Timothy Harnedy, a data engineer, didn’t have to think twice about changing his surname to that of his wife Deirdre’s after getting married in 2014. The decision was “quick and easy”, he says, as it was important to him that they had a shared family name and important to his wife that she kept her name.
Harnedy, from Cork, is just one of many readers who wrote to The Irish Times to share their opinions on women changing their names after marriage following a recent column by Áine Kenny, who bemoaned what she considers the “normalisation of symbolic control” in heterosexual relationships.
Harnedy explained how, in the internet age, he realised his name was not a unique identifier. So the “simple solution” to adopt his wife’s surname made them both happy.
Some people close to him continue to struggle with their decision, Harnedy says, and they still receive post on occasion addressed to Mr and Mrs with his birth surname.
It is thought that women have been changing their surnames to their husband’s upon marriage since as far back as the 15th century.
A 2023 study conducted by the US-based Pew Research Centre found that 79 per cent of women took their husband’s last name, 14 per cent kept their own last name and 5 per cent went for a double-barrelled option.
Small studies show that among LGBTQ married couples, the majority of individuals opt to keep their own last name, followed by double-barrelled names.
Catherine Crichton, who lives in Dublin, chose to change her surname after getting married.
“I thought feminism was about a woman’s right and freedom to make her own decisions in life? That must include what name she wishes to be known by after marriage,” Crichton says.
In her opinion, taking a new surname is an “equally valid decision as keeping her previous one”, pointing out that in many cases the “original” name will have come “from the woman’s father”.
“Every woman’s decision and the reasons behind it should be respected, and not criticised by other women,” Crichton says.
“If it’s good enough for world renowned human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, it’s good enough for me.”
Amal Clooney changed her surname from Alamuddin when she married the actor George Clooney in 2014.
When Liam Garvey and his wife Áine Halpin got married 25 years ago, she said “I suppose I’ll change to Garvey”, he recalls, to which he replied: “Why on Earth would you do that?”
“Mrs Garvey was my mother; Áine Garvey was my sister; Áine Halpin was the woman I fell in love with and wanted to spend the rest of my life with,” he says.
Garvey is occasionally assumed to be “Mr Halpin” while his wife is sometimes thought to be “Mrs Garvey”. “Having a single family name is practical, but it does not have to be the husband’s,” he says.
Garvey and many other readers suggested adopting double-barrelled surnames as an option, pointing to Spain where children are often given both their mother and father’s last names. Traditionally, the father’s surname was first followed by the mother’s, but since 1999 Spanish law has allowed parents to choose the order of their children’s names.
Academic Dr Deirdre Foley says that as a historian of women and gender in Ireland, changing surnames is a “constant frustration” as women are “harder to trace in archives and can erase their personal identity”.
Referring to one well-known activist couple from Irish history, Dr Foley says: “I have long admired how Hanna and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington chose to double-barrel their name, but they were certainly lucky that the names flowed well together.”
Dr Foley acknowledges how some women may change their last name following family trauma or estrangement, but says the tradition is a “hetero-patriarchal norm” and “a huge inconvenience for women who do make the switch”.
Dr Foley considers this issue as one that women “can opt out of”, unlike other “greater inequalities such as rape culture, unequal pay, maternity leave and the staggering cost of childcare”.
Growing up in Tipperary, Nuala Woulfe says she was “never too fond” of her first name but felt her surname was “more interesting” and “part of her identity”. For that reason, after getting married, she chose to keep her maiden name. “I would have seen losing my surname as a blow,” Woulfe says.
“Keeping my maiden name has been a way to reconnect with my younger self, I haven’t disappeared into my relationship nor do I belong to my husband. I think keeping your name makes a relationship more interesting.”
Woulfe adds that should any of her three daughters choose to take their husbands’ surnames, that would be fine by her. “Women should do what they want, it’s nobody’s business but their own,” she says.
Dave Barry, who lives in London, says he and his wife Zara Qadir have had “zero issues” since his wife chose to keep her maiden name after they married 13 years ago. However, some family and friends continue to refer to his wife using his surname on Christmas cards and wedding invitations, despite being corrected, he says.
Barry believes this behaviour “stems from an underlying, insidious belief that a woman retaining her identity after marriage is somehow incorrect, or that in using her maiden name, she has somehow absent-mindedly forgotten her new name”.
In the past he has been asked: “How will people know you are married?” Barry feels the obvious response is: “How is that anyone’s business but ours?”
Today, some women may choose to take their husband’s surname for many different reasons. Perhaps they value having one “family unit” name; they may be estranged from their birth family; they may prefer their husband’s surname; or they may have fears about travelling with their children with different last names.
One reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, recalls being stopped at passport control while travelling with her child and asked how she was related to her son. “It was unnerving, you’re thinking how do I prove it’s my child,” she says. Once she showed his birth certificate, the problem was resolved. She always carries the birth certificate with her while travelling now, although she has not been stopped since.
When getting married, she didn’t change her name, explaining it would have felt “weird” to do so. “The tradition perpetuates the notion that a married man is the head of the household,” she says.
In this day and age, she feels it is lazy to assume parents and children will have the same surname with so many examples of married women who keep their birth name; unmarried parents; same-sex parents and divorced or remarried parents. “I understand passport officers need to be careful but there’s no excuse for anyone else to presume,” she says.
