The Name Question

The social security office smelled like feet and bleach. Five rows of chairs faced the building’s entrance, which made walking into the lobby feel like walking on to a dingy stage. I checked in at a computer and sat down in the fourth row. I was here to change my name from Hannah Caroline Bridges to Hannah Caroline Bridges Horn. 

This decision was the culmination of dozens of conversations, journal entries, and minutes of staring at the ceiling before falling asleep. I still felt torn.

On one hand, I liked the idea of Robby and me sharing a name. I love sharing things in general, and both of us being Horns felt meaningful. I also knew that changing my name would make Robby extremely happy, though he wouldn’t admit how much.

But I loved the name Bridges. The word was meaningful and euphonic. Also, the name “Hannah” is already a little harsh (especially the way southerners say it, with a hard, almost nasally “a” sound), and putting it in front of “Horn” made each name a little sharper. I didn’t love the way the two sounded. 

Robby and I first discussed the name question around the time we got engaged. We were walking through Piedmont Park in Atlanta.

“How do you feel about me keeping my last name?” I asked.

I want to pause here, because based on conversations I’ve had on this subject, this question probably raises a red flag. This was not an asking-permission question; this was a your-feelings-matter-to-me question.

Robby sighed. “I’d be a little bummed,” he said, “but it’s your name.”

We were walking past the dog park. Clusters of dogs churned like little hurricanes.

After a while, he said, “I mean, what would our kids’ last names be?”

“If we ever had kids,” I said, “they could be Horns.”

“But then you’d have a different last name.”

“So?”

“Wouldn’t that be confusing?”

“Probably not. They’d know I was their mom.”

He was quiet for a long time. I half-joked that he should just change his name to Bridges, but then remembered that Robert Bridges is my dad’s name. We laughed, then didn’t fully revisit the issue for months.

During that time, I turned over every name-changing stone in my head. I read blog posts and articles about the merits of keeping vs. changing a name upon marriage. All of them had a slant. The ones that leaned toward a woman changing her last name built their arguments on religion, tradition, emotional closeness, convenience, or a combination thereof. The pieces that advocated for women keeping their names did so using feminism with a hard, shiny coating of self-righteousness. I did not find a single piece of writing from someone who couldn’t decide.

I researched the history of name changing. It started in Medieval England, which was later than I expected, and was linked to the idea of “coverture.” Once a woman got married, her legal existence was suspended and her husband made decisions regarding property, suing, executing wills, etc. The married couple legally existed as a single unit, and only one of them was allowed to call the shots. Essentially, marriage was a transfer of property (the woman) from her father to her husband, and the name change (which was legally required) signified that. 

None of this shocked me. I think most people have a sense of the historic relationship between marriage and property (the word “dowry” comes to mind), and I was exactly as repulsed as I expected to be.

But I didn’t feel that changing my name would necessarily be an anti-feminist choice. Feminism is about equality, and equality happens when women are empowered. There is immense cultural pressure for a woman to change her name upon marriage (and granted, I’m speaking particularly about straight, cisgendered couples here), which does cloud the decision for many people. I hadn’t yet been able to cut through the noise and have a moment of introspection to figure out what I wanted my name to be, but I believed it was possible. If someone genuinely felt empowered and excited to take her husband’s name, that was her call. Feminists who look down on that choice are missing the point.

I came to the conclusion that the tradition of a woman changing her name upon marriage had sexist origins (property transfer) and continues to be a sexist practice (because the reverse isn’t true—how many men that you know have taken their wives’ names?), but that a woman’s choice to partake in the tradition could be feminist.

I had mentioned my uncertainty to several people, all of whom were women, most of them straight, single, and around my age. The majority advised me to keep Bridges. I appreciated their opinions, but suspected that many of them would one day change their names with little thought. I think it’s easy to take the quintessentially feminist route when the cultural alternative isn’t currently glaring at you. There were also some women (mostly married and middle aged) who advised me to just change my name if I wasn’t dead-set on keeping it; they enjoyed sharing a name with their spouse. 

A few people suggested that Robby and I either hyphenate our last names or make up a new name entirely. I liked the latter idea, but Robby didn’t budge. He’s the final Horn in his family. What I did with my last name was up to me, but he was keeping his. I was annoyed and angered by the fact that the vast majority of men never had to think twice about whether or not they’d change their names one day, but I respected his decision.

*

During our engagement, I worked as a bartender at a brewery near downtown Atlanta. I was talking to a group of three customers, all men around my parents’ age. Business was slow. At some point, I mentioned that I was recently engaged, and we eventually got on the topic of name changing. 

“Not sure what I’m gonna do yet,” I said, polishing a glass. It wasn’t an invitation for advice; I was just musing.

“Listen,” said one of the men. He had a thick New York accent. “My wife never changed her name, and it always bothered me. For the ten years we were married, she had one foot in the marriage, one foot out.”

I nodded, choosing not to point out that her feelings may have had to do with factors other than her name.

“When you make your decision,” he said, “just remember that one time an old guy in a bar told you that you should take your husband’s name.”

