The Name Game: Would You Take Your Husband’s Name When You Get Married?

Today FM’s Mairead Farrell came out this week and said she will be taking her husband’s name when they tie the knot tomorrow, which started a heated debate in the office – pretty much the same one we had when George and Amal got married. Some of us gals are staunchly anti name-changing, while others are traditionalists through and through – so what’s the argument? We talk for and against.

STELLAR Deputy Editor, Rosemary Mac Cabe: NO

If my future husband has an issue, he can feel free to take my name.

I’m neither married or engaged, so this could end up being a moot point – but there’s no way I’d take my husband’s name. I’ve spent the last 30 years teaching people to spell my own, imagine putting that hard work to waste!

In all seriousness, though, I think it’s old-fashioned and archaic. I’m not planning on changing identity just because I get married, and I don’t see why I would take a man’s name, any more than he would take mine. If my future husband has an issue with us not having a unified, family name – isn’t that one of the big arguments? – he can feel free to take mine.

I have a boatload of friends who’ve changed theirs, or gone for the double barrel, but I just don’t see the rationale, or the appeal. When people say that it’s a tradition, I say, well, at one point so was getting a dowry for a wife, or losing your job after you get married.

I think it’s time to lose old-fashioned traditions that are clearly sexist, and move on – keeping my name would be recognising that I’m as valuable an individual as my husband is, and that his surname carries no more weight than my own.

TV Now Art Director, Grazyna Trybula: YES

When you have the same names, you’re on the same wavelength.

I believe that names have an energy – a kind of synergy, so that when you have the same names, you’re on the same wavelength.

You know, two people with the same name – in my experience, with friends and family members, it creates a more harmonious relationship.

STELLAR Junior Designer, Katie Gilligan: YES

If you’re going to get married, you may as well go the whole whack.

Yes, I’d take his name – but it probably depends on how much I liked it! I’d go double barrel though, because there aren’t any boys in my family so I’d like to keep the name going. If we all change our name, there’ll be no more left – and I’d like my kids to be double barrel, too.

I think it’s nice to take your husband’s name – if you’re going to get married, you may as well go the whole whack. It’s a thing you share, a bonding thing.

I don’t know any couples where the man has taken the woman’s name – it’s never been that way. If he wanted to, cool, but if he doesn’t, grand.

I’ve three friends who are married, but they’re all double barrel, so they’ve kept their names and taken his.

Pics credit: VIP Ireland

• Amal Clooney
• Engagement
• George Clooney
• Mairead Farrell
• Wedding