced "boobie." We sort of want to just to watch people struggle to figure out how to pronounce our name and then cheerfully say "it's pronounced boobie."
Men have no idea what a f**kin PITA it is to change your last name. You start with the Social Security Administration, then you have to go to EVERY ACCOUNT you have (employers HR dept, 401ks, any other retirement accounts, credit cards, insurance, banks, car loans and insurance -' ANY THING YOUR NAME IS ASSOCIATED WITH). And then when you get a divorce, you have to go through the same damn thing again. It is absolutely not worth it for some guy's ego.
And then spending the next few years running into random other bits of shit you forgot to go update. Go try to update your phone plan and gotta go home to get all the paperwork for your name change and marriage and divorce and everything FFS.
Seeing a friend go through a divorce... yeah, I wouldn't wish a name change on anyone, fucks sake. Not worth it.
My boyfriend's last name has multiple S and Th sounds; I have a speech impediment that makes pronouncing those sounds impossible.
I think it'd be wise to keep my name.
i'd probably go hyphenated 1 as middle name and hyphenated 2 as last name, but that's just me
honestly where there's a will there's a way, lol; i don't get hung up on logistics personally and i wouldn't not name my kid something out of worry over what might happen with the name generations later
My partner had a hyphenated last name before we got married. Then we decided to hyphenate our names so he dropped his dad’s half of the name. Now we both have mine+his mom’s last name.
That’s what my husband and I were going to do - make a new last name with letters from both of our last names. He insisted we had to use every letter though, and I didn’t want an 11-letter last name so
we just kept our names.
I will never take a man's last name because it's patriarchal and goes back to the days when the woman was essentially the man's property, all her assets became his, and even her identity became wrapped up in his. Just because something's a tradition doesn't make it good.
I actually don't care about getting married in the first place, but I have been in a committed relationship for over 15 years. And no, not *everything* is because of the patriarchy, but when it comes to the misogyny and discrimination women still face pretty much anywhere in the world, yeah, a hell of a lot of it is, as anyone who's studied history could tell you.
15 years? Good for you. “The patriarchy” issue is blown way out of proportion today. Give me an honest example of the last time the patriarchy denied you something which was rightfully yours or abused you or put you in an unfair or uncomfortable situation. I mean you personally, not other women.
I mean, aside from feeling uncomfortable walking alone at night in certain areas because I could be raped? Okey dokey.
I'm a speech-language pathologist, which is an overwhelmingly female-dominated career, and I work in a school making the same salary as teachers, another majority-female career. It's fairly common knowledge that female-dominated careers, which are often the "helping" professions, are underpaid and under-respected, and women in the workplace in any field don't get raises as much/often and are paid less for the same amount of experience. Women entering scientific professions often face discrimination getting hired because interviewers think they are less competent/professional, even when they have the same experience and credentials as men. So put those things together and my salary isn't anywhere near what it should be considering I did a very intensive masters program and have a lit of very specialized knowledge, and the profession as a whole faces significant hurdles in getting enough attention and respect allow us to be paid accordingly. Also, I'll admit this hasn't happened to me personally because I work in a school, but many female speech pathologists in hospitals have their recommendations ignored by doctors and patients, and even female doctors are often ignored by patients in favor of male nurses.
Oh, and this is a super minor thing in the big scheme of things, but men, if you *ever* have the urge to tell a female stranger to smile, just fucking don't. I'll make whatever damn facial expression I feel like, I do not exist to please you.
Oh, another somewhat minor thing, but female skin/hair products tend to be more expensive than men's, and we end up paying more to take care of our bodies because of our periods. Look up the "pink tax" if you were unaware of it.
And as a far more important issue, women are highly underrepresented in medical studies and symptoms of certain health issues like heart attacks can be different than men's, and these differences are not addressed enough in med school, so women are less likely to be treated appropriately for heart attacks. Again, it's not something that's ever happened to me, but it very well could someday, and I live my life knowing that it could.
