Why Do Wives Take Their Husbands' Names? 

im from a *nn* -english speaking country

In Denmark, it’s fairly common to have two surnames, and the wives will often take one of her husbands’ surnames and keep one of her own - and some couples choose to merge the two, taking one name from each person.

Here in India most communities do the same thing with the lady going to the Mans house ,but one of the communities the khasis have the men take the woman's last name and the man goes to the lady's house,which I found interesting

I'm german. My mother actually uses a compound name between hers and my fathers. My uncle actually took his wifes name, since his family name was "Heil", wich isn't that great in germany, especially for children.

Name Explain in Arabic speaking countries there’s no such a thing as changing the name after marriage. But the kids however, they always take their father’s name. As far as I know. On an islamic country like Saudi Arabia, it’s illegal for adopted children to take their adopting family’s name. So the agency will choose a fake last name for them, anything other than that family’s name.

*who is Karen* and what kind of joke is this

@@allahstan4171 it's a joke about american "soccer" mom's who divorce their man and take the kids with them

@@commanderkampfsuppe7840 thanks but you mean *Football*

I’ve actually consider making a “Why Is The Name Karen So Popular On The Internet?” video.

@@NameExplain DEW IT!

Neato

Whoa nice

So...like how naruto have the uzumaki not namikaze?

That's interesting and very practical..

อติรุจ Yes but at the same time it's still so uncommon and there are men there who are met with difficulties from society when they take their wife's name (there was such a case with Japanese businessman losing his credibility last year)

he did, though briefly

@@musAKulture Where? Not in this video..😂

I and Mr. Vanderbilt agree.

I didn’t come across this in my research but thank you for bringing it up.

this was incredibly rare though. take royal families for example, arguably the highest station in society, they didn’t take the women’s name that’s why there are so many family names in royal family trees

ITS YOU AGAIN!!!!

Justin Y. Plz reply to my comment

IM EARLY ON A JUSTIN Y

I was thinking why do we have last names

This is not ploapur

When I get married (one day hopefully :D) I would like to take my spouse's last name because I also live in a different country with a very different language and so having a more regional surname would nake it a bit easier moving around.

Tomas Vrabec why not combine the name

Sure mate

Why not take your mother's name?

So your taking your fiance's Father's name..

That is progress! Thank you for sharing!

Lol coin toss sounds fun but imagine you have 10 kids and still lose the coin toss unlucky 😂

In America (continent) women don't loose their name (only in USA and Canada) and their kids will have both last names.

@@lifeisworthlivingsoliveano463 In Spain, everyone has 2 last names, one from each parent. So if you lose the coin toss your name will still be included. The coin toss is for name order! Traditionally, José García Pérez and María Soto López would have a son named Juan García Soto, but now parents can also choose Juan Soto García. If they can't decide, the coin toss winner's name comes first.

@@zlo8389 Ohh that’s great. But if you don’t mind me asking which one of them passes to the next generation?

Nobody cares what they do in Salsaland

@@TinklestheGoat well yes, people may not care. But if it is not true in Asia, Spanish countries, Salsaland or others then the statement "across the globe" is false which should be the important part.

@mPky1 In Spanish-speaking countries, the wife doesn't take her husband's surname, rather they keep their own. The most similar thing to this is that the husband might sometimes be called Name Surname 'of' Husband's-Surname, but it's not very common and it is not written in any legal documents

Nicocal 04 no the term across the globe is still applicable it’s not claiming everyone on the globe has done it but it takes place all over the globe some in asia some in Europe some in the Americas

That is still a true statement...

Not as big a joke as scabbled marriage names

They save Kingdoms. At least in CKII.

(A Minang person is writing....)

Agreed, well said bro

Agreed I'm from England but this guy is to much of a southerner and it just makes some videos painful to watch

@Liberalism is a lie A wife should choose to do what she wants, if she wants to take her husband's surname, like most women, she should be able to. Also, you mention Sharia Law as if this was sexist or something which is ridiculous, just look at Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton, both of them have their husbands surname and that has only helped them.

