Hyphenated last names are not a mainstream choice in the United States, with only about 5% of women choosing to hyphenate their names and less than 1% of men. The practice is more common in marriages in the LGBTQ+ community than among heterosexual couples.
Hyphenating gained popularity beginning in the 1970s and plateaued in the 2000s, but has been steadily declining ever since.
In opposite sex marriages, the majority of women still take their husband’s last name, while keeping their maiden name has increased as hyphenating has decreased. In couples where spouses keep their own surnames after marriage, hyphenating their children’s last name is more popular.
A child who was given a hyphenated surname turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for feedback.
Sunseekerml asked:
“AITA for changing my hyphenated name into one?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“I (19, female) was given a hyphenated name at birth. My mother (42, female) was the type of woman that didn’t want to change her last name and kept it while getting married to my father.”
“I am their only child, and when my mom gave birth to me, they agreed on hyphenated name since she wanted her last name to play a part. My last name was Thatcher-Moore—Thatcher being my father’s last name and Moore being my mother’s.
“During childhood I always hated it. Kids would sometimes poke fun at me for my last name. I also thought it sounded ugly and was a mouthful.
“I preferred Thatcher alone, it went better with my name, and was better than Moore. In Junior High I began to tell people was Mari Thatcher instead of Mari Thatcher-Moore.”
“When my mom caught on she’d get either very upset or very angry. Sometimes she’d yell and demand I stop. Or cry, saying she just wanted her daughter to be a part of her.”
“I felt sympathy for her, but it was also my name as well.”
“When I turned eighteen and graduated from high school, I was debating on actually changing my last name to just Thatcher legally. I had been in college for a few months when I decided to go through with it.”
“That Christmas break my mother figured it out (not sure how, but I wasn’t really hiding it from her) and she absolutely freaked out. I first thought she’d be extremely angry with me, but she was heartbroken.”
“She sobbed and refused to speak to me.”
“Now I have angry relatives, especially my father. He says he didn’t ask for this and I broke my own mother’s heart and should be ashamed.”
“AITA?”
The OP summed up their situation.
“I thought I might be the a**hole because I’d broken my mother’s heart. I didn’t think she’d be so upset, I just wanted to change my last name.”
“I feel oddly selfish, and also my father is upset with me too.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors had mixed rections to the OP’s name change.
“YTA. You didn’t have to go to the extent of having it removed on your ID. You could’ve continued life by introducing yourself to people as you wanted while keeping your official documents how they’ve been.”
“Your mother is a part of you/your identity and she obv felt very honoured to include her name/lineage with yours. Why should your father be the only one?”
“Assuming she carried you in her body for 9 months and birthed you, it meant something to her.”
“Also, kids are bullies that don’t know better. Adults don’t have the time or energy to care about hyphenated last names to bully you.”
“You have every right to do what you want with your life but doesn’t mean you have to hurt others in the process. You’re not a child anymore, you’re a grown adult.”
“And your hyphenated last name sounds a lot better than just any 1 of the two attached to your name to be honest.” ~ lightinmydark
“All of this is just not very important. My kids have hyphenated names because their mom wanted it and I just don’t give a f*ck.”
“You put so much of yourself into the kids you raise, their personality, their likes and dislikes, quirks and handicaps, all of it is influenced by being raised by you. The name means very little.”
“They are walking embodiments of your legacy, regardless of what they call themselves.”
“If my kids wanted one, or the other, of their hyphenated names, or a new third one for whatever reason, I’d just call them what they want to be called, it’s not that deep in a world where most things are.”
“OP is NTA, how would her mom have reacted if she got married and took her husband’s name? Like how long must she honour the legacy?”
“It’s all giving off a bit of… ‘These people don’t have real things to worry about’.” ~ magog12
“Yeah I can definitely understand the mother’s POV. At the same time, I can also get the daughter’s. NAH.”
“The unfortunate thing is that there’s no great solution to the surname issue.”
“Hyphenate? Okay so that’s basically one generation until surnames get unwieldly. When two people with hyphenated last names get married do we jump to 4?”
“Pick one from each? How do you pick one without upsetting a parent if they both want you to use theirs?”
