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In the name of Love

• David Astle
• October 27, 2008 (Published on Essential Baby)

Some modern-day nuptials are turning tradition on its head, as a growing number of men take on their bride’s surname. David Astle meets the men who say, “I do… take your last name.”

Imagine if Lachlan Murdoch morphed overnight into Lachlan O’Hare. Or Michael Zeta-Jones filled the bill, honouring his other half, Catherine. Meanwhile, upon the field of dreams, David Beckham wows the crowd as David Adams, after his wife Victoria.

Strange as it sounds, the scenario is gathering traction. Across Australia, the modern groom is saying “I do” when offered his wife’s surname. While for now it may only number in the dozens, the trend of taking the woman’s surname in marriage is catching on. What factors lead to this decision? Before hearing from three couples, let’s take a walk down history’s aisle.

For centuries – in a male-skewed society, of course – the bride has been the mandatory bearer of her husband’s surname. Much like a chattel, the missus-to-be was forfeited as her father’s living property unto the custody of her new beau, with the name-shift reflecting this transfer.

Such tradition hit a wall in 1921, in the shape of American Lucy Stone. An advocate for women’s rights, Ms Stone refused to alter her name to Blackwell at the Boston altar – and all patriarchal hell broke loose. “A wife should no more take her husband’s name than he should hers,” asserted Lucy. “My name is my identity and must not be lost.”

Nowadays it’s the catch-all tradition that has been lost. Come your wedding day, identity is up for grabs – for both genders. Women are free to retain their maiden name, or they can opt for double-barrelling. Often, for the sake of continuity, newly married wives will retain their birth name in the public domain and defer to hubby’s handle via the children. (In more progressive corners of America, fusing is taking hold, where Pamela Jones and Toby Barker, for example, might mutate into the Jokers or the Barones.)

It is no less radical, perhaps, than the US case of Michael Buday in 2005. When the 29-year-old advertising executive popped the question to 28-year-old Diana Bijon, an emergency-room nurse, the question of names soon followed.

Would Mr Buday become Mr Bijon, she asked?

Far closer to his fiancee’s family, Buday happily embraced the idea – until civil laws intervened.

Back then, California was among 44 American states with unequal name-change laws for newlyweds. To change his name, a husband needed some $1000 for court fees, petitions and public notices, compared to the bride’s default switch. In many ways the historic reflection of Lucy Stone, Buday spent two years pushing for gender equality, changing Californian bylaws as a result.

At home, the legal flexibility already exists, though not without a few hurdles. As Helen Trihas, the Victorian registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, explains, “People who are married in Australia can adopt their husband’s or wife’s name without applying for an official change of name with the registry. However, when couples seek to update a driver’s licence or bank account, they are often asked to provide official documentation.”

The best name-change snapshot comes from the Australian Passport Office, where 538 men have changed their married names since 2003 (compared to more than 71,000 women), though many of these names embody a new hyphen.

Updating documents was one minor battle for Michael Kingsland (né Munzinger), a 30-year-old PhD student from Canberra. Michael married Alice Kingsland, 27, last year. Alice, a public lawyer, recounts her husband’s challenge. “Michael rang the tax office to get his name changed and the guy said, ‘No, no, that can’t be right. Where are you from? In this country, and other Western cultures, men don’t change their names – women do.’”

The couple had met a decade previously in Sweden, where both were living as exchange students. Michael says the Kingsland lineage wasn’t “a major reason” for his name change after the big day. Certainly Alice applied no pressure. Rather, the German felt no attachment to Munzinger – “it’s a Swiss tribe sort of name, a little bit wacko” – and preferred the relative comfort of Kingsland. “It’s really easy. You say to people, ‘It’s just like Queensland, but with a king instead.’”

Yet spelling is a fraction of the whole. An expert in solar energy, Michael detects the decision’s radiant benefits in his marriage. “There’s something positive about switching things around. Going against history, doing it the other way, we’re saying we are wanting to have one family.” Both sets of parents were relaxed and delighted by the decision.