@@mlz8019um dude, he didn't say anything about shariah law being sexist, he just said how the Muslim world/Arabs (the culture on which islam is based after all and idk if Indonesia does it) functions in regards to names. As there are Christian names and conventions there are muslim names and conventions. There are Chinese and other eastern naming conventions as well which are still going quite strong I believe.

In Spanish society one has an apellido paterno and an apellido materno. You carry one of each of your parent's names; however, it is usually the paternal line of both sides that is carried down to the children. This is to respect the lineages of both sides as a marriage is a union of families in medieval society and not of mere individuals.

Ooo wee ooo

So your father last name is smith

How about the jith

I've also seen where in Hispanic cultures they will incorporate the maiden name, say Maria Velazquez marries Roberto Rodriguez, and becomes known as Maria Rodriguez de Velazquez.

@@timmmahhhh Actually she would be Maria Velazquez de Rodriguez

@@timmmahhhh I can only talk about Spain, because that's the case I know: a María Velázquez who marries a Roberto Rodríguez may (just may) become *known* as María Velázquez de Rodríguez, but her *official* name (i.e, the name shown in her passport or DNI) would remain María Velázquez*. But even that - being known as "... de Rodríguez" is very rare: that usually only happens when the husband is very famous (and the wife is not) and there is some "gain" in using her husband's name, or ad-hoc, when you need to distinguish between 2 Marías Velázquez. * She would also have a family name from her mother's side.

@Liberalism is a lie And if women doesn't do that, in Shariah Law she gets stoned.

Yeah, some bullshit crap

Was the husband English?

Josh Kusiak no both Irish, they grew up like 5 miles apart.

Bianca Bloom 20th century Ireland was wild. My Catholic grandpa took off and married a Protestant German (my nan). They still hate our family‘s guts to this very day😂 it‘s bizarre how not changing your name was an issue even in 1984!!

That's amazing! Go mom

Her "own name" is actually her father's. She just decided she wouldn't replace one man's name with another. All our names come from men.

I'm a Muslim and it's the same for us. When I marry one day, I have no intentions of changing my name because it's not what we do.

Because you are now a part of that family so you change your surname to match.

Same in Peru

@@gunarsmiezis9321 then why doesnt the man change his name instead of the woman ?

@@gunarsmiezis9321 it makes no sense because its two families merging together

That’s an interesting take, I’m sorry to hear your ex was abusive and hope you are happier in life now.

If your husband was abusive, your daughter should be upset because *she* is carrying his name...

@@GazilionPT *wrong* , she shouldn't be upset. It is not her fault, nor she should be affected by her ex-father's abusive actions. This woman did one of the best things.

I'd suggest that you have your daughter's surname changed to that surname as well, but I don't know if that'll just complicate things, nor do I know how your daughter would react to it.

@@InGGneruYTB Ex-Father??? You Can't Just Change Who Your Father Is... Unless You Get Adopted Or Something.

In the Philippines it's "name mother's surname father's surname".

Well, that does not happen in Argentina. Here, women keep their last names. If her name is "María Pérez" before getting married, her name will later be "María Pérez". And they can choose what surname give to their children.

@@MatiasRodriguez-eo7tb Yes that is what I am saying

@@konigkai Sorry, I read another comment and I got confused xd

@@MatiasRodriguez-eo7tb lol ok

I hear this is the tradition in Spain (or at least parts of it).

Congratulations! Hope the big day is as wonderful as you imagine my friend.

That's how it works here in Brazil

@@samuelbarbosadossantos247 yeah, Brazil=spanish speaking, lul. But I imagine it either being a romance thing, or an iberian thing. Idk

That is also the norm here in the Philippines, which happens to be a former colony of Spain.

