Letters: When Women Keep Their Names

To the Editor:

Re "The Problem That Has Two Names," by Pamela Paul (Sunday Review, Aug. 25):

I got married in 1970. At the time, I was an assistant professor of anthropology. For the first few months of our marriage, I used my birth name professionally and my married name socially. But it soon became apparent that this arrangement was more problematic than I had realized.

Under what name had I left the clothes at the dry cleaners or made a doctor's appointment? What name should I use on my passport when I traveled abroad to do research?

I resolved this conundrum by using my birth name when I went to renew my Florida driver's license. I indicated on the form that I had married since the license was first issued and was told that there was a "Florida statute" that a married woman had to use her husband's surname on her driver's license.

When I protested that friends at the law school said no such statute existed, I was told that such use was "customary" in the state of Florida but was then given "special permission" to use my birth name on the license.

Now married for more than 40 years, I am delighted to report that my married daughter followed in my footsteps; she, too, is always known by her birth name. I am simply amazed that in the 21st century this is still an issue.

MAXINE L. MARGOLIS
New York, Aug. 26, 2013

The writer is professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Florida.

To the Editor:

The "problem that has two names" has an easy solution. Keep your own name.

Why does a woman need two names, or indeed why should a woman ever change her birth name for another name? I am infuriated that keeping one's own name after marriage is so often perceived as a problem.

Think of all the hours and pieces of paper that Pamela Paul could have saved if she had just stayed Pamela Paul professionally and personally in both her marriages.

Lucy Stone kept her name after marriage in 1855 to Henry Blackwell, more than a hundred years before "The Feminine Mystique."

I am proud to call myself a Lucy Stoneite.

MARYLEE BOMBOY
Tamworth, N.H., Aug. 26, 2013

To the Editor:

I was married in 1967 and took my husband's name. When I started working as a writer, I decided that I wanted my elementary school classmates to know who I was, so I used my maiden name as my middle name and my married name as my last name. I've also written crossword puzzles using both names.

My driver's license has my married name, but my passport has both my names, and that's been fine. I never changed my Social Security card, but I file tax returns under my married name, and the Internal Revenue Service has always been happy to take my money.

The only glitch came when I made a will and had to include all my names with all possible combinations and initials, but that wasn't very hard. Maybe Pamela Paul doesn't have a problem.

LINDA SCHECHET TUCKER
Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., Aug. 25, 2013

To the Editor:

My useful but apparently unusual solution to the "what's my legal name" problem was to have my married and professional names listed on my passport. This took a phone call to a kindly passport agency official, but the service exists.

The passport I carry shows my married name on Page 1 followed by my first and maiden names and my signature. Under "amendments," it says, "see Page 24."

The last page of my passport states: "The bearer is also known as" and gives my professional name, along with that signature.

The "a k a" on contracts and checks is legal. Flashing my two-name passport clarifies that the royalty-earning writer on Page 24 is also the taxpaying, Medicare-eligible, automobile-driving, married woman of Page 1, thus instantly calming government, banking and airline bureaucracies.

JULIA BLOCH NOLET
Vallauris, France, Aug. 25, 2013

To the Editor:

Wow, what a mess caused by a sexist policy! Why buy into it to begin with?

Disclaimer: I'm divorced, but I would have never made it down the aisle with my then-to-be husband if changing my name were on the menu. I would have never married someone who bought into such a sexist notion. What kind of life would I have been starting on that foot?

If having a family name were really the point, then the practice of both the man and the woman choosing a completely new name and both changing to it on the wedding day would be common. It's not. Why? Because men won't change their names. Why? They don't want to give up their identity. And neither should women.

MAUREEN ALLEN
New Hempstead, N.Y., Aug. 25, 2013

To the Editor:

If it is desirable that a wife and a husband have the same last name, there is no reason the wife should change hers. The husband should be the one to change at least half the time. Fair's fair.

RUBY BARESCH
New York, Aug. 26, 2013

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