Mrs. And Mrs. DeGeneres, and a male perspective on the name game

Brett Singer — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:00:00 GMT

You won't have Portia De Rossi to kick around anymore – well, you will (although why you would want to kick her, I have no idea), but she'll have a new name. According to the Daily News, Portia will take DeGeneres' last name when they officially tie the knot. (I guess that clears up any question about who the "man" in that relationship is, right?)

I do wonder how a gay couple makes this decision. Ellen definitely makes more money, and she is older. She also never wears dresses. OK, maybe in their case it wasn't that difficult. I'll be curious if other gay couples make name-changes as they (hopefully) continue to get legally hitched. (If this issue has come up for any readers, let us know in the comments.)

Interestingly, many women in heterosexual marriages don't change their names, at least judging from the reactions to Adrienne's recent post on the subject. Of course, some women did make the switch, for various reasons: "I didn't have any special attachment to my original name", "I didn't want to change my name, but my husband really wanted me to" are two of the comments.

The subject of names didn't come up when I got married, but it's clearly an issue. I know I wouldn't want to change my name, and I'm not sure how I would have felt about it if my wife had wanted to "keep her name" (a phrase I think sounds odd, although I admit that I don't have a better one – yet). I'm not a fan of the hyphen-name, mostly because usually it's only the mother who uses it; the husband and children use the man's name. If everyone in the family went hyphen, I think that would be different. One consideration that rarely gets discussed is what a woman has to do in order to change her name; if my wife's experience is any guide, it can be a lot of work.

So guys, if your wife-to-be doesn't want to "take your name" when she takes your hand in marriage, try this:

"Grrr! Ugg want you change name! Make Ugg feel manly! Now get Ugg dinner!"

Yeah, that'll work.

image: Daily News

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