LOL no

While what you are saying is partially true, your take on this is entirely too one-sided. How society viewed women was far more complex and varied depending on region and era.

@@Sunscorched That's possibly the most one-sided take on women's history that I've ever read. Your analysis is full of false causation, and arguments that aren't supported in even the most general sense. Humans aren't so simple, and you can't generalize gender issues into a good vs evil dichotomy.

No,@@ryanhall5360. It absolutely isn't false at all. You need to Google: Dowries were given to daughters in order to entice male suitors to marry them. The higher the dowry, the better the match for the suitor and his estate. This is also a well-known fact. Piano legs. It's a well-known fact that the legs of both a piano and pianofortes were covered because they closely resembled the ankles of a lady. So they were covered to prevent men from having a highly inappropriate reaction to the sight of them when in company. Chaperones accompanied courting and engaged couples to ensure neither party got frisky. A woman could not be alone in a room, even with the door open, for 15 minutes without gossip flying around and boom. She became a... Fallen women were those who had their reputations ruined by either pre-marital sex that left them an unwed mother. These girls were then sent to either live in Scotland, Ireland, or Wales. Or they were taken away by their families to give birth and the baby would be adopted out to a family. Sometimes these babies would be dropped outside of churches or left for dead, depending on the family's income and social status. Reputations were also ruined through malicious gossip that went around the drawing rooms of Mayfair. No fashionable personage of good breeding would ever be seen with a tainted woman because they would then become tainted by association. Heirs and spares were an actual thing. Families, especially those in Society, would birth and birth until both an Heir and a Spare, or second son were had. Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam in P&P is a second son, and as his status dictated, he had no choice in taking a commission. He would not inherit the Fitzwilliam Estate. A second son was not seen to be as desirable a catch as the Heir, of course, but still a catch for his connections and circle. Particularly if his family belonged to the first and second circles. If a woman reached the age of 5 and 20, for example, she was seen more or less as a maid. Such as Charlotte Lucas, for instance. She did not have much chance of making a good match until William Collins. Neither was she the Lucas' heir, but she was also seen as quite old, and with her father's small estate being given as a reward for service to the crown? It was very small and wasn't worth much money. So even Mary Bennet, the third daughter with a dowry of £1,000, would be seen as a better match than Miss Lucas. A lot of properties were entailed away from the female line. This is why, in Pride & Prejudice, Mrs Bennet is so desperate to see all of her five girls married. Without a son and heir, Longbourne would pass to the next male in the Bennet family, leaving Mrs Bennet and any unwed daughters homeless and living off of a mere £50 a year from the interest on Mrs Bennet's £5,000 dowry. That dowry was spread between her five daughters at £1,000 each and that would have been £50 a year for them to live on. So Mrs Bennet tried to push Lizzy into marrying Mr Collins, the heir to Longbourne, in order to secure their futures and keep the Bennet line in Longbourne for another generation at least. By comparison, Caroline Bingley had a dowry of £20,000 and Georgiana Darcy £30,000. These are just a small handful of examples of what women faced only 200 years ago. Regency era is an excellent place as that's where things began to turn a little as the Industrial Revolution came into play when machines first started to take human jobs. In the UK, it was the 1800's (mid I believe) when women really started to come out of their shells. You can't change history just to make yourself feel better. Go read a bloody history book, for crying out loud. Everything here is FACT.

@@Sunscorched Everything you're describing is European high-society, (see: everything in pride and prejudice), and the societal norms in that particular society, which don't represent how women were viewed at the time in the slightest, were based on class hierarchies. It had little to do with gender, or how people viewed women, it was a matter of gaining power for each family. Regardless, nothing that you've said has any impact on your argument that women were looked down upon. You can't prove a mindset without concrete evidence, and you have no clue as to why these things actually happened. You're imposing your own ideology onto past events with no regard as to what actually might have happened. Revisionist history at its finest. Don't make stupid generalized claims about society, especially past societies that you've never been in, you're not proving anything because you can't prove anything.