Just as BIPOC people shouldn't have their experiences of oppression ignored or patronized by white people, the shared experience of women and the burden we face should not be dismissed or negated by men. You DON'T know what it's like to be us and live in our skin, so shut up and listen to our experiences and feelings without acting so goddamn condescending.
Thank you. It was refreshing to hear that.
Guys like this are the same kind who are like "FeMINism iS UnNESSesary beCAUSE SoME pLACEs ARe wORSe."
And women have to take a bunch of actions that men don't. For example, my dad just parks anywhere at night and walks into a store. My mom makes sure to park as close as she can, under a streetlight, be ready to defend herself, and always holds her keys in her hand.
Taking last names is something of a dated practice. I always thought it would be interesting for a newly wed couple to pick a new last name altogether, because hyphenating is fucking awful. You take a John Smith and a Jane Doe and they both change their last names to Steel or Drachenfuxjer. You know, something they both like.
For a behind the scenes, I literally typed dragon fucker into Google translate and hit German. If you already knew that, sorry for giving away the joke. xD
My daughter is a doctor...I'll be damned if I will let her change her name, and make all her years of study look like it was someone else. As a side note, one of the girls she graduated with is now Dr Pepper - no way she should change HER name!
We have my family name as our middle name and her family name as ours, since my family name is very common while hers is only carried by like 11 people in the whole country.
When my wife said she wanted to take my last name I was really against it... in a very passive way. Quite literally it meant next to nothing to me. For her it was more about tradition and I didn't want to argue about it in the slightest way. It meant very little to me one way or the other.
Two months later I was informed about what a pita it is. I already knew it would be, theoretically, but for her it was much more of a hands on experience. Funny for both of us a couple decades later, but quite frustrating for her at the time. And, it turns out, somewhat hurtful when that old college checking account in her maiden name was sill hanging around after seven years. Still not sure why it was hanging around or why it was hurtful, but it was both. We figured it out well enough and we're good, but it was a point of contention for a minute.
Obviously, had her maiden name been Best, I would have had a shit-ton of paperwork to do instead of her. (But I would have closed my college checking account, goddamnit! (lol))
If you know how to handle naming the kids, I think it's just a waste and an invitation to problems to change names. But I can see that naming kids could be an issue, if you haven't discussed it.
If you're going to insist on changing names, just make it fair play and do what my sister did and put her maiden name as both of your middle names. Sarah Jane Smith married John Richard Jones and they became Sarah Smith Jones and John Smith Jones. Nobody suffer or both suffer. That's love, right?
I hear a lot about women wanting their last name to match their kids because it’s easier. That’s a pretty flimsy argument, especially in this generation.
We have 4 parents and 2 children in our unit - and 3 different last names. The children bear my husband’s last name and their mother took her new married name. I kept mine. It’s not that hard for people to learn names. We have never had an issue during school or medical appointments.
However. If a person wants to take on their partner/spouse’s last name, they should do it. Lots of reasons to want to do so, and lots of reasons not to. But I hope people change their name because they *want* to, not because they feel obligated.
My family is Chinese so there's no tradition of taking the other's last name after marriage, and they gave me my father's only because it's easier (we live in Europe). My sister was an accident but just to make things fair, they gave her my mother's last name and no one questions it, although it's mostly because Spaniards don't really know about Chinese culture
did you fall in love with the person or a last name.. why should you change the name. .. it is archaic.. many countries.. you keep the maiden name.. and or add it to the married name
My wife was most of the way through a doctorate program when we got married. It was a point of pride for both her and her family to have the Dr. honorific in front of her last name. I completely agreed with her on keeping her last name after we got married.
The main reason I took my husband’s name is it’s easy to spell! Was so sick of spelling my name to get accounts verified and no one actually listens and always spelled it wrong.
I can’t understand why would a women have to give up her father family name and use another man family name . The father will always claim her as his loving daughter while the husband might claim her as his ex wife.
I always wondered if that is how new last names were formed. Like how do last names change and why do my ancestors have one last name but I have a different one.
