What is in a name? Women have the answer.
Issue #110: Women and children's surnames are the eminent priorities in Indian families and bureaucracy
Note: This post includes stories published in an older post. I have repurposed them due to the relevance of the issue in the current context. If you became a Womaning subscriber in the last two years, it is new for you anyway so read on.
Hello ji,
A recent government notification has mandated that if a married woman wishes to obtain a maiden surname, she will have to submit:
either a copy of a decree of divorce;
or a no-objection certificate from her husband, that he has no objection if she uses her maiden surname.
Which brings me to this - my name is Mahima Vashisht - or least it was until I read this news.
Of course, my Hon’ble Husband did not hand me a certificate this morning as I hand-fed him breakfast, gently wiped his mouth with the pallu of my saari, washed his feet, and drank that holy water, praying that I get to serve him seven lifetimes.
So I guess I am a criminal now.
My husband’s name is <husbandname> <husbandsurname>.
My child’s name is <childname> Vashisht <husbandsurname>.
These were conscious calls that we took after a lot of discussion during the pregnancy. We expected some serious pushback, on both - me retaining my surname after our marriage, and our kid having both our surnames.
But surprisingly and thankfully, the most pushback we have gotten so far has been one of our parents constantly asking if our kid’s kid will have four surnames.
To which, my answer is that maybe we can leave that problem for the kid to solve. Along with climate change and all those other minor kinks we expect them to iron out in the perfect world we are leaving them.
And as minor as the problem of our names and surnames appears when juxtaposed with Armageddon, I still wanted to take a closer look at it.
Just in case some Hon’ble Justices of the High Court are reading.
Note: For the purpose of this piece, I am going with the time-honoured Bihari tradition of communicating caste through surnames by using a first name as a surname.
In the following stories, I am using the surname “Suman” for all the women and “Prasad” for all the men.
Aajkal ki ladkiyaan and their new-fangled notions
Kritika Suman was always sure that she would not change her surname after marriage. Luckily, everyone in her family and her husband Rajan Prasad’s family accepted her decision without protest.
But Maharashtra has a strange crush on forcing the fathers’ surname on kids. As a resident of Mumbai, Kritika was aware of this.
“Even though I did not change my name, I had heard how ridiculous Maharashtra government officials can be when it comes to naming babies (and even mothers on the babies’ birth certificates!) They want - not just the husband’s surname - but also his first name to be the middle name for both - the wife and the child.
Even to book an appointment at the hospital, I was supposed to give my full name with my husband’s name as my middle name. So my hospital’s database had my name as Kritika Rajan Suman - a name which matches none of my documents!
One of my bosses at work had not changed her surname after marriage and was asked to show her marriage certificate at a leading maternity hospital in Mumbai, in order to prove that she was indeed the mother of - her husband’s child - the baby she had just delivered!”
Well familiar with the insanity she could encounter, Kritika went in prepared not just to give birth, but also for the Battle of the Documents.
“I was prepared for everything. I packed my Marriage Certificate in my Maternity Bag. I told the maternity ward nurse multiple times that I have not changed my surname. We asked them to match spellings with our Aadhar cards and got the birth certificate form checked by my husband before it was sent to Municipal Corporation.
We also did not want ‘Rajan’ as our daughter’s middle name. My father - who went to the Municipal Corporation office for the birth certificate - had to fight quite the paperwork battle. They actually made him call us in front of them to confirm that we really wanted to make this ‘odd request’.”
And while she finally won the Battle of the Documents, she could not escape without the hospital nurses firing some piercing arrows of good-old societal judgment in her direction.
“The nurses made comments like ‘Aajkal ki ladkiyaan (girls these days)… these girls have stopped following our culture’. I was frankly in too much pain after the birth to pursue the argument with them.”
Will accept any reason except your right to choose your name
Amrita Suman grew up in a Maharashtrian household where a woman changing her surname after marriage is the norm.
“I didn't think of it as regressive or patriarchal. I simply accepted it as something one does - like driving on the left side of the road. So when I got married, I assumed I will change my surname to my husband’s. However, my husband and I are both big believers in Newton's first law of motion - we both continue to be in a state of rest until acted upon by an external force.