The only thing I gathered from the well-meaning women in my life and one random man at a bar where I worked was that everyone seemed to have an opinion about my name except for me. In the two years between the day Robby proposed and the moment I walked into the social security office, I had described my attitude toward my name as “indifferent.” I don’t know, I would tell people, I just don’t feel pulled to do either.

In hindsight, I cared deeply about my name; I just had trouble reconciling that I could feel both passion and uncertainty. The heartbreaking truth is that by the time my wedding day arrived, I felt disconnected from both Hannah Bridges and Hannah Horn. During the first months of marriage, the Name Question made me feel like I was clinging to a piece of driftwood between two ships. I had to swim toward one, but was uncertain of which. 

That analogy sounds dramatic, but there was something gently and eternally unsettling about not knowing my name. I would introduce myself as Hannah Horn, or say “Hannah Bridges” and then correct myself, or say, “Call me Hannah Horn since I just got married, but I might not end up officially changing it from Bridges. I don’t know. I’ll respond to either.” This is a disturbing symptom of the endless confusion that comes with being a woman in America. What was once the most simple and irrefutable fact of my existence was now up for debate. 

My ticket number came on the TV screen at the social security office. I walked up to a kiosk, made “Bridges” a second middle name and “Horn” a last name, and went home. 

I told Robby that night. I brought out champagne. I was going to surprise him with my social security card—he didn’t know  that I had decided on officially changing my name—but the card would take three weeks to arrive in the mail, and I couldn’t wait that long. When I told him, he teared up a little and we held each other on the couch for a long time.

*

I made a new email with the name “Horn,” changed my social media profiles to “Hannah Bridges Horn,” and started introducing myself with my new last name. I figured if I started acting like it was my name, the little bubbles of uncertainty would subside.

Still, I kept finding reasons to not change the name on my license, bank account, and passport. I used air travel as an excuse (“I’d have to pay to change the name on my ticket”), then COVID (“Is the DMV even open?”), but eventually had to admit that I was dragging my feet. Horn didn’t feel right, but Bridges didn’t really, either.

“Buddy,” Robby told me, “just do what makes you happy.” It had been three years since our conversation at Piedmont Park. I think that Robby’s opinion on the matter had evolved from “I’d love for you to be a Horn, but it’s your call” in part because he witnessed the stress the decision put on me. He and I both understood that what we were called and our commitment to our marriage were separate things.

“I wish I knew what felt right,” I told him. “I just want a single moment of clarity.”

*

Two days ago, on June 27th, I went to Fort Fisher, a beach near Wilmington that wraps around a point. The beach is separated from the road by a barrier of boulders. I climbed over the rocks, spread out a blanket, and took a few books out of my bag. It was the two year anniversary of my little brother’s death, and I had come here to mourn and think.

One of the books I brought was called Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The book is sixty pages and the size of my hand. It’s a letter to the author’s friend, who had asked the author how to raise her child feminist. I had read it years ago and couldn’t recall much of it, but remembered it being an easy, soothing read. I opened it and leaned against a boulder. In between chapters, I swam in the ocean and thought about Stewart. 

The day felt light. Usually, Stewart’s birthday and the anniversary of his passing take slogging through, but I approached this day with a sense of purpose. I thought about how much I missed him, about where he was, about whether he could hear me. The Atlantic makes me feel closer to him because it touches Liberia, where Stewart was born, died, and is buried. 

I returned from the ocean and read a paragraph from Adichie’s seventh suggestion, which referred to marriage. It said:

The truth is that I have not kept my name because I am successful. Had I not had the good fortune to be published and widely read, I would still have kept my name. I have kept my name because it is my name. I have kept my name because I like my name.

There are people who say “Well, your name is also about patriarchy because it is your father’s name.” Indeed. But the point is simply this: Whether it came from my father or from the moon, it is the name that I have had since I was born, the name with which I traveled my life’s milestones, the name I have answered to since that first day I went to kindergarten on a hazy morning and my teacher said, “Answer ‘present’ if you hear your name. Number one: Adichie!”

Something inside me lit up. It was powered by thoughts about my brother and my family and my long-standing yearning for clarity. I wanted to be Hannah Bridges simply because it was my name. Phonetics and culture and feminst theory aside, it was what I had been called for my whole life, and I liked it. For the first time in two years, my name felt right.

I told Robby when I got home. He smiled.

“I’m glad you made a decision, buddy,” he said. “I know that was weighing on you.” 

I told him I wanted to make Horn a middle name. I asked if he’d be willing to make Bridges one of his middle names. He said he would.

*

From the day Robby proposed, it took me 765 days to decide to change my name. It took me 163 days to decide to change it back. I’ve heard of a couple women who initially kept their names and then switched to their husband’s names later in the marriage, but I had never heard of someone changing their name, then taking their maiden name back. I worried what people would think. Would they assume that Robby and I were having serious problems? That I had “one foot out” of the marriage? That we were separating?

I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter. I managed to do something rare: I carved out a moment where I could hear what I really needed. It took a long time, but the process reacquainted me with a truth that I frequently forget: I’m allowed to change my mind. I am always able to change my mind.

Image Credits

Wedding Photos, Blue Bend Photography

“Rocks protect Fort Fisher,” carolinabeach.com