I know a number of women who have struggled with the question of a surname. I have had three in my life and I have never been married.

There was my abandoning alcoholic father’s surname that I was given at birth. I then grew up with my grandparents who had a different last name from mine. I was close to my grandfather despite the fact that he drank and screwed around on my Grandmother. I considered taking his last name for a while, but could not stomach it, considering what he put her through and considering the fact that he was inherently a much weaker person than she. Then my mother remarried and my stepfather adopted me and I had his name, despite the fact that we did not love each other and his family meant nothing to me.

So when I was in my twenties I did a legal name change to my Grandmother’s maiden name. I did this because she and her five sisters, all from a small fishing community and the wives of fishers, therefore left to run things for the majority of the year, were and remain some of the strongest, most resilient and generous human beings I have ever known. They remain steadfast role models for me and despite the fact that they all took their husband’s names, I relate my name to their unmarried selves. Also, their father, my Great-grandfather is enough of a mystery to me that he has not tainted the name for me.

It’s a hard choice in a patrilineal culture where most of the men don’t deserve to pass on their name to anyone.

I was able to choose where I wanted to be, who I wanted to be there with, who I wanted to be, what sort of life I wanted to live…

I took his name.

Yes, I absolutely agree that there is a difference between taking advantage of an offered privilege and “capitulating”! Every option should be equally available, and being feminist should not mean refusing the one that currently is.

However, the system that makes it easy for you to choose to take the name of your husband is the same system that made it hard for you and your mother to choose not to keep the name of her husband.

Oh, I agree.

What I find problematic is the idea that keeping the name I had before I married is somehow the only feminist choice available, or at least more feminist than changing it.

It is a privilege. There is no doubt whatsoever about that. I am afforded privilege by taking the name of the man I married, by sharing a single name with him, in the future by my children sharing the name we share. There’s a reason I was able to change that name easily enough, whereas changing my name upon acquisition of majority would have been a difficult process had I been so inclined. There’s a reason my husband changing his name would have been a difficult process had we been so inclined (we both rather like his family, so we saw no reason to do so). (I do admire couples who change their name together when they commit.)

There’s also privilege in being in a heterosexual monogamous relationship, having had the wedding and signed the papers, and in being relatively “boring” and conforming people. Huge privilege. And that’s no matter what name we had or what our politics or personal beliefs are — that’s not what privilege is about.

But again: what I’m addressing is this idea that the only choice that fits in feminist theory is that of retaining the name you had before you legally committed. I think it’s fairly clear given my situation that it’s rather more respectful of my autonomy and personhood as a woman to have changed my name than to have kept any of the names that were part of my life before I met my husband. And it doesn’t fit into the “capitulation” framing; I accepted a privilege, definitely: but as far as theory and systemic analysis go, it was rather the opposite of capitulating my autonomy and separate personhood as a woman — it was actually a rather fundamental element of developing both those things.

When I got married I had the opportunity to change my name again without a lot of fuss (apparently Texas family law allows anyone to change their name at the time a marriage license is filed) so I did, jettisoning the toxic grandmother’s name, moving my maiden name up to middle and taking my wife’s last name.

I don’t think we even discussed the wife taking my name.

I would be resentful as shit if this were described as my taking advantage of an offered privilege. We were able to marry legally because bigots here in Texas took away the right of heterosexual trans people to marry but they couldn’t take away all trans people’s right to marry anyone — it’s an unintended consequence of overt oppression. We took advantage of that.

It isn’t a capitulation to patriarchy.

It’s a tribute to you. To what you have, to what you made…to what you worked for. It’s yours.

Family names solidify and legalise some pretty poisonous relationships, some of the time. That the nuclear family is a site of damage and brokenness probably more often than it’s a site of support and sustenance is something that I think gets lost sometimes, in the discussion of the significance of the name, and in the question of what counts as challenge and what counts as not.

I like my surname. It’s the name of a Celtic prince who fought the invading Romans back, and won by uniting a whole bunch of tribes. He fought after being blinded in battle. And his insignia is all kinds of awesome. It’s also been massively anglicised, which is kinda a shame. It’s also interesting, because it’s my father’s name, and his father’s name, and his father’s father’s name, despite the fact that these Celts were more inclined to track parentage matrilinearly (invasion, colonisation and the imposition of other, more patriarchal senses of economy prevailed, unfortunately). Interestingly, the name comes from the same place as my mother’s mother’s maiden name. And I’ve published with it, lived with it, spelled it out to everyone, modelled pronunciation to most people, squeezed it into boxes on forms, answered questions about where it’s from, giggled over mispronunciations of it, and been bound to my siblings in school by it, for all of my life. It’s bound to me now; all that time and care and love done with it (not only by me) has made it mine. I think it very very unlikely I’ll marry, but if I do, there’s no way I’m giving up that awesomeness.

Stories matter, precisely because they’re different, because they have to engage differently. Yay for you for telling yours.