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I feel for her. My wife was in the exact same situation, like almost everyone in her home country she had just one given name. When we moved here to the states

I feel for her. My wife was in the exact same situation, like almost everyone in her home country she had just one given name. When we moved here to the states she found it highly annoying and even limited some opportunities. Recently she decided to legally change her name to something that fits in better here. Although it has been an emotional decision for her, she felt she had to as it's very hard to live in the US without a first and last name. Edit: "Annoying" doesn't even begin to cover her experience. Everything from getting a bank account, to buying a car, to getting a marriage license was a whole process of explaining until we were blue in the face, escalating to a manager, being told basically to get lost, etc. etc.. It left her in tears more than once.

Thorentis 6y ago
Why wouldn't she just use your last name when you got married? Seems like a pretty simple solution.
- packet_nerd 6y ago
  Burmese women (she's Burmese) aren't used to changing their names at marriage and she found the practice demeaning. We never really considered it beforehand. But, I think if she had fully realized at the time how hard it would be to live here with one name, then yes, she would have taken my last name. You live and learn.
- wtmt 6y ago
  I don’t get why people still take it for granted that a woman should change her name on getting married and use the husband’s name. People should have the names assigned to them at birth or whatever they’ve changed it to as per their wish. I personally find the changing of names on marriage as an erasure of identity, even if the person is ok with it because of internalization or cultural conditioning.
  - Uberphallus 6y ago
    I find it actually demeaning, but people often couldn't care less. There are laws in France from revolution times [0] that basically set your name in stone because anyone using whatever name they liked without need for any paper trail basically cause administrative and bureaucratic hell. But nowadays even the administration works around that to comply with the tradition with things like "nom d'usage" (you can see it as "lastname nickname"), which is basically allowing you to use another name for non-legal purposes, but people still think it's legal and shove it in every form as regular "nom". I repeatedly heard from people working in HR that a significant amount of the questions they get the first few months of employees are just (married) women complaining about their last name "being wrong" on their payslips simply because they think that's no longer their legal name though it is. [0] Loi du 6 fructidor an II (August 23rd 1794), liberal translation of article 1: no citizen will carry any other name than that of the birth certificate.
    - mgbmtl 6y ago
      In Quebec, changing your last name is not permitted since the 70s. So when non-English-speaking people use the same family name, we tend to assume they are siblings.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - inopinatus 6y ago
    The comment you're responding comes from someone who in another thread demanded that global names for other things conform to their own culturally-specific and creatively exsanguinated expectations. Earlier in their comment history you can find them complaining about "South Asians" and justifying casual racism by claiming they "optimise for efficiency". Another page or two back, and they're describing sex as an obligation of marriage. The point being, reactionary bigots tend to out themselves, and that's the obnoxious worldview driving by here. Erasure of someone's identity in conformance to external expectations is something that - remarkably - remains a thriving and actively promoted idea. This makes it all the more important to confront and openly, firmly reject.
- powersnail 6y ago
  > Seems like a pretty simple solution So is changing her name. But people shouldn't need to do gymnastics for such a trifling matter. This is like cutting a foot to fit a shoe. Cultures have different naming conventions, and not all cultures pressure women to take names from husbands. The real simple solution is to accept that the common ground of name form is a string. One string.
  - wolfhumble 6y ago
    If you move to another country I am of the opinion that you should have a certain respect for the conventions of the welcoming country. So you might not agree with their naming conventions, but why should I expect the country to change just because I show up on the scene? In an English speaking county, having a separate surname aids in sorting and presentation of family unities. The character set is typically A-Z. In Spain e.g. one expects a person the have two surnames. The default — but this can be changed – is that first name is from the father and the second one from the mother. By looking at the order of your name you can get information about family structures. Character set is A-Z + Ñ + umlauts and accent marks. Going to an English speaking country I could expect them to spell my first name correctly; but since it contains a character outside A-Z I change my name to comply with their modus operandi. Yes, their computer system probably supports UTF8, but most people have never heard of this character and you won't find it on their keyboard. No problem, I change my name to comply with their system. In Spain official forms often expect two surnames and certain characters. No problem, I use an extra hyphen, change my name, use my middle name as a surname or whatever makes the system happy. Is it perfect? No. Does it really matter? No. So I just respect their customs and get on with my life as a respectful guest in the country where I am living.
    - packet_nerd 6y ago
      If it's a government office or some service that only serves people from one country, then sure whatever, be a hard-ass if that's what you want to do. The problem is it's every SaaS online service in the world many of which happily do business in Myanmar. You can't just tell an entire country with its own unique culture and 50 million citizens "FU, you're wrong", and when you do, it's you that's wrong not them! Everyone from Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, to federated platforms like Matrix or Mastadon, to developer tools, to every forum on the Internet [1] requires a first and last name! These platforms have literally millions of users or customers around the world - and at least one entire country - that don't fit the <first> <last> mold and I find it highly disrespectful to force it on them like this. [1] My info might be out of date on some of these as I've been out of the country and not paid much attention for a few years. I would hope that by now at least some of these big multinational companies would get it right. However, suffice it to say, the vast majority of SaaS platforms today are disrespectful to people with one name.