So we decided that an external event would trigger the official change of my surname - maybe the marriage registration, or the need to renew my passport... Both events came and went but the surname change was not really required in our city.”
A few years back, Amrita was blessed with a baby daughter.
“When the time came to file for her birth certificate, I knew it was ‘now or never’ for my own surname change. So, I filled in Amrita Prasad instead of Amrita Suman as the mother’s name on her birth certificate.
Truth be told, I felt a strong pain in letting go of my surname. I had had many years of marriage to prepare myself for the change. It was my decision too - aside from the fact that I was conditioned by society since birth to make me think this was my decision. But I was sadder than I had expected to be.
I am a marketing professional. The importance of branding is drilled into our heads. Wasn't my name my 'brand'? I had built this brand over the years with great care. How could I let it go now with one signature?”
But the deed was done.
“Amrita Prasad was the mother in my child's birth certificate, not Amrita Suman. The name I had lived with and identified with all my life was not even there on my daughter’s first document. We brought the baby home. I didn't know it at the time, but I was bitter for having to let go of my identity.”
Meanwhile, Amrita’s husband began the paperwork for changing her name everywhere.
“He quickly realized that changing all my documents was an unnecessary burden for him. We talked about it and decided together that I better remain Amrita Suman for life.”
This began a somewhat comical process of un-changing her surname on the baby’s birth certificate, back to Amrita Suman.
“It involved sitting in the Municipality office for 4-5 hours to get the birth certificate corrected. I must mention the awkward few minutes when the officer triple-checked with me that I was reverting to my maiden name, and not vice versa.”
To dodge societal judgment, Amrita even went prepared with a fake cover story for the strange request.
“I wanted to avoid the usual ‘aajkal ki ladkiyaan’ lecture that government officials give in these situations. So I lied that I had to travel with the baby urgently, and had no time to change my name on my passport.
I thought it was a terrible cover story. But, as long as they did not think I was exercising my basic human right to choose my own name, they seemed quite happy to accept any other reason. So I was spared the sermon and came back home Amrita Suman once again.”
“Change your name on Facebook to buy peace”
When Preeti Suman and her husband Ayansh Prasad were expecting, they decided together that their child would carry both their surnames.
“There were a number of conversations at home, and it took quite some time for my in-laws to digest it. But they were never too happy about it. We had a son, and that seemed to make it worse for them.
The 'khandaan' somehow gets tarnished when the male member does not carry forward the surname.
‘Khandaan ka naam kaise aage badhega?’ (How will the family name be carried forward?)
‘Will his kids be Suman Prasad + his wife's surname?’
‘How will such a long name work?’
All these questions were thrown at us.
However, their underlying question was, ‘Why does the name Suman even exist anymore? It should have died the moment Preeti got married into a Prasad family.’”
Equating her marriage to the death of a woman’s identity did not even strike the family elders as something that deserved a second thought.
The sad fact was that it had taken Preeti a good six months to convince even Ayansh that the child should have both their surnames.
“I had a very difficult pregnancy. He saw me go through extreme pain at close quarters. So, towards the end of the pregnancy, he said, ‘The baby deserves your surname more than mine because you are going through so much to bring him/her into this world. I couldn’t have even imagined this pain and you have borne all of it.’
When I think about what he said, it makes me wonder, ‘What if I had had a "normal" pregnancy? Would he not have let me add my name to the name of the child I had given birth to because I did not suffer enough by his standards?’”
This was not a new battlefront in the family either.
“About nine months after our wedding, we took my parents-in-law to a trip abroad. My father-in-law started telling me how this would be a great opportunity to apply for a surname-change in my passport. I told him that I did not want to change my name. He was enraged. For the first time since I had known him, he screamed at me. It was scary because he is usually a quiet person.