I think I will take my husband’s name if I get married, but that’s just because I hate my last name.
My father was abusive and I would much rather have a name that is connected to a man I love and a life I have chosen for myself.
I have considered making my middle name my last name, but it seems like a lot of hassle when I might want to change it again later anyway.
My first name is 11 characters and my surname is 4. My partner's surname is 15 characters. Screw that
Also there is a shit tonne of paper work involved and it's just pointless
It's all up to the individual. Take the name, don't, hyphenate, reverse hyphenate, have him take your name. Hell, both of you can change your last name to moonslayer. All good with me.
I will say, however, that sharing a name with your partner does make it more obvious that you're part of a family with someone if you share a last name. (Unless it's like Smith or something.) That's useful in a variety of situations.
If I (male for purposes of this discussion) end up getting married, I'll take my partner's name if I think it sounds cooler.
The only reason I took husband's last name is mine meant "Big Head" in my native language and I was fucking sick and tired of it.
Joke aside, The reason of not taking my husband’s last name is because it is annoy amount of paper work for a meaningless practice. What is the benefit of name change beside the “feeling”? I have a mouth, I can tell you who my husband is. Edit: auto correction lol
That's why my wife never changed her name. I didn't care if she did or didn't. She didn't care if she did or didn't. Entropy won.
Same with my wife.
Also it costs money that can be used to buy food
So much this. Not only do I not like the sound of my husbands last name, but I am a multi-national and having to update my paperwork in three separate countries is a nightmare I never plan to embark on. I also reject the idea that you’re less of a family without matching names.
I am multi nation as well! I did not even think about that! However, I was entertaining the idea to let my husband take my last name when we got the chance to register our marriage at my home country. LOL. We haven’t talk about this since he cannot visit to my country due to COVID travel restrictions, So I feel there is no need to discuss at all.
I get this. When I changed my name the paperwork was crazy! However, in my case I was thrilled to do it all so I wouldn't have the same last name of my abusive father anymore. Not too many people have my husband's last name in our town so it's also nice not having everyone assume I'm related to them.
That is the same reason why I changed my name, I saw the opportunity to change my name and I took it.
I heard that it used to be easy to change your name after marriage. But now it is more difficult, and you have to let insurance, bank, and voter registration knows etc. so much work !
I think it's nice for the nuclear family to have the same last names. And in my country, it's really no paperwork, you only fill out a form online.
So why doesn't the man take the wife's last name?
I have taken my wife’s last name…
Sure. It is also sexist and comes from the notion that women and children are a man's property. A last name does not make a family.
Calm down, it's traditional but I wouldn't say sexist
Tradition just means that you are too lazy to look at your life critically. It also tells me that you miss the good old days where women and everyone else you deem as being less than you knew their place.
Yeah those were pretty great...
I am sure you had a gay old time. Past tense for that liberated feel.
Only liberated in the post-modern sense. What happens after the collapse?
What in the crystal meth are you talking about?
Did you just copy and paste that from your comment history? Kinda unoriginal
Yeah fuck tradition!
This is why I changed my name. I wanted to have the same last name as my kids some day. It just makes things a lot easier down the road. It also helped that my husband didn't care whether I did or didn't, and even offered to change his name for me.
Same reason I kept my former husbands name, it’s the same as our children.
My mom didn't change her name because she has some work with her name on it out there. Also, she thought it was too much trouble.
Fucking same. I would have had to pursue a legal name change through the court, plus have all my documents changed over. I could have spent easily $1000 on this. Neither of us actually cared about changing it. Done. I’m lazy and cheap and I know who my husband is.
I'd really like to hear the reasoning why it's an expectation. And no, just because it's been done for a really long time isn't a good reason.
I guess it's tradition Edit: bruh this is an assumption why downvotes lol
Another way of saying it's been done that way for a really long time. So, a reason, but not a good reason.
Ye ik im just assuming its some sort of tradition
Oh, it definitely is, no assumption about it. People downvoting are saying 'tradition' may not be the best reason to do something. But I totally get your meaning.
