What's in a name?
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: General History
Forum Name: Women's History
Forum Discription: Discuss women in history and other historical topics from a feminine perspective !
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=23731
Printed Date: 17-Apr-2024 at 21:59
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.56a - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: What's in a name?
Posted By: Omar al Hashim
Subject: What's in a name?
Date Posted: 07-Mar-2008 at 04:34
|
In Europe, when a woman gets married she changes her surname to her husbands surname. In the middle east, when a woman gets married she keeps her own name. In the subcontinent, she changes her name to her husbands. Why? Is changing your name a Indo-European thing? Do Irani's and Turks do it? What is the purpose of changing your name? When did this start happening? What about other cultures? Do you change or not change? Do you have a preference towards your wife/yourself changing your name? Why? I can moderately understand why Arabs do not change their name; because of the importance of family history, but what about everyone else? |
Replies:
Posted By: Akolouthos
Date Posted: 07-Mar-2008 at 05:04
Hm. I believe the Romans did it, so the process goes at least that far back... Don't know, beyond though. Interesting question.
 -Akolouthos
|
Posted By: Constantine XI
Date Posted: 07-Mar-2008 at 05:31
|
To correct you there Omar, in the Hispanic world it works differently I believe. For a child, your name is then: (first name) + (second name) + (father's surname) + (mother's surname). Your overall surname is your father's, but when saying your full name this is the order it follows. For the wife, she drops her mother's maiden surname and replaces it with her husband's paternal surname, with the word de between that name and her father's surname. ------------- |
Posted By: Styrbiorn
Date Posted: 07-Mar-2008 at 08:09
| Taking the name of the husband is a relatively new idea in Scandinavia - it wasn't until the idea with family names were forced upon people a few centuries ago. The Icelanders still practice the old naming system, where the wife keeps her own name. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 07-Mar-2008 at 10:24
|
Omer even in S Asia until the arrival of the British name changing was not the norm. ------------- |
Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 07-Mar-2008 at 17:07
|
In the Netherlands women add their husbands surname between their first name and their own surname. Some women use only their husbands name in dayly life, bus some always use both names.
The idea of taking the husbands name is rooted, I think, in the fact that often in the past, a woman would marry into her husbands family. She would legally become part of that family, and would legally be seperated from her own. She was thier responsibility, for her good behaviour or her bad, her maintenance both during the marriage as when she was widowed. ------------- 
Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
Posted By: erkut
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2008 at 18:45
|
In Turkey womans use their husbands name. ------------- |
Posted By: Ikki
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2008 at 19:30
Umm i don't know if that is the ancient practice or in other hispanic countries, but in Spain:
First name + (optional, other names) + Father's surname + Mother's surname
Always, when child and after the woman is married. In fact, since recent years you can choose the order of the surnames like you want, putting first your mather and then your father althought the tradition is like i said before. ------------- |
Posted By: Constantine XI
Date Posted: 09-Mar-2008 at 01:53
|
Ikki, I think it was indeed a more ancient practice.
------------- |
Posted By: Omar al Hashim
Date Posted: 09-Mar-2008 at 01:53
I suspected as much but I didn't know for sure. So it appears as if each society has taken the naming method fairly randomly. Which just makes the underlying reason more obscure.
What about in Ottoman days though? Was it still done then? ------------- |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 09-Mar-2008 at 03:20
As far as I know it was done under Ottoman times, too. ------------- |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 09-Mar-2008 at 03:33
That's confussing.
Actually, the common practise in Hispanic countries is for people to have:
First name + (optional, other names) + Father's surname + Mother's surname
Women keep theirs names all theirs lives, independently if they are married of not.
Only as a formality, in wedding invitations for example, the particle "of (husband Father's name)" is ADDED to the full name of married women.
------------- |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 17-Jul-2008 at 16:29
Hey! First post!
Agreed, that's how it works most of the time. I think it has more to do with religion than anything else. Most cultures that allow such a tradition are, from what I've noticed (no official analysis here - just observation) Spanish/Central/South American hispanic, and are overwhelmingly Catholic. Catholicism puts a heavy emphasis on the Madre de Dios. I really don't think that's a coincidence, but I have no proof. Only conjecture.  ------------- |
Posted By: LeopoldPhilippe
Date Posted: 10-May-2015 at 20:05
|
Louise-Hippolyte became the reigning Princesse de Monaco.
Her father Antoine I had gotten her future husband Jacques de Montignon, Comte de Thorigny, to sacrifice his name and coat of arms to obtain a duchy of his own if he married Louise-Hippolyte. Jacques legally changed his name to Grimaldi. |
Posted By: LeopoldPhilippe
Date Posted: 28-May-2015 at 21:58
|
Since his marriage on June 19, 2010 to Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, Daniel Westling has been styled as "His Royal Highness Prince Daniel of Sweden, Duke of Vastergotland".
In his birth register, he added the surname Bernadotte. |