Imagine you get divorced
"Oh hey Janet"
"It's Robert now"
In most of the Spanish speaking countries, children take the first surname of each parent, and they never change their name. You can even choose the order in which they appear, although it's nearly always the father's surname first. Spanish naming customs
It'd be interesting if men took on their wife's first name, so it would immediately indicate to others if a man was married or not. And then there'd be pushback, in the same way there is to the 'Mrs' and 'Miss' titles, and parents would start naming their sons with female names to start with. (it works less well the other way around, because there's already girls called 'Dylan' and 'Taylor', etc).
Plenty of guys named Kelly or Ashley or Avery or Morgan, already.
Well those are all historically guys names AFAIK.
Well, yeah. Dunno how popular those names still are though. There's also androgynous-sounding name like 'Alex' or 'Andy, of course, but I figured that the general idea was to take a flight of fancy and riff on it, not shoot it down from the skies.
Until the 1950s, by law in Hungary the wives would take the husband's full name. Júlia Kovacs would marry András Boráros and become Andrásné Broráros. Sexist and incredibly silly in my opinion.
Nowadays they can chose to keep their name, change it fully or change their last name. I still find a lot of women that change their names fully and it's so confusing.
From 2004, men can also chose to change their names on the same rules.
Two teachers at my high school got married and both of them changed their full names. They chose a last name to share- after a saint they both resonated with, and each chose new first and middle names. They felt it marked the new chapter in their lives, that as they became one, they were both new people. They were both the young, cute, cool teachers that everyone had crushes on so we all thought it was super creative and cool.
In this world I suppose we'd start referring to people by last names more often
Yeah all you've done is put the family name first. Which is already a thing in some parts of the world.
Americans already have a confusing number of unisex names, so why not make all names unisex. The gender noun confusion clearly isn’t enough, so why not max out the potential confusion you can create.
Any name is already unisex, it just depends how many people it’s applied to. Look at older names like Ashley and Taylor.
I second your proposal. Just call them all „Bart“ and „ Maggie“ if female
Why stop there. Just keep on using all the usual names, but make them all unisex.
For example, if Tony is texting to Anna, He will have no idea if Anna is a he or she until they meet face to face. Also, Anna might be expecting to meet a woman, but will be surprised to find that Tony is actually a guy. Then, Anna tells Tony, that they should really talk to Karen for some weight lifting tips because he’s been lifting for years.
Sounds confusing, but you’ll actually know who is married and who is still single. Pretty handy, eh?
Gay men: Hi I’m Bill Steve and this is my husband Steve Bill.
Oh no, one of them is always going to roll off the tongue better than the other :(
Here's one example of this system in use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_name
Edit - I realize I probably misunderstood the question. But as said in another comment, it's just a swap if we're not talking about patronymic/matronymic naming systems.
Naww it wasn't a question, my dude. It was a shower thought. A silly random idea that spurs some entertainment of thoughts and scenarios. But thanks! <3
Turns out Iceland was Arab all along (this system is also what people use in the Arab world).
Used to be wives were referred to as "Mrs. (Husband's Name)".
Though I'd think anyone calling my wife "Mrs. jordanlund" would be swiftly killed and nobody would find the body.
Its still pretty common in wedding services to announce the couple as "Mr and Mrs [Man Name]". Even seen it when the bride isnt taking the husbands surname.
My partner and I hate it as well.
About a year after I got married, my buddy Spider was over for dinner.
We were in the kitchen doing prep as a group, because it's fun. Spider, being a fuckwit, decides to start calling my wife Mrs Sasquatch (sasquatch being one of my nicknames).
She glared at him the first time and said "I have even less body hair than you, Mr I wish I was cool"
Which got plenty of laughter all around.
By the fifth or sixth time, Spider had run the joke into the ground as usual. He asks if Mrs Squatch could hand him the eggs. So she did. Right to the face.
Which got plenty of laughter all around tbh. Spider may be a twat, but he takes as well as he dishes out.
That's still a thing although it's a dated practice and I only ever see it in very specific formal situations (wedding invites, obituaries, etc.)
I call my wife Mrs Bizzle all the time, she hates it
What if we did like Quebec instead and didn't take anybody's name.... Remain your own person. Enough with this antiquated BS.
I think the reality is it should be up to the individuals to decide whatever the hell they want to do. It’s totally fine if a woman wants to take her husbands name. And equally fine for her not to. Vice versa as well, no reason the husband can’t make that decision.
