Should You Change Your Name When You Get Married?

Over two years ago, a close friend of mine named Nathaniel Porter took me to a restaurant called 1789 in D.C. for our first date because he said we were the most perfect union since 1789. The U.S. Constitution went into effect that year and, in case you're wondering, we are both lawyers.

He booked it under "Maranwe" because we'd joked that would be a good married name. "Maranwe" means destiny in Quenya, which is a fictional language J.R.R. Tolkien developed for Lord of the Rings. I had always wanted a last name that was fancy and fantastical and I wanted my initials to stay "IM." We vetoed Mairon, Sauron's original name.

Today, I am Isvari Mohan Maranwe.

I have been for over six months, actually. I've just sort of been inactive on LinkedIn.

Look, I was Isvari Mohan for a very long time. Since December of 1996, actually. Back when Bill Clinton was President. Back before emails and social media and smartphones.

Both my undergraduate and law school diplomas say "Isvari Mohan." My 300,000+ followers here know me as "Isvari Mohan" and so do all my friends.

But my plan was never to stay that way. After about a couple years of leaving the "Mohan" in the middle, I think I'll go by "Isvari Maranwe" or the mononym: just "Isvari."

Many people assumed that I wasn't a feminist or that I was hooked on outdated traditions. Others pointed out that it would hurt my SEO and that it was unpractical. Maybe it was even betraying my culture because "Maranwe" isn't an Indian name.

Unsurprisingly, all these concerns vanished when we were talking about my husband changing his name. Then it became modern, cool, deliberate.

When we figured out how to change our names, we realized that though I could easily change my name to his, it was much harder to change it to a new name. In many places, it's harder for the husband to change his name than for the wife to.

So, for ease, he went to a court and got his name changed months before we got married. And I did the simple act of technically "taking his name."

There's a lot of debate in the professional world on changing your name, especially in the Internet age.

It hurts how search engines find you. It complicates work papers and credit cards and licenses. By the time most people get married, their entire network knows them by one name.

For me, these weren't huge concerns. Both my names are very unique; we own both www.isvari.com (my website) and www.maranwe.com (our wedding website, now his). You can find me by my first name. I'm lazy and the paperwork is daunting, but not challenging. I always knew I wanted a new last name, especially as my father goes by "Mohan," so it's kind of his first name.

I did care what our professional contacts would think, though. According to the New York Times, 20 percent of women keep their maiden names. Wealthier working women, especially those with established careers, are even less likely to change their names. Birth names are often seen as your real identity and I've seen celebrities, like Priyanka Chopra Jonas, get blasted for their name change. Meanwhile, fewer than 3% of men take their wife's name. It looked like both me changing my name and Nathan changing his were questionable decisions in society's eyes.

But according to the Atlantic, a study in 2011 said that seventy-two percent of adults believed a woman should give up her maiden name when she gets married. Half of those who responded thought it should be a legal requirement, not a choice (leaving me very grateful for the existence of the aforementioned Constitution that protects that choice). So there's a lot of unfair pressure the other way too.

How did I make my decision?

Well, Nathan and I were engaged with Elvish-looking rings in New Zealand, including a proposal in Elvish with an Elvish translation of a Star Wars quote and a proposal in Hobbiton. Our wedding rings look Elvish and our wedding reception included a Lord of the Rings mafia game that the Hobbits won.

We wear replicas of the One Ring from Lord of the Rings on our fingers. His ring was a gift from me back when we were friends that has the text translated into Klingon and transliterated back into Tengwar. Mine was a gift from my mom and my sister from before Nathan and I were a couple. One of our coolest wedding presents was this sword, a replica of Anduril. I don't even know how many times we've watched the movies.

For others, it may be a professional, a social, or even a political choice.

For me, it was a matter of love. And nerdiness.

Did you change your name when you got married? Do you think others should? Does it matter if they are women or men?

Comment below!

Isvari is an author, columnist, singer, and ex-physicist, who has a day job as a lawyer for the National Commission on Service.

Her novel, The Eyes of Mikra, is about a spy with amnesia who's figured everything out about the war she's fighting, but nothing about who she really is. Available, like everything else in the world, on Amazon.

If you want to be featured on her new advice series, message her with #AskIsvari!