Dudley Chudley will DEFINITELY resent his father. 😂😂😂

I find this better as both entities are independent and equal, the latter option is not very used though

Yes, and average men have two last names, while married women have three. Example: Martin Gonzalez Penalver (name - father's last name - mother's last name) Aurora Martinez Aguirre de Gonzalez (name - father's last name - mother's last name - + de - husband's first last name) Their daughter would've been Laura Gonzalez Martinez...

and that option is only a social one, officialy and legally women keep their names. In a more general note, i believe its way harder to change your name in countries following civil law (latinamerica-¿continental europe?) instead of common law (anglo-countries). ... (yes i know my comment is very broad)

Lana del Rey

Yep thats why we latinos have long names my moms case (*= a letter) ****** ******* ******** ****** ** ****** ( was not gonna actually give her name but hey replace the letters with what you want)

Just wanted to ask, if you have a child, will that child have the last name of your father and mother as well as his/her mother's father and mother as well? (I hope I'm not being too confusing)

Subtexto O'Politan the chield gets the name of his father and the second surname is the mother’s. Example the father is called Lienen and the Mother is called Castillo. The child gets the name Lienen-Castillo

@@dataexpunged6969 in Latin America we have the same tradition, mi Venezuelan, we have 2 surnames, the fathers goes first and then the mother's, children will inherit both the husband's first last name and the mother's first lastname.

@@Ladiena ohhh that makes sense! Thanks!

@@Ladiena I believe the question is about the third generation. A person who takes for example the father's last name A, and the mother's last name B, and another person takes the fathers last name C and the mothers last name D. Will their child's last name be ABCD, or will they take their grandfathers last name and the grandmothers last names are lost after a generation?

I actually think the way how Spanish and Hispanics use both surnames from both parents is pretty awesome and more fairer honestly.

I like the Spanish system too (by spanish I mean the Spanish speaking part of the world). You get both names from the parents. But you still have to decide which one of those you are going to give to your children, otherwise the surnames would become longer and longer.

@@emperorfanta364 That's also the tradition in Portugal (and most of the Portuguese-speaking world)

@@jonistan9268 Yes, of course. Usually, it's the father's name that carries on. In Portugal we have the same tradition, though the order of family names is different (it was the same some 500 years ago, maybe more recently). By law, Portuguese names registered at birth are limited to 6: 1-2 given names and 1-4 family names. Traditionally these are split between mother and father, but that's not mandatory. (Note that some family names are grammatically made of more than one word - e.g. Castelo Branco, Espírito Santo, Boa Morte, Vila Nova, etc. - so the name can actually be longer than 6 words.)

In Brazil it's like this also. Most people have 2 surnames (one of each parent) and when they have kids each parent simply decide which one sounds better (or sometimes they even put all the surnames)

I was looking for this comment

Amesay robay

*Better than actual school*

*occupy d o g b u t t*

Could also be a description of their ancestor. Perhaps people knew the ancestor to be a dogbutt of a person, so they became known as 'Bob the dogbutt'.

My neighbour's surname is butt. I've always wondered why the wife didn't keep her maiden name.

Dont need to be, a lot of countries untouched by europe do that too

A Singaporean friend of Chinese ancestry who recently wed was thrilled to take her husband's surname. This lady is quite bi-cultural though so not sure whether she changed her Chinese name too or not.

@@Ggdivhjkjl What ethnicity was the husband?

Gaysian_american FINALLY! I WAS CURIOUS WHY SOUTH KOREAN DO THAT but im east asian(philippines). my mum has my dad’s fam name

@@cocogoatganyu7992 Bro- the Philippines is in southeast asia not east asia my dude uwu" East asia = china,japan, korea (south or north) and maybe mongolia too Southeast asia= Philippines,Myanmar,laos,thailand,Vietnam,cambodia,malaysia,singapore,indonesia,brunei and east timor is at uwu

Japanese do change

Which society is it ?

