Ernest: Alice, will you marry me?
Alice: Oh, my gosh, yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes! But you're taking my last name.
Ernest: Okay.
Alice: Oh, my gosh, yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes! But you're taking my last name.
Ernest: Okay.
When a couple gets married, the expectation in most cultures is for the wife to take her husband's surname. However, there can be cases where it's the husband who changes his surname. This is very uncommon in many countries around the world, but it's considered more normal in some, such as Japan (where spouses are legally required to have the same surname). It's more notable in western countries descended from French and English imperial culture, as it became the norm in the early modern period for women to take their husband's names so the man can take firmer control of any property she inherited (save some jewelry) and marking the woman's identity having been subsumed into the husband's as part of his property; having established the pattern for centuries, the deviation thus becomes much more significant. In cultures without that tradition, this trope may be absent or go unremarked.
This trope applies when there is a significant reason for the husband changing his surname. Some possible cases are:
- The most common one is difference in social status. If the wife's family is wealthier or more prominent than the husband's (especially if she's royalty and he's a commoner), it's expected for him to marry into the wife's family.
- Related to above, the wife's family owns a Family Business. Therefore, the husband and his children need to have the wife's surname to become potential heirs to the business or fortune.
- The wife is the only successor of her bloodline (again, possibly royalty), in which case the husband may want to preserve her family name.
- They live in a society where matrilineal succession is commonplace or expected.
- The husband has personal issues with his original surname. Either he doesn't want to keep the surname of his Abusive Parents or he has a Dark and Troubled Past that he wishes to leave behind. Alternatively, he didn't like his original surname or didn't have one in the first place.
- The husband must change his surname to hide his identity. He may be a wanted criminal. Maybe his original family name is just recognizable and he wishes to keep a low profile.
- The trope is merely implied and never explicitly stated, because All Relatives Share a Surname. Usually this will be because the husband will share a surname with his mother-in-law, possibly a mistake on the writer's part.
A variation of this trope is when the idea is evoked as a show of love; much like a Fangirl or a Smitten Teenage Girl is dreaming about marrying her crush and taking his last name but applied to a male character. Unlike the female version though, it's much rarer to see a male character actually taking his wife's last name solely out of love, or being outright proud of it, unless under some of the aforementioned reasons.
Compare and contrast The Maiden Name Debate where the wife has the option of keeping her maiden name while the husband keeps his own surname. Compare Nom de Mom where it's the married couple's child who takes the mother's maiden name. A subtrope of Shed the Family Name.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You: The spinoff series The Rentaro Family's Families' Daily Lives reveals this to have occurred with two of the Girlfriends' fathers.
- The second chapter reveals that Kusuri's father was originally Haruhiko Yakumaru and it was Kusuri's mother Yomogi who carried the Yakuzen name when her parents first met. The reason for Haruhiko taking his wife's is not stated, but the Yakuzen family are highly renowned as pharmacists and apothecaries.
- When Chiyo and her father Hiro were introduced, both went by the surname Iin. Because Hiro obviously resembled Rentarou, this led to fan speculation that he was Rentarou's maternal uncle. However the spinoff's fourth chapter shows he was originally Hirotsugu Aijou and his future wife was Chiri Iin. The chapter doesn't reveal why he changed to Chiri's last name and there's no particular reputation attached to the Iin name to suggest a reason, either.
- In Bleach, Ichigo's father Isshin took the family name of his wife, Masaki Kurosaki. Given how obsessed he is with Masaki even a decade after her death (such as mounting a huge photo of her in the family's living room), it's seemingly just because he loved her so much. Eventually, it's revealed that there's far more to it than this. Isshin is not only a former Captain of the Gotei 13, his family name was Shiba, one of the most powerful noble clans in Soul Society and an equal of the Kuchikis. Since he had effectively deserted from the Gotei 13 via giving up his powers to save Masaki's life, keeping such a famous last name would've been a potentially huge red flag had anybody come looking for him.
- If there's a rich Big, Screwed-Up Family in Case Closed, it's almost a sure thing that one of the daughters will be married to a man who has taken up the family name:
- Fairy Tail: Lucy Heartfilia's father, Jude, implicitly married into the Heartfilia family since his wife, Layla, is a direct blood descendant of Anna Heartfilia, the earliest known member of the family.
- Food Wars!:
- Jouichiro Saiba took his wife's family name when he married, becoming Jouichiro Yukihira. Because of this, he inherited the Restaurant Yukihira that originally belonged to his wife's family. Also, there is enough of a whiff of scandal in his past that he may have seen it as a convenient way to change his name and drop off the radar. As a corollary, protagonist Soma Yukihira also inherited his mother's surname, which (for good and ill) makes people not immediately realize who his father is.
