- I decided to take my wife's last name
and it was the best decision I've ever made.
Hi my name is Andy Golder
you might know me as that guy in BuzzFeed
who likes Game of Thrones way too much,
but two years ago my name wasn't Andy Golder
it was Andy Neuenschwander.
I got married in 2016
and I decided to take my wife's last name.
We had a lot of reasons for this decision
including but not limited to
wanting to have the same last name,
wanting my wife to keep the name
that she had started her career with
and me wanting to get rid of the 14 letter monstrosity
that I had lived most of my life with.
After much deliberation and a detailed pro-con list
we decided that the best idea was for me to become a Golder.
Here's what I've learned in the first two years
of having a shiny new last name.
Number one.
Some people do not know how to respond.
The first person we told about the decision
for me to take my wife's last name
was actually a server at a restaurant.
We were celebrating our engagement
and when she took my credit card
she made a joke about how my wife must really
not be looking forward to taking my crazy last name.
When we told her
that I was actually taking my wife's last name
she laughed thinking that we were like joking about it
then she like kind of looked confused for a moment
and then she just sort of ran away and ran the card.
Number two.
People seem to think of it as a last resort.
People always say things like
oh I have friends who just combined
their last names together,
have you guys ever thought of ever doing that?
But to me why does a completely new made up name
you know make more sense
than one that already has a history
and current familial ties and things like that.
How was both of us losing our last names
preferable to man taking his wife's last name?
Also Neuengold sounds kind of dumb
and Goldschwander sounds like liquor with gold flakes in it
that I may or may not have thrown up in college.
And there is literally not enough time in the world
for me to introduce myself as Andy Neuenschwander-Golder
if we hyphenated it.
Number three.
Changing your name is actually really hard.
You have to go to both
the social security office and the DMV
which are pretty much the two worst places in the world
and then even after you've done that part
and your name is legally changed
then you have to change your last name
on everything you've ever signed up for
in the history of the internet.
A lot of places require a certified copy
of your marriage certificate which costs money
and takes time so it's a huge pain.
To this day
I still haven't gotten around to changing my PayPal.
Number four.
Women usually love the idea.
My wife's group texts with her bridesmaids
had like a lot of heart emojis and stuff in it.
My mom had always kept her birth name
so she was of course in approval.
A female friend of mine
even gave me her incredibly helpful checklist
of things to do after she took her husband's last name,
but of course I still forgot a bunch of stuff.
Number five.
Some men are definetly weirded out by it.
Generally men were supportive as well
but one of my friends when I pressed him about it
he admitted that he and I quote would never.
When my wife informed her uncle of the change
he asked if that was even legal.
Number six.
The system isn't really set up for men.
It was ultimately just as easy for me
to get my name changed as it would be for a woman
but there are these little things along the way
that kind of remind you how rare
what you're doing really is.
For example the most popular name change system
is called MissNowMrs.com.
Listen I'm not mad and I'm sure it's a great service
but it was just kind of funny to me.
You don't really realize how automatic
the thinking is around name changing
until you actually do it.
We hired a photo booth company for our wedding
like everybody else in the last 10 years
and they provided us with this really nice scrap book
of everybody's photo booth photos at the end
and on one of the pages they've written the phrase
he stole my heart
so I stole his last name.
Of course I don't fault the owners they were wonderful
but it just kind of shows how automatic the thinking is.
Number seven.
I feel like I have to explain myself a lot.
Every time I'm talking to some poor customer service person
and I have to tell them that I changed my name
a simple I got married never seems to suffice.
Instead of turning this into me going into this long thing
like oh I got married and I had this really long last name
and you know (blabbering) and blah blah blah
and it just turns into this whole thing.
Number eight.
A lot of people probably just assume
that my wife changed her last name.
My wife realized this shortly after we made the change
and she said you know
people are probably just gonna think
that you were always a Golder
and that I took your last name.
She's probably right.
In a 2015 study over 70% of women who married men
took their husband's last name.
About 20% chose to keep their own last name.
The other 10% chose a third option
which means anything from combining last name
to even taking their husband's last name
but using their last name professionally.
More recently though a 2017 UK study showed that
one in 10 recently married British man
decided to take their wife's last name.
Number nine.
It was all totally worth it.
Having my wife's last name
a name that we both love
was worth all of the many many forms that I filled out.
So whether you're keeping your own name,
combining it, changing it to something else
just do your thing
it'll be the perfect choice for you.
Well I wrote an article for BuzzFeed
about taking my wife's last name
and the whole process of it
and the response I got was fairly mixed.
Lot of the response was really positive
I got a lot of tweets from people saying
that they had also taken their wife's last name,
some of the responses have been negative too for sure.
You know I think a lot of people have
a really traditional idea of this
and that's probably not going to go away.
It's a little sad sometimes
when people are just really fundamentally opposed to this
because I don't see why it's such a big deal.
If it makes people happy and it's not bothering you
then you know why be a dick about it?
Masculinity can be so fragile you know what I mean?
And it just sucks because
it limits you so much.
If you're so stuck in it
that something as simple as changing your last name
is like this horrible thing that takes away your manhood
than like I mean that just sucks for you
and what matter is that you love this person
and you know that's it, that's all that matters.
(slow music)