He said, ‘Phir toh shaadi hi nahi karni chahiye thi agar surname khud ka rakhna hai! Agar sab kuch khud ka hi rakhna hai, toh doosre ghar ki bahu bani hi kyu? (If you wanted to retain your surname, you should never have gotten married in the first place. If you wanted everything of your own, why did you become the daughter-in-law of another family?)’
I was very surprised that he thought I needed to sacrifice my sense of self to become a member of their family. I told him, very calmly, ‘Just because I didn't change my surname, doesn't mean I love your son any lesser’.
He was so upset that I ‘talked back’ that he stopped speaking to me for months. Finally, my husband told me, ‘Change your name to ‘Preeti Suman Prasad’ on Facebook so he has his ‘pride’ intact in front of his friends and family on social media. If they see it changed there, they will think you have changed it in your documents as well’.”
Preeti finally gave in and changed her name on Facebook just to buy peace at home.
“Our son’s name is Manav Suman Prasad. My father-in-law knows this but still uses ‘Manav Prasad’ whenever he has to write his name anywhere. Any parcel my parents-in-law send for me is addressed to ‘Preeti Prasad’.”
“Until you change your name, you won’t truly be my son’s wife”
Geeta Suman met Amar Prasad in an arranged marriage setup.
“When it seemed like we were going ahead with the alliance, I told him in very clear terms that I would not change my name after the marriage. I told him point-blank that I was quite ready to not marry him if this relationship would mean that I lose the right over what my own name would be.
Some people thought that I was being too adamant. What the heck! It is my name! How do I not get to decide what it is? I have spent my entire life being called by this name and that means something to me! Amar said he did not care what my surname was, and we went ahead and got married.”
However, things began to change soon after the wedding.
“It turned out that once his parents disapproved of it, he did start to care what my surname was. I faced constant taunts from my parents-in-law for not changing my name to ‘Geeta Prasad’. They would keep picking pointless arguments with me, and would then blame my surname as the root cause of all our arguments.”
Geeta and Amar went on to have a daughter while living in Mumbai. When it was time to register her name, Geeta lost the battle to give her both surnames. She settled for at least not giving her ‘Amar’ as the baby’s middle name, which is the norm in Maharashtra.
“My mother-in-law still thinks that I have not accepted them as a part of my life because I didn't change my surname. I am the mother of her grandchild but she continues to taunt me with statements like, ‘You are a Suman lady. Until you take Prasad as your surname, you won't truly be my son's wife’.
For his part, Amar routinely changes my surname to his in railway/bus bookings without telling me. He adds ‘Geeta Prasad’ as his nominee when registering his assets. It is only in flight bookings where I get to keep my surname because the security authorities ask for an ID proof at the airport and I still haven’t changed my name on my documents.”
“Imagine having your identity wiped out completely”
Poring over some old family documents, Sangeeta realized that her grandmother had had two names.
“I discovered that her name was changed when she married my grandfather. Not her surname, mind you. Her first name.
So ‘Leena Suman’ became ‘Sunita Prasad’. No trace of her original identity remained. I had never questioned this practice of women changing surnames until the day I discovered this and realized how sinister the whole practice is.
I wonder if this tradition began with an arrogant husband or father-in-law deciding to change the bride's name just because he can. Or did the origin lie in the belief that marriage is a woman's rebirth, and should therefore mean a whole new identity? Sometimes it was for really banal reasons - like in my grandmother’s case, where it was the fact that there was already a Leena in my grandfather’s family. So her new name was a way to distinguish her from the ‘original’ Leena of her husband’s family.”
The impact of this practice hit Sangeeta even harder when her Aunt told her the story about her 50th school reunion.
“Some 65-year-old men from her school had gone around, searching for their old classmates on Facebook. They ended up having a great reunion, but mostly with the other men. Most of the women were missing.
My aunt, who was among the few women they found, told me, ‘They just couldn't most girls in our class because who knows what their names and surnames are now?’
Imagine having your entire existence wiped clean. Nobody from your past can even look you up anymore. That thought disturbed me to the core.”
In August 2022, a petition was filed in Delhi High Court by a man. He was estranged from his wife, and their daughter was being raised by his wife alone. Since she was the sole caregiver, the mother of the child went legally changed the daughter’s surname to the mother’s surname. This annoyed the ‘father’ of the child.