Thorentis 6y ago

Why wouldn't she just use your last name when you got married? Seems like a pretty simple solution.

packet_nerd 6y ago
Burmese women (she's Burmese) aren't used to changing their names at marriage and she found the practice demeaning. We never really considered it beforehand. But, I think if she had fully realized at the time how hard it would be to live here with one name, then yes, she would have taken my last name. You live and learn.
wtmt 6y ago
I don’t get why people still take it for granted that a woman should change her name on getting married and use the husband’s name. People should have the names assigned to them at birth or whatever they’ve changed it to as per their wish. I personally find the changing of names on marriage as an erasure of identity, even if the person is ok with it because of internalization or cultural conditioning.
- Uberphallus 6y ago
  I find it actually demeaning, but people often couldn't care less. There are laws in France from revolution times [0] that basically set your name in stone because anyone using whatever name they liked without need for any paper trail basically cause administrative and bureaucratic hell. But nowadays even the administration works around that to comply with the tradition with things like "nom d'usage" (you can see it as "lastname nickname"), which is basically allowing you to use another name for non-legal purposes, but people still think it's legal and shove it in every form as regular "nom". I repeatedly heard from people working in HR that a significant amount of the questions they get the first few months of employees are just (married) women complaining about their last name "being wrong" on their payslips simply because they think that's no longer their legal name though it is. [0] Loi du 6 fructidor an II (August 23rd 1794), liberal translation of article 1: no citizen will carry any other name than that of the birth certificate.
  - mgbmtl 6y ago
    In Quebec, changing your last name is not permitted since the 70s. So when non-English-speaking people use the same family name, we tend to assume they are siblings.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- inopinatus 6y ago
  The comment you're responding comes from someone who in another thread demanded that global names for other things conform to their own culturally-specific and creatively exsanguinated expectations. Earlier in their comment history you can find them complaining about "South Asians" and justifying casual racism by claiming they "optimise for efficiency". Another page or two back, and they're describing sex as an obligation of marriage. The point being, reactionary bigots tend to out themselves, and that's the obnoxious worldview driving by here. Erasure of someone's identity in conformance to external expectations is something that - remarkably - remains a thriving and actively promoted idea. This makes it all the more important to confront and openly, firmly reject.
powersnail 6y ago
> Seems like a pretty simple solution So is changing her name. But people shouldn't need to do gymnastics for such a trifling matter. This is like cutting a foot to fit a shoe. Cultures have different naming conventions, and not all cultures pressure women to take names from husbands. The real simple solution is to accept that the common ground of name form is a string. One string.
- wolfhumble 6y ago
  If you move to another country I am of the opinion that you should have a certain respect for the conventions of the welcoming country. So you might not agree with their naming conventions, but why should I expect the country to change just because I show up on the scene? In an English speaking county, having a separate surname aids in sorting and presentation of family unities. The character set is typically A-Z. In Spain e.g. one expects a person the have two surnames. The default — but this can be changed – is that first name is from the father and the second one from the mother. By looking at the order of your name you can get information about family structures. Character set is A-Z + Ñ + umlauts and accent marks. Going to an English speaking country I could expect them to spell my first name correctly; but since it contains a character outside A-Z I change my name to comply with their modus operandi. Yes, their computer system probably supports UTF8, but most people have never heard of this character and you won't find it on their keyboard. No problem, I change my name to comply with their system. In Spain official forms often expect two surnames and certain characters. No problem, I use an extra hyphen, change my name, use my middle name as a surname or whatever makes the system happy. Is it perfect? No. Does it really matter? No. So I just respect their customs and get on with my life as a respectful guest in the country where I am living.
  - packet_nerd 6y ago
    If it's a government office or some service that only serves people from one country, then sure whatever, be a hard-ass if that's what you want to do. The problem is it's every SaaS online service in the world many of which happily do business in Myanmar. You can't just tell an entire country with its own unique culture and 50 million citizens "FU, you're wrong", and when you do, it's you that's wrong not them! Everyone from Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, to federated platforms like Matrix or Mastadon, to developer tools, to every forum on the Internet [1] requires a first and last name! These platforms have literally millions of users or customers around the world - and at least one entire country - that don't fit the <first> <last> mold and I find it highly disrespectful to force it on them like this. [1] My info might be out of date on some of these as I've been out of the country and not paid much attention for a few years. I would hope that by now at least some of these big multinational companies would get it right. However, suffice it to say, the vast majority of SaaS platforms today are disrespectful to people with one name.