Alice echoes the sentiment. “A close friend just got engaged and she has decided to take her husband’s name. You should have heard the reactions! Friends are shocked. We’re swinging somewhat towards the other way.”

“It’s only tradition,” says Ryan Walker, 30, also from Canberra. The information technology teacher will shed his family name in December, when he marries fellow teacher Jenny Cather, 27. The main reason is Brianna, Jenny’s daughter from a previous relationship. “Brianna is five years old and she knows who she is – Brianna Cather,” says Ryan.

“I didn’t want to be the new male in her life, coming in and forcing her to change her name, to become someone else, in fact.”

Adds Jenny, “If I was going to change my name, then we’d change Brianna’s name so she’d have the same name as her mum. If we went with the double-barrel, that would mean all three of us changing versus two of us changing if we went with Walker – or one of us.”

“Me!” laughs Ryan. “Telling Jenny we have to switch to Walker because that’s how it goes is not a good enough argument.” Ryan glances fondly at Brianna, who is nibbling on a sandwich nearby. “After the wedding, Brianna knows I’m joining the family with Mummy and I’m changing my name. And she’s excited.”

Ryan’s parents have given the decision their blessing. “As the middle son of three boys, there’s no shortage of Walkers,” says Ryan. Honeymoon tickets to New Zealand booked, the couple face one last obstacle: Ryan’s new signature. “I haven’t had time to practise a new one,” he says. “My own signature doesn’t look like Walker anyway, so maybe I need to add one slight squiggle.”

For Melbourne’s Catherine and Kristian Flanagan, the backstory involves more autographs than signatures. During his 20s, Kristian earned his fame as Mean Lundin, a 120-kilogram defender in Sweden’s national gridiron team. But Kristian nursed a secret: deep down he loathed his surname.

“It’s complicated. My mother and father never married and they split when I was one. Three years later my mother married a guy called Lundin. Four years on, after the marriage broke up, I knew I didn’t want the Lundin name any more.”

But life and gridiron waylaid deed-poll plans.

The gentle giant, now 39, never got around to the paperwork. “So I told myself, ‘Maybe when I get married – unless my wife is called ‘Dick’ or something – I’ll take my wife’s name.’”

Kristian met Catherine Flanagan in Melbourne in 1990, and kept in touch via cards and phone calls. Rapport turned into commitment in 1995, after three wild weeks in Durban, South Africa. “There were no ifs or buts after that,” beams Catherine.

After deciding to marry in 1997, the couple confronted the name situation. “We were lying on the bed,” recalls 43-year-old Catherine, an interior and graphic designer. “I’d never thought about the name thing. It was more important for Kris.”

So important, in fact, that he addressed the Flanagan clan at the Melbourne wedding reception, asking if he could take their name. “Some were chuffed and some weren’t worried – a very Aussie approach!” he laughs. “There was a degree of pride,” adds Catherine. “Our family saw it as a compliment.”

Mind you, more than a few of Kris’s colleagues at his old job suspected the new groom, then the managing director of an international wool-trading company, to be living under the proverbial thumb. “Working in a very male environment, I certainly get a few of those jokes,” says the proud Mr Flanagan. “But being six-foot-five [196 centimetres], we sorted things out pretty quickly.”

We do … and they do, too

Around the world, couples contrive all sorts of surname compromises. In Japan, if the wife is an only child, her name may be honoured in wedlock, while the Chinese ru zhui tradition obliges less wealthy grooms to preserve their bride’s surname as a safeguard for future heirs.

Traditional Persian culture allowed married women to keep their birth name, resorting to their husband’s surname for formal occasions. This is akin to modern-day France, where the husband’s surname is often deemed a “usage name”, adopted as the wife sees fit.

Peru prefers tongue-twisters, sweeping up both names in marriage. Should Martha Ortiz Galvez tie the knot with Ricardo Perez Salinas, she may become Martha Ortiz Galvez Perez Salinas – opting to reorder the sequence of tangled names of any children who come along.

And lastly, in what is perhaps a signal of society’s shifting tide, the player who first clicks the “Marry” option in the computer game The Sims 2 gets to carry their surname into posterity.