Yeah I'm curious as well! Where is this place?

I'm from one northeastern state of India. I belong to the Khasi tribe. And there are other numerous tribes around this region that are matrilineal.

@@wrusselrani9511 cool! I always imagined there might be a place like that, and it's nice to know there is

@@onetwo57627 WTF! Do you even know what matrilineal means? I never said we're a "matriarchal society". And what is with the assumption of these pagan gods? 80% of us are Christians. Ninny, educate yourself please.

One of the few mononym cultures I know of, I believe Burmese (some at least) do this as well and possibly some Native Americans seem to do this as well, but I'm not too sure as I'm getting the idea from "Assassin's Creed III" where the protagonist has a mononym as part of his Mohawk upbringing even thought he is half British.

People from Iceland don't have surnames as well. They only have patronymic.

how do people with this system differentiate between people with the same name tho? like all fun and games until there's 5 jessicas on the same street lol

Equality 100% respect Here same 😉

They can have the Mothers name 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♂️

I encourage u .

Yes, I have both my parents' last names. It really makes no difference.

Don't listen to all these people, marriage ks nlt a war. Trust me, few men would ever let their children take your dad's name

My (Finnish) mother did this with my (Portugese) father

Terrible see this is exactly why children should take their mothers last name at birth. Men have a higher chance of walking out! Fact

@@FS02012 FELT😭😂

Does French or Quebecker culture only use one surname or two like in Hispanic culture?

I'd guess one as it's either French or English tradition.

Yes, just like in Spanish speaking countries.

Araya Foster Don‘t be pessimistic, I am sure you will find someone :)

@@derzuschauer4695 no, i have a bf right now that im likely staying with for a long time, if not, forever. im just not religious and dont want to marry. he doesnt want to either lol

Basically ship names. Lol.

Its really sad that because of the name thing many baby girls were killed because they weren't a son. I really believe womens names should be given to the child and now days woman have degrees and raising and working, doing 75% of the marriage work.

Only Latin countries south of the USA is it really the opposite so its just a people group nobody cares about don't.

@@TinklestheGoat In many European countries wives don't take their husband names. In several countries, family names don't exist at all. So it's more than you think.

@@BangFarang1 Perhaps you can provide several examples

Frédéric Letellier Which European countries don't have that? I live in Europe and have yet to see while you're saying "there are many"...

@@TinklestheGoat Spain, Portugal, France, Sweden, Finland are those I know where, according to the law, women don't take their husbands' name. Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Iceland, Mongolia and several Muslim countries are those I know where family names don't exist.

Find a historic name from your old region (someone's name, or a city name) if it's safe to do so. That way your grandchildren will find your history when they look for the name, even without the direct connection.

That's basically everyone's names in Portuguese-speaking countries and also the Philippines.

@@resumepeacetalks600 Not every. Here in Brazil, it is easier to see "Silva" and "Santos", than "Sousa". But there is lots of people with this very surname

Guilherme Castilho, in Brazil Sousa is also pretty common. And I think he was talking about the namibg convention, not the specific names.

What happens when you marry someone with a similar double name?

@@Catubrannos In Brazil, we usually take only the last surname of each of the parents to name the child. In marriage though, you can do pretty much anything you want. Some people remove names or surnames they don't like and add their partner's, I've seen couples combining their favorite surnames so both have the same ones. I just kept mine, because I would either have a gigantic name or have to remove part of my original name, and I didn't want any of that.

Women keep their surname in Republic of Georgia as well.

British and Americans think everyone else on Earth follows their traditions.

Degenerate woman

Oh, that last one I didn't know, that would explain the exceptionally long names of some Malagasy that I have occasionally encountered on-line.

Why would a man adopt the family name of another man? His wife's name comes from another male line. Even in your example it's obvious as Jones means son of John, so why would a man descended from a blacksmith in the middle ages adopt the family name of some guy called John?