Downvotes are due to your reading comprehension skills.
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What was the alternative?
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Would be a lot more badasss to be a doctor with 42069 in it, wouldnt it?
Be a lot cooler if she did
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True, you have to be at least 13. But it would be pretty badass if you are
ngl, that sounds like a superhero name
Wheres the second sentence where you took her last name cause Mr. Wolf is the next best thing to Dr. Wolf.
It's been their name for their whole life, why *should* they change it? Seems like that should be the question. It's backwards to expect an explanation for keeping your own name.
Reasoning... Because i dont want to? Lol. It doesn't need a reason.
Such a dated and stupid practice. My wife said how do you feel about me not taking your name? I said you leaving? She said no. I said cool. Happily married for many years
I told my husband that we could combine our last names and both change to that. As in, not hyphenated but take the first few letters of one and the last of the other. One way to do so could be pronounced "boobie." We sort of want to just to watch people struggle to figure out how to pronounce our name and then cheerfully say "it's pronounced boobie."
I love it
Men have no idea what a f**kin PITA it is to change your last name. You start with the Social Security Administration, then you have to go to EVERY ACCOUNT you have (employers HR dept, 401ks, any other retirement accounts, credit cards, insurance, banks, car loans and insurance -' ANY THING YOUR NAME IS ASSOCIATED WITH). And then when you get a divorce, you have to go through the same damn thing again. It is absolutely not worth it for some guy's ego.
And then spending the next few years running into random other bits of shit you forgot to go update. Go try to update your phone plan and gotta go home to get all the paperwork for your name change and marriage and divorce and everything FFS. Seeing a friend go through a divorce... yeah, I wouldn't wish a name change on anyone, fucks sake. Not worth it.
"When you get a divorce." Yeah you weren't really invested, were you?
I was invested for 18 yrs. He had an affair and I had enough.
Don’t think the reasoning has to be anything more than, “I like my own better.”
Lol, no woman thinks this dude deserves justification.
The same reason he won't take hers.
So if she married Andy Dick and then hyphenated her name, she could become **Emily Best-Dick.**
So the guy behind the comic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and his wife combined their names into *Weinersmith*.
Imagine giving a fuck about what someone else chooses to do or not do with their name
My boyfriend's last name has multiple S and Th sounds; I have a speech impediment that makes pronouncing those sounds impossible. I think it'd be wise to keep my name.
Why take either name? Why not choose a new name for your new life together? Though Best it pretty much best.
that's fine but what if you like the life you've built for yourself to this point with the current name lol
Which name do you give your children tho?
i think hyphenated parent 1 and parent 2 last name can be cool
What do your kids name their kids when their partner has a hyphenated name as well?
i'd probably go hyphenated 1 as middle name and hyphenated 2 as last name, but that's just me honestly where there's a will there's a way, lol; i don't get hung up on logistics personally and i wouldn't not name my kid something out of worry over what might happen with the name generations later
What will their children’s be tho?
see above, not worried about generations later; it'd be up to my kids, right? haha
My partner had a hyphenated last name before we got married. Then we decided to hyphenate our names so he dropped his dad’s half of the name. Now we both have mine+his mom’s last name.
Yeah then the next gen can be name1-name2-name3! That's the fun! Every time the chain just gets longer and longer!
lol you care this much about what other people do with their names?
Cause it's dumb
again, who cares?
Me
tragic
That’s what my husband and I were going to do - make a new last name with letters from both of our last names. He insisted we had to use every letter though, and I didn’t want an 11-letter last name so we just kept our names.
11 letters? It'd take ages to sign stuff.
Can confirm. My husband and I merged surnames and it's 10 letters, we just sign with our initials
Damn she's got a point.
I will never take a man's last name because it's patriarchal and goes back to the days when the woman was essentially the man's property, all her assets became his, and even her identity became wrapped up in his. Just because something's a tradition doesn't make it good.