“Combine two surnames into one? I currently kinda like this idea and have seen some nice examples, but sometimes it doesn’t work, and most people who care about their surname aren’t fans of it.”
“Also, smaller issue: godspeed to future descendants trying to do research for a family tree.”
“The irony is that the anger from OP’s father and other relatives have probably just about guaranteed that, if OP ever gets married, … she’ll just pick her spouse’s last name.”
“With any luck, maybe that’ll actually make the mother feel better, since it’ll stop looking like OP ‘picked’ her father.”
“I know OP was using ‘Thatcher’ alone for some time, and that the ‘change’ was just her legally formalizing it, … but part of me wonders if she should have picked a totally new last name to seem neutral.”
“Not that she’s the a**hole for not doing so.” ~ Reddit
“YTA. Not for changing your name, that’s your right for whatever reason you want to. But for this: ‘My mother (42F) was the type of woman that didn’t want to change her last name and kept it while getting married to my father’.”
“The type of woman? You mean a human that also cares about her name, identity and legacy?”
“You seem to resent your mother for not going along with old patriarchal traditions. But guess what honey, your father was also that type of man who didn’t want to take your mother’s name.” ~ CrazyLibrary
“Look my maiden name is hyphenated (my Dad’s surname is hyphenated) and it was unusual, sometimes challenging to fill out forms, explain this is literally my Dad’s name etc…”
“However, while people botched my name all the time and in my early adulthood everyone presumed I was married and joined my name to my (nonexistant) husband’s, I’ve never been bullied for it.”
“I already know where OP is from—a place where kids bullying kids seem to be a cultural norm. I am from a place where bullying is not tolerated or minimally tolerated. So if I were OP and had been bullied, I might feel the same.”
“I am conflicted about my maiden surname, but wouldn’t have changed it. OP is free to do what she liked.”
“Also, I personally hate when parents join their names to make the kids surname through a hyphen—they only consider the now.”
“When I got married, like all my peers I would have preferred to join my husband’s name to mine, but mine was already hyphenated. I initially chose to keep my maiden name for career reasons.”
“However, after a while I just switched to my spouse’s. Ideally, I would have preferred to add to my surname rather than a switch out.”
“OP, you do you. Not even my views matter. You’re an adult and you can name yourself what you like. You’re NTA.” ~ Kami_Sang
“Can you explain how she could have selected her own last name without hurting someone in the process? I don’t really see it. What I can think of:”
“She could have maybe told the mother in advance. But given the mother’s reactions to OP going by just ‘Thatcher’… I think it’s pretty obvious advanced notice would not have helped.”
“She could have tried to combine her two last names into one … but that’s hard to do with ‘Thatcher’ and ‘Moore’ (Matcher? Mocher?), and I’m not sure it would have made anyone happy.”
“Maybe, rather than legally formalize the name she was already going by, she could have picked a totally new last name—that way it wouldn’t seem like she was preferencing her father’s lineage.”
“But for people who care about names, that’s obviously an option that would please no one.”
“For me, this is a NAH or maybe a NTA situation. If OP just hated her last name and changed her last name to ‘Clarke’ (or whatever), she’d be entitled to do so—as you said, she’s an adult; she can pick her own last name.”
“The mother’s sadness is 1000000% understandable (although I often wonder what the children of parents with hyphenated parents are expected to do when they get married).”
“But now it’s OP’s family bullying her—her father and the relatives. And the irony is that they’re probably ensuring that, if OP gets married, she’ll pick her spouse’s last name.” ~ Reddit
“YTA. It is your choice and your name and you therefore have every legal right to change it to one you like better. However, it does feel like a rejection of your mother.”
“People usually do that to remove the name of a deadbeat parent who wasn’t involved in their life, or someone abusive. I also don’t see the problem with Thatcher-Moore.”
“I think that was all in your head. It isn’t objectively embarassing or ugly at all. It isn’t even super long and cumbersome. So it seems to me like you’ve rejected your mom to solve a problem that was in your head, rather than real.” ~ mavenmim
OP is free to choose her name, but others are entitled to their feelings and reactions as well.
If OP’s family are being that aggressive about her chosen name, maybe it’s time to take a break for awhile.