@@Catubrannos Why not?

Also Latin America, where people use both parents' surnames.

Before colonization, many Eastern societies were egalitarian. After colonization, they became patriarchal.

irrelevent to the video

Exactly!! It's a *new* family, after all :) :)

Imagine you marrying a person who also does that. Look, a baby with four surnames! 😂

Well, what TinyPenguin told is what the former portuguese/brazilian royal family did. But in a general way, iberic people and its descedents have two last names - although I have already met common people whom have 4 last names. But in the past, at least in Portugal/Brazil you could only pass your last surname (which came from paternal lineage), now you can do whatever you want. I don't know about spanishes/spaniards/hispanics, specially because their last surnames are maternal (the opposite from lusitan world). PS.: During history, sometimes foreigners/slaves/folk whom did not have a surname adopted their bosses'/susan's/militar chief/master's surname. Also kids who were left for adoption in catholic institutions had religious last names, because - you know - their father was God. So it's a whole much more complicated, I guess.

I meet one with 6 names once. Ivelina Anna-Margrete Surname#1 Surname#2 Surname#3 Surname#4. That's just .....

But, names mean something. Smones means nothing just a series of sounds sewed together. While Jones and Smith mean something (a smith and John’s son)

Or use the surnames of both parents, like what they do in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries?

@@coleball6001 names don't really mean anything lol, literal SHAKESPEARE wrote "that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet"

McBusted

In order to make the new name sound better IMO, you can change to pronunciation of wild to *vild* so the new name will be spelled as McWilds but spoken as McVilds.

@@genghiskhan6809 I like it! Thanks for the suggestion. It also has a nod to my norwegian ancestry so that's a double bonus

😂😂😂😂 Yeah.. The Xs get there through magic 👏👏👏

Raya Al Hajri Obviously not. The point was probably that there is interchromosomal recombination between two X chromosomes. When a woman has her child, that child does not get the same X chromosome as either of hers, it's a mix of the two. But when a father has a son, they share the exact same Y chromosome.

@@HerrMisterTheo What are you talking about? I don't remember reading it like that where a mother's last chromosome gets recombined. Although that might explain why in females humans the mitochondrial DNA is the one looked at for lineage and males the Y-chromosome. Then again chromosomes only ever look like ‹X› just as their about to go throughout mitosis or meiosis and never like ‹Y›.

jsdf. jkkejk Why are you telling me that?

This is why you should just give the child his fathers name because if he gets Crinjun-Smithereens-Beauford-Dillydally-Hapsburg-Upside-Down-Smith. he will most likely change it anyway. So give him 1 surname and get him to be loyal to it. (All the people who have it)

No it could just be like both of you have hyphenated last names then pass only 1 to your children

Again if the laws of your country allow that, then there is no problem. The problem might exist if there is a will and distribution of wealth and property. How will you get your share if your name does not have any links ? Are you going to do a DNA ?

Ho SC, we already have it covered. I’m his beneficiary for everything. If, god forbid, he passes I get everything and it’s the same if I die.

I have the same last name!!!!!!!! I needed to read your comment soooo bad! I have been having thoughts very similar to yours concerning when I do eventually get married. Most comments and anecdotes I read from women mention their names are deeply unique and have major historical significance or a very interesting story, so I have felt that my own last name wasn't "interesting" enough to warrant keeping. There's no vastly fascinating story behind it, but it's who I am and it's tied to my father and my cousins whom I love very much. I am glad to know there is another Wright out there who felt valid in keeping her last name. Thank you! I think I've just made my decision!! Definitely makes the idea of marriage less daunting and identity-crushing.

Same as in Spain.

Interesting poetry you have there

Why's that?

@ULGROTHA (sigh) more bullshit. how many days of the year aren't assigned to some bullshit thing? there seems to hardly be a day that's free of some tokenistic/inane thing!

@@mikespearwood3914 dude every holiday is bullshit