Obviously - instead of trying to be a more involved presence in his daughter’s life - the man thought the best course of action would be to drag the mother of his child to court.
The Delhi HC ruled that every child has the right to use his or her mother’s surname and a father can’t dictate terms, adding that, “The father does not own the daughter to dictate that she should use only his surname. If the minor daughter is happy with her surname, what is your problem?”
Truth be told, I am not 100% sure even now about my husband and my decision to have our child carry both our surnames. Mine is a clear caste marker while my husband’s is a native village marker of a place where the family hasn’t lived for several generations.
The ideal solution - if at all there is one - might be to dispense with both parents’ surnames and give the child a fresh one until they are old enough to choose their own.
At which point, of course, they are free to name themselves Princess Consuela Banana Hammock.
“Show me the rule where it says this”
I spoke to Avantika, who has actually done this. Not the Princess thing (sadly!) The neither-parent-surname thing.
“When I was pregnant and we were deciding baby names, I was very clear that the baby should not carry my husband's surname (
Option 1). I was doing all the heavy lifting of bringing the baby into the world, so why should the baby carry his surname? I really don't think that the father’s surname should be used, even in the case of fathers who shoulder the load more or less equally in the later years, the massive tasks of going through pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and most of the early years’ parenting still fall on the mother.
Avantika did not like the idea of having her surname as her child’s middle name either. Option 2.
“I think the mother’s surname as the child’s middle name is just a consolation prize. A feel-good gesture, but nothing substantial. People hardly use their middle name unless required on official documents.”
Even giving the kid her own surname felt to her like perpetuating the same problem. Option 3.
“Even I carry my father’s surname, not my mother’s who was my primary caregiver. So, with my child, I wanted to stop this practice altogether. We decided to give our child an entirely different last name, chosen by us, and one that did not symbolize any religion or caste.” (Option 4, for the win)
Avantika and her husband faced no trouble registering the birth certificate. However, they were supposed to take an international flight soon after the birth of the baby. So her husband went to get the baby’s passport made.
“The passport officer insisted that we should add the father's surname as the baby’s last name. He refused to accept the surname we had picked. He even insisted that my passport too should be updated with ‘Spouse’s Name’ added (though he never insisted the same for my husband’s passport). My husband came back home and told me what had happened.
I was enraged. How could this stranger dictate what we can or cannot name our child?
I was only 10 days postpartum but I asked my husband to take me to the Passport office with him the next day. Once I was there, I demanded that the official show me the government document where this rule is written. After a long argument, he admitted that there is no official rule as such, but he was ‘only telling us this for our benefit’. I told him to mind his own business and we got the name we had chosen on the baby’s passport.”
Avantika for President!
In case any Hon’ble Justices of the Delhi High Court are reading…
In August 2021, a petition was filed in Delhi High Court by a man. He was estranged from his wife, and their daughter was being raised by his wife alone. Since she was the sole caregiver, the mother of the child went legally changed the daughter’s surname to the mother’s surname. This annoyed the ‘father’ of the child.
Obviously - instead of trying to be a more involved presence in his daughter’s life - the man thought the best course of action would be to drag the mother of his child to court.
The Delhi HC ruled that every child has the right to use his or her mother’s surname and a father can’t dictate terms, adding that, “The father does not own the daughter to dictate that she should use only his surname. If the minor daughter is happy with her surname, what is your problem?”
Yours truly,
Princess Mahima Banana Hammock
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In the South, a lot of us don't keep surnames, it is usually just our father's first name, sometimes reduced to just an initial even in official documents. Marriage doesn't change this. I have both my parents' first names as "surnames."
My dead grandmother would think this government notification is some kind of prank on married women.
Nice piece Mahima. As Tamilians, my husband and I have our respective fathers' names as our surname. For our kids (both boys, may I add), we've gone with <first name> <my first name> <husband's first name>- a lot of people raise eyebrows, but this is the only solution that seemed fair to us.