Monday, June 06, 2005
(8:59 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Proposed Uniform Naming Conventions
I have come up with a new name-combining scheme that addresses feminist concerns and reduces the confusion of our current haphazard system.Let's say that two people get married: Anthony Smith and Hayley Kramer. When they marry, both append the other's last name to their own: Anthony Smith-Kramer and Hayley Kramer-Smith. Children take the last name that corresponds to the parent of the same sex; in the case of a hermaphroditic child, the last names are put in alphabetical order. If we mandate this for every marriage starting tomorrow, within a generation, everyone will have a doubled last name. This is at least as manageable as the Russian system.
So, okay, the real genius comes in the second generation. Let's say that Anthony and Hayley have two children, Naomi Kramer-Smith and Paul Smith-Kramer. Let's say that Naomi falls in love with Adam Kotsko-Wehrli and they decide to get married. When the time comes to combine their names, they drop off the last name of the parent of the opposite sex and combine it with the name of their partner's same-sex parent -- hence, in this example, Adam Kotsko-Kramer and Naomi Kramer-Kotsko. If Paul were to marry Adam's sister, Hannah Wehrli-Kotsko, we would end up with Hannah Wehrli-Smith and Paul Smith-Wehrli.
This removes the purely paternal naming function. Under the current system, even if the woman keeps her own name, she is still keeping a name handed down to her from a man. In this system, before marriage every person has a dual last name handed down from both parents, and after marriage, both partners take the other's name, symbolizing the creation of a new family unit out of the two, and both partners still have a dual last name handed down from both genders.
Adopted children could, in the case of heterosexual couples, take the names of the parents. Children for whom the father is unknown could simply take the dual name of their mother, which would still allow them to have a name inherited from each gender.
In the event that gay marriage is legalized, certain complications could arise. The partners would still take each other's primary last names (i.e., the primary last name of the same-sex parent), but the problem comes with adopted children. It may sound biased to say that children can only take their adopted parents' names in the case of heterosexual couples, but the goal here is to have a name that comes down from people of each gender. I want to eliminate the element of choice as much as possible here, so the rule should be -- the children should inherit their names from their biological parents, with the exception noted above for when the father is unknown.
In cases of artificial insemination in the context of a same-sex couple, this will be the rule. The member of the partnership who is contributing the genetic material contributes his or her same-sex (primary) name to be the name corresponding to that sex for the child. So let's say it's a male couple, Glenn Reynolds-Sullivan and Andrew Sullivan-Reynolds, and Glenn contributes the sperm to the surrogate mother -- then the "male" name for the child would be Reynolds. The name corresponding to the opposite sex would be the other partner's (dropped) opposite-sex name. So if Andrew Sullivan-Reynolds's "maiden" name were Andrew Sullivan-Sontag, the "female" name for the child would be Sontag. Thus, if the child were a boy, his last name would be Reynolds-Sontag; if a girl, Sontag-Reynolds.
If they ever develop a technology in which the genetic material from both partners in a same-sex couple can be combined as though it were a heterosexual couple, that would completely mess up the whole system, but since that technology doesn't exist, I don't have to take it into account.
In case of divorce, one reverts to one's "maiden" name. Children born out of wedlock are named as if their parents had been married, or if the father is unknown, then the child takes the mother's name.
Names can only be changed through marriage. The convention of giving "middle names" is eliminated.
I believe this to be a completely bullet-proof way of creating a uniform system of naming that averts the arbitrarity and confusion of the current system while addressing the genuine concerns for gender equity in the inheritance of names. While it may perhaps enforce heteronormativity, one will note that in cases of artificial insemination in a same-sex couple, one can inherit a male name from a female parent, or vice-versa. In fact, if we remove my strict requirement that there be no element of choice in this system whatsoever, then the obvious solution in the case of a same-sex couple adopting a normally conceived child is for one partner to contribute a male name and one a female name (based off each partner's "maiden" name). I do think that it is important for people not to have discretion on such matters, however, just as I think that it's important for people never to be allowed to write their own wedding vows.
