[Dries007]

A bit off topic, but changing your name when getting married is so strange to me. It is not at all common where I live (Belgium), in fact I don't think I personally know a single person who did.

[bigstrat2003]

Different cultures, different traditions. Personally I think it's a beautiful symbol of unity for one person to take the other's name (though I'm neutral as to which party should change their name, and I was perfectly willing to take my wife's name if she had wanted that), but of course that's the culture I was born into so it seems normal to me.

[onesociety2022]

Not only is it strange, it’s obviously very sexist in practice. In majority of the cases, it’s always the woman who changes her last name. The husband gets to keep his. I still find it very strange and shocking that powerful women with successful careers in modern society still keep changing their names after getting married.

[charcircuit]

By such a definition any tradition related to gender would be sexist. The tradition is that the wife will change her name. This tradition is why it makes up the majority of cases.

[bigstrat2003]

It is not sexist at all, let alone "obviously very sexist". Don't impute malicious motives to people like that, it's extremely rude.

[vedmakk]

I changed my name to my wife's name when we got married. Where I live, everyone can choose if they want to keep their name or change it to either ones. So its a free choice.

AND: Hope gmail will rollout this feature asap, so I can FINALLY adjust my email address too.

[Ferret7446]

These traditions stem from pre-contemporary patriarchal societies, where the man leads the household and thus his name is retained.

There have been matriarchal societies in history, but they all ceased to exist. Make of that what you will.

[cromka]

Actually it's strange to learn that outside Spain and Portugal there are other countries in EU where you do not change your name when married!

[vedmakk]

I was very happy to take my wife's name when we got married. A free choice I made. And I think there is nothing weird about it.

[revax]

While optional, it's very common in France.

[UltraSane]

What last name do your kids use?

[guessmyname]

Last name of father and mother, respectively.

  let motherLastName = "Carter Hughes"
  let fatherLastName = "Miller Thompson"
  let childLastName  = "Miller Carter"
  let childFullName  = "Jean Paul Miller Carter"

Or so that is how it works in many countries around the world.

You might ask, —“Why does the father’s last name go first and the mother’s second?”— That’s an old tradition, and it can change whenever enough people in our society agree. As it stands, the father’s family name tends to persist down the family tree, while the mother’s family name often disappears in each generation.

Or so that is how it works in many countries around the world.

[TacticalCoder]

> What last name do your kids use?

In the country where he lives (Belgium), the parents get to decide which family name the kids get.

[voidfunc]

Its from the days when women were property of their man.

[B-Con]

It hails from when family lines were important, and you can practically only have one line reflected in a name. Unsurprisingly, most societies considered the male's name to be the dominate lineage of interest, although that doesn't hold true 100% of the time.