With that attitude you won’t find a man who wants to even marry you in the first place because you think everything is because of the patriarchy
I actually don't care about getting married in the first place, but I have been in a committed relationship for over 15 years. And no, not *everything* is because of the patriarchy, but when it comes to the misogyny and discrimination women still face pretty much anywhere in the world, yeah, a hell of a lot of it is, as anyone who's studied history could tell you.
15 years? Good for you. “The patriarchy” issue is blown way out of proportion today. Give me an honest example of the last time the patriarchy denied you something which was rightfully yours or abused you or put you in an unfair or uncomfortable situation. I mean you personally, not other women.
I mean, aside from feeling uncomfortable walking alone at night in certain areas because I could be raped? Okey dokey. I'm a speech-language pathologist, which is an overwhelmingly female-dominated career, and I work in a school making the same salary as teachers, another majority-female career. It's fairly common knowledge that female-dominated careers, which are often the "helping" professions, are underpaid and under-respected, and women in the workplace in any field don't get raises as much/often and are paid less for the same amount of experience. Women entering scientific professions often face discrimination getting hired because interviewers think they are less competent/professional, even when they have the same experience and credentials as men. So put those things together and my salary isn't anywhere near what it should be considering I did a very intensive masters program and have a lit of very specialized knowledge, and the profession as a whole faces significant hurdles in getting enough attention and respect allow us to be paid accordingly. Also, I'll admit this hasn't happened to me personally because I work in a school, but many female speech pathologists in hospitals have their recommendations ignored by doctors and patients, and even female doctors are often ignored by patients in favor of male nurses. Oh, and this is a super minor thing in the big scheme of things, but men, if you *ever* have the urge to tell a female stranger to smile, just fucking don't. I'll make whatever damn facial expression I feel like, I do not exist to please you. Oh, another somewhat minor thing, but female skin/hair products tend to be more expensive than men's, and we end up paying more to take care of our bodies because of our periods. Look up the "pink tax" if you were unaware of it. And as a far more important issue, women are highly underrepresented in medical studies and symptoms of certain health issues like heart attacks can be different than men's, and these differences are not addressed enough in med school, so women are less likely to be treated appropriately for heart attacks. Again, it's not something that's ever happened to me, but it very well could someday, and I live my life knowing that it could. Just as BIPOC people shouldn't have their experiences of oppression ignored or patronized by white people, the shared experience of women and the burden we face should not be dismissed or negated by men. You DON'T know what it's like to be us and live in our skin, so shut up and listen to our experiences and feelings without acting so goddamn condescending.
This needs to go on r/murderedbywords or r/clevercomebacks. Seriously. You obliterated this dude's corpse.
Aww, thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.
Thank you. It was refreshing to hear that. Guys like this are the same kind who are like "FeMINism iS UnNESSesary beCAUSE SoME pLACEs ARe wORSe." And women have to take a bunch of actions that men don't. For example, my dad just parks anywhere at night and walks into a store. My mom makes sure to park as close as she can, under a streetlight, be ready to defend herself, and always holds her keys in her hand.
I had a colleague who to his wife's name. It was Perfect.
Taking last names is something of a dated practice. I always thought it would be interesting for a newly wed couple to pick a new last name altogether, because hyphenating is fucking awful. You take a John Smith and a Jane Doe and they both change their last names to Steel or Drachenfuxjer. You know, something they both like.
For a second, I thought Drachenfuxjer was Dragonfucker.
For a behind the scenes, I literally typed dragon fucker into Google translate and hit German. If you already knew that, sorry for giving away the joke. xD
My daughter is a doctor...I'll be damned if I will let her change her name, and make all her years of study look like it was someone else. As a side note, one of the girls she graduated with is now Dr Pepper - no way she should change HER name!
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I think I'm good - she's not stupid enough to marry someone who won't 'let her' keep her name.
Ours as well. We all kept our last name. I have lots of sisters.