- Azami Nakamura became Azami Nakiri after marriage. In this case, his wife's family is extremely wealthy and powerful. However, he should have lost the right to call himself a Nakiri after his father-in-law kicked him out for abusing his daughter Erina.
- In Gintama, Taizo Hasegawa agreed to take his wife's family name instead of the opposite, as she comes from a higher social class. He still uses the Hasegawa surname despite his wife leaving him because he's unemployed.
- Gundam Build Fighters Try: Nils Nielson became Nils Yajima when he married Caroline Yajima, likely due to the fact that the Yajima family is very powerful and influential.
- In I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying, when Nozomu married Rino, he took on her last name due to her being the adopted heiress of a prominent family, but you wouldn't know this unless you read My Girlfriend Without Wasabi.
- Jujutsu Kaisen: Toji Zen'in was abused by the Zen'in clan for being born unable to use cursed energy, so he took his first wife's surname, Fushiguro, in order to spite his family. He continues to go by Fushiguro after his first wife's death to keep his son Megumi out of the Zen'in clan's clutches, even passing the name on to his second wife.
- Kaguya-sama: Love is War:
- While it's never outright stated, a family tree in Chapter 98 implies that both Maki's father and maternal grandfather took the Shijo name after their marriages since her claim as a member of the Shinomiya bloodline is traced through her maternal grandmother.
- Averted with the main couple. Despite coming from an infinitely more prominent family, Kaguya took the Shirogane surname after getting married, both out of a desire to be considered a part of their family and to distance herself from the Shinomiya family as much as humanly possible.
- In the backstory of Karin, both of Karin's grandfathers, James and Daniel, took their wives' last names, mainly because Elda and Cecilia were the last surviving members of the Marker and Armash clans respectively.
- Kimagure Orange Road: Kyousuke and the twins' Kasuga surname is actually their mother Akemi's family name. Their dad Takashi married into the Kasuga clan since Akemi was the only daughter, which certainly explains why he's the only Kasuga without Psychic Powers.
- Mission: Yozakura Family: Taiyo Asano takes his wife Mutsumi's last name Yozakura after they get married.
- In My Hero Academia, Kyoka Jiro's father Kyotoku took his wife Mika's name when they married, something that is apparently more common in the series' universe than in reality.
- At the end of Naruto, Sai becomes Sai Yamanaka considering he didn't have a last name and his wife Ino was the only daughter of her quite prominent family. note
- In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Konoka's father Eishun married into the very powerful Konoe clan and took up their surname. His original one is Aoyama, which is the same name as the clan of Shinmei-ryuu swordsmen from Love Hina.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Gendo Rokubungi became Gendo Ikari when he took his wife Yui's surname. The reasons why aren't explicitly made clear, but it seems Gendo did it because he really did love Yui and wanted to prove that he was utterly devoted to her. Besides that, some supplemental materials imply Yui was the daughter of a SEELE member and therefore of high social status. It's also possible Gendo just wanted to lose the Rokubungi surname; there's some implications pointing towards him having a dark past he wanted to get away from and/or a bad relationship with his own family.
- Rebuild of Evangelion averts this: in this continuity, Gendo's surname was always Ikari, and Yui's maiden name was Ayanami.
- Towards the end of Private Prince, Will tells his girlfriend Miyako that he will take her surname after taking the decision of giving up on royalty.
- Revolutionary Girl Utena: Akio married into the Ohtori family and took their name so he could take over their namesake academy.
- In some Ronin Warriors side-materials, Shin Mouri (Cye of the Torrent) is troubled because his Ronin duties conflict with him becoming the heir of his family's traditional pottery business. To solve this, his older sister and her boyfriend agree on him marrying into the Mouri family and taking up the surname.
- Played for laughs in Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, where Itoshiki-sensei's friend Ikkyu-san love of all things old inspires him to try marrying Nozomu's sister Rin and take their name so he could sign letters "[First Name] Itoshiki, old name Ikkyu." The Itoshikis are an old and prominent family, which increases the attraction for him.
- Shaman King: When Hao and Yoh's dad Mikihisa married their mom Keiko, the only daughter of the Asakura family, he took up her surname. This is also a case of Uptown Girl since he was a hobo-like street musician whereas her family was a very traditional shaman clan.
- In ViVid Strike!, Dan took Lorrie's last name when they got married. It makes sense considering that the Berlinetta family owns a large company.
Comic Books
- Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2018): Jefferson Davis took the last name of his wife Rio Morales because he shared his name with the president of the Confederate States of America.
Fan Works
- Beyond the Outer Gates Lies... A high school library?: Sona and Serafall's mother is the original Sitri, and their father took the Sitri name. It was not an issue for him, since he was treated terribly by his family.
- burn bright until we're not: In one of the post-Original Trilogy scenes, Han is referred to as "General Organa" instead of "General Solo", suggesting that he eventually takes Leia's surname when they get married.
- In Costumes And Games, Shinji chooses to change his surname when he gets married to Asuka because he wants nothing from his parents.
- Demon's Path
: At Mei and Zabuza's wedding, Naruto jokingly points out that Zabuza should take Mei's surname instead of her taking his, due to the fact that Mei is the Mizukage and Zabuza is not only one of her ninja but he technically didn't graduate so she has a higher social standing than he does.
- Destiny's Child has Ranma take up the Tendou name due to the Tendou's higher status and lack of male heirs.
- In the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood Gender Flip fic From Liverpool, England, Erin (male Erina) took the name of his wife Johanna (female Jonathan) since she was a noblewoman and her name was of higher standing by Victorian England standards. Word of God confirmed that had Dio's plan to seduce and marry Johanna succeeded, he would have also had to take her family name as well.
- Green Tea Rescue: Hisashi Midoriya took on his wife's last name because, according to Izuku, his own had too much baggage attached to it. It's eventually revealed that he did this because he and Inko became the target of the HPSC under his old surname, Nenshouki, which Inko had taken after they married, and they took her last name after faking their deaths in Bespin Island.
- Harry Potter and the Fluffy Taile all but explicitly states that the father of OC character Penny Wyrm is Mutt, the son of Indiana Jones (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull); he explicitly states that he took his wife's name when they got married so he wouldn't have to be known as "the Third" for the rest of his life.
- Heis'he Ri'nanovai: Romulans are semi-matriarchal, so Merken tr'Ortikant took his wife Liorae t'Vreenak's surname, Vreenak, when he married her in an Arranged Marriage.
- In Kyon: Big Damn Hero, Keiichi changed his family name from "Maebara" to "Fuurude" when he married Rika as per custom in Hinamizawa to preserve the traditional name of the shrine maidens that minister to Oyashiro-sama's shrine.
- The Legend of Genji: After marrying Opal Beifong, Bolin took on her family name because he didn't have a last name of his own. Well that and he was really happy at finally being able to call Toph "grandma".
- A double example with Yu's family in The Many Quirks of Investigation Teamery: The Narukami surname is extremely important in the business world, so Yu's father took the Narukami surname when he married, while Ryotaro took his wife's last name to escape the family legacy.
- In Muggle Intervention Rob Banks decides to adopt his fiancée Jenny Peach's surname because he dislikes the contrast between his birth name and him being a policeman.
- In Nameless, on the Edge of Nowhere, a Spared by the Adaptation Anakin Skywalker lays low under his late wife's maiden name of 'Naberrie'. However, thanks to his marriage being secret, when Rebel Alliance intelligence traces back the surname, they're only able to find a 'dead end' of a family name from Naboo and are unable to connect the dots.
- Invoked in the Star Trek: Lower Decks fic "Nepotism Babies", set at a point when Mariner and Boimler are married and Mariner is pregnant. While the two retain their own surnames, they were initially undecided about what surname to give their child as they each have difficult relationships with their parents. However, hearing about how her mother gave Ransom a chance as her first officer despite his reputation being coloured by the discovery of his uncle's crimes (Jack Ransom's uncle was Rudy Ransom, captain of the USS Equinox), Mariner reflects that she likes the idea of her child continuing the Freeman family tradition of giving the outcasts and oddballs a chance in Starfleet.
- Not the intended use (Zantetsuken Reverse): In the original fic, it's mentioned that the Belmonts would force any man marrying into the family to take up the Belmont name if there were no other male heirs. For example, Simon only had daughters.
- In the post-series fic Primary Sources (And Historical Epiphanies), Adrien had taken the last name of his wife Marinette Dupain-Cheng. This is why when the protagonist Mary Beauréal learns from her mother Aurore that his old last name was Agreste, it was a shocking revelation to her. It is because it means he was the son of the infamous ex-terrorist Gabriel Agreste AKA Hawkmoth, who she and some of her classmates, including Hugo Dupain-Cheng, are researching for their class project.
- Queens of Mewni: The family tree implies that Butterfly princes that marry take the name of the house they marry into. Oddly, the consorts of the queens do not take on the Butterfly name (despite canon stating that River at the least had). There's also an inversion: to soften the blow that Cosmica the Explorer elected to marry her cousin, Pyxar changed his last name of Butterfly (which was of course Cosmica's name) to Firefly. Even more oddly that in the other two cases of Kissing Cousins Clovald and Tileford never bothered to.
- In The Ronless Factor after Ron is brought back to life, after Wade declares such a resurrection impossible Kim observes "Anything's possible for a Possible, even if it is just honorary… for now", defending her declaration as her thinking of the future. Ron affirms that he has no problem with the idea of taking Kim's name rather than the other way around, even speculating that if he takes her name people might start getting his own right in the press for a change.
- SAPR: In chapter 124, "Re-Forged," Pyrrha reflects that when she and Jaune get married, he's going to have to take her name because she's from an ancient royal house.
- In the unlinkable Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfic Science: Saving Humanity without regard to Morals or Ethics, while it has not happened yet Misato is very much in favor of Shinji taking on her name, mostly because Gendo is that much of a uncaring jerk.
- In Skyhold Academy Yearbook, it's mentioned that Fenris took his wife's surname (Hawke) when they married as a sign that he was leaving his painful past behind.
- Jiraiya in Son of the Sannin takes on Tsunade's surname Senju when they get married. When Naruto asks him about it, he reveals that he never had a last name to begin with, and even if he had one, he doubted Tsunade would change hers.
- In Tales of Fairies chapter 499, Lucy reveals to Erza that the Heartfilia women always kept their last name while their husbands take theirs, hence why Lucy and Layla have strong resemblance to their ancestor Anna Heartfilia. She suspects it was a way for Zeref to find them to help open the Eclipse Gate and bring the Dragons and dragon slayers to the present. She also says that while her father Jude was happy to take his wife's last name, he had trouble getting other eligible men to take his daughter's name since they refuse out of pride.
- Unchained (Umei no Mai): Since his Lord-Wife Izuna is significantly higher-ranked than him, Tobirama is now referred to as Uchiha instead of Senju.
Films — Animation
- Encanto: The husbands (Agustin and Félix) of the Madrigal sisters (Julieta and Pepa, respectively) took their wives' surname. While the Madrigals aren't a Family Business in the corporate sense, they do serve as the foundation of their community and wish to carry on that legacy under a unified name, particularly since Julieta and Pepa's brother, Bruno, has no spouse or children of his own.
- Spider-Man: Spider-Verse: Miles's dad changes his name from Davis to Morales at some point between Into and Across, which take place roughly a year apart. This is in line with the comic plotline that occurred between film releases. Unlike in the comics, there's no mention of the change having happened or why. He's simply Captain(-to-be) Jeff Morales.
Films — Live-Action
- At least discussed in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire; at one point Gary Grooberson observes that he has no objection to becoming part of the Spengler family instead of Callie taking his name, explicitly telling Phoebe that nobody wants to be a Grooberson.
Literature
- In Arrivals from the Dark series, a commodore whose last name is Trevelyan-Krasnogortsev explains that an ancestor of his was a Tsarist Russian officer named Krasnogortsev who escaped to France during the Romanovs and Revolutions period and married into the wealthy and respected Trevelyan family, choosing to hyphenate his name in order to be considered one of them. Several generations later, the commodore's descendants choose to drop the Overly Long Name (for bonus points, the commodore's names were Olaf Peter Carlos) and stick with the French surname.
- Axtara: Magic and Mischief: Meli Keep of Barpast notes that her husband Frederik took her last name when they married. Since she's in a family that has worked as innkeepers for five generations, it's done so that everyone will have a surname related to that occupation.
- A convoluted example in the short story Bis zum Nullpunkt des Seins (1871) by Kurd Laßwitz, which is set in the year 2371. Gender equality has resulted in a formalized system: Everybody has two (hyphenated) surnames, one inherited from the mother, the other from the father. When they marry, women drop the paternal name and men the maternal one and replace it with the surname of their spouse.
- One story in Callahan's Crosstime Saloon involves two people who both have an embarrassing name - Les Moore and Merry Glueham. When they get married the solve the issue by swapping surnames.
- Discworld: In Lancre, there's a sort of tradition of matrilinearity, at least amongst witches. So when Miss Gytha Ogg got married, she became Mrs. Gytha Ogg and her husband became Mr. Ogg (as did her subsequent husbands). Her married sons, however, are still Oggs, because none of her daughters-in-law are brave enough to explain to Nanny that they shouldn't be.
- After the ending of The Garden of Sinners, Mikiya takes the surname of his wife Shiki Ryougi upon their marriage. It