{"id":88111,"date":"2015-07-23T15:50:06","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T19:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=88111"},"modified":"2015-07-23T15:53:11","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T19:53:11","slug":"steins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/23\/steins\/","title":{"rendered":"Steins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/steins.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-88122\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/steins.png\" alt=\"steins\" width=\"600\" height=\"390\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/steins.png 600w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/steins-300x195.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a>Here are the things you hear most often when you announce plans to marry someone who happens to have the same last name:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>That\u2019s convenient!<\/li>\n<li>Guess you won\u2019t have to change your name!<\/li>\n<li>Are you changing your name?<\/li>\n<li>Is he taking your name?<\/li>\n<li>Are you hyphenating?<\/li>\n<li>Are you related?<\/li>\n<li>I bet you\u2019re sick of everyone joking about your having the same name!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Not remarking on this seems to be completely out of the question. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not that I mind these jokes: they\u2019re all so totally hilarious! And I understand the human need to fill space with words. What\u2019s both noteworthy and somehow inspiring is the sense of delighted discovery each person brings to his variation, as if he is the first one to notice this amazing coincidence. Did Eleanor Roosevelt have to deal with such nonsense? I occasionally fume.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, it\u2019s funny. But given how common <em>Stein<\/em> is\u2014one of those Ashkenazi catchalls hundreds of families took in the nineteenth century\u2014it doesn\u2019t seem like that big a deal, certainly not in New York. And for those who are counting, our forebears didn\u2019t even come from the same part of Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, I embrace the name thing when it suits me. \u201cCheers! Love the Steins,\u201d reads the little card accompanying the pair of miniature beer steins given to out-of-town relatives. \u201c#\ud83c\udf7b,\u201d I write on Instagram. \u201cThe bride will continue to use her name professionally,\u201d I wrote on our wedding announcement.<\/p>\n<p>The truth is, it <em>is<\/em> convenient. It spares me a lot of decision making, plenty of paperwork, and a potential identity crisis. I promised my father years ago I\u2019d never change my name\u2014and given that my mother still goes by her maiden name, it had always seemed like an obvious choice for me. And yet, when we went to City Hall to get our license and the electronic form for Spouse A was on the screen before me, I read the words, \u201cWill you be changing your name?\u201d and decisively checked the box marked <small>YES<\/small>. To what? Stein.<\/p>\n<p>Marriage, I am told, is all about compromise. Or at least, baby steps.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review<em> and the <\/em>Daily<em>\u2019s correspondent. She\u2019s off next week.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here are the things you hear most often when you announce plans to marry someone who happens to have the same last name: That\u2019s convenient! Guess you won\u2019t have to change your name! Are you changing your name? Is he taking your name? Are you hyphenating? Are you related? I bet you\u2019re sick of everyone [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[18900,11571,18899,657,18897,18898,18875,604],"class_list":["post-88111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-city-hall","tag-jokes","tag-last-names","tag-marriage","tag-stein","tag-steins","tag-surnames","tag-weddings"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>When You Marry Someone Who Has the Same Last Name<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on the union of two Steins.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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