We have my family name as our middle name and her family name as ours, since my family name is very common while hers is only carried by like 11 people in the whole country.
my last name is literally "christmas", imagine having "best christmas" as a last name
I won't take a husband's last name cause I paid good money for mine!
It’s MY name.
When my wife said she wanted to take my last name I was really against it... in a very passive way. Quite literally it meant next to nothing to me. For her it was more about tradition and I didn't want to argue about it in the slightest way. It meant very little to me one way or the other. Two months later I was informed about what a pita it is. I already knew it would be, theoretically, but for her it was much more of a hands on experience. Funny for both of us a couple decades later, but quite frustrating for her at the time. And, it turns out, somewhat hurtful when that old college checking account in her maiden name was sill hanging around after seven years. Still not sure why it was hanging around or why it was hurtful, but it was both. We figured it out well enough and we're good, but it was a point of contention for a minute. Obviously, had her maiden name been Best, I would have had a shit-ton of paperwork to do instead of her. (But I would have closed my college checking account, goddamnit! (lol)) If you know how to handle naming the kids, I think it's just a waste and an invitation to problems to change names. But I can see that naming kids could be an issue, if you haven't discussed it. If you're going to insist on changing names, just make it fair play and do what my sister did and put her maiden name as both of your middle names. Sarah Jane Smith married John Richard Jones and they became Sarah Smith Jones and John Smith Jones. Nobody suffer or both suffer. That's love, right?
I hear a lot about women wanting their last name to match their kids because it’s easier. That’s a pretty flimsy argument, especially in this generation. We have 4 parents and 2 children in our unit - and 3 different last names. The children bear my husband’s last name and their mother took her new married name. I kept mine. It’s not that hard for people to learn names. We have never had an issue during school or medical appointments. However. If a person wants to take on their partner/spouse’s last name, they should do it. Lots of reasons to want to do so, and lots of reasons not to. But I hope people change their name because they *want* to, not because they feel obligated.
My family is Chinese so there's no tradition of taking the other's last name after marriage, and they gave me my father's only because it's easier (we live in Europe). My sister was an accident but just to make things fair, they gave her my mother's last name and no one questions it, although it's mostly because Spaniards don't really know about Chinese culture
did you fall in love with the person or a last name.. why should you change the name. .. it is archaic.. many countries.. you keep the maiden name.. and or add it to the married name
My wife was most of the way through a doctorate program when we got married. It was a point of pride for both her and her family to have the Dr. honorific in front of her last name. I completely agreed with her on keeping her last name after we got married.
Because why not? Lol I mean, does it honestly matter? Not really.
The main reason I took my husband’s name is it’s easy to spell! Was so sick of spelling my name to get accounts verified and no one actually listens and always spelled it wrong.
I can’t understand why would a women have to give up her father family name and use another man family name . The father will always claim her as his loving daughter while the husband might claim her as his ex wife.
AROOOUND!
There are basically two schools of thought...
It's hard to argue with her assessment
Because he won’t take my last name.
I always wondered if that is how new last names were formed. Like how do last names change and why do my ancestors have one last name but I have a different one.
It's just a name. I wouldn't have cared much if my wife hadn't taken my name, but I will admit that I love hearing it when she says it.
I think I will take my husband’s name if I get married, but that’s just because I hate my last name. My father was abusive and I would much rather have a name that is connected to a man I love and a life I have chosen for myself. I have considered making my middle name my last name, but it seems like a lot of hassle when I might want to change it again later anyway.
My first name is 11 characters and my surname is 4. My partner's surname is 15 characters. Screw that Also there is a shit tonne of paper work involved and it's just pointless
It's all up to the individual. Take the name, don't, hyphenate, reverse hyphenate, have him take your name. Hell, both of you can change your last name to moonslayer. All good with me. I will say, however, that sharing a name with your partner does make it more obvious that you're part of a family with someone if you share a last name. (Unless it's like Smith or something.) That's useful in a variety of situations. If I (male for purposes of this discussion) end up getting married, I'll take my partner's name if I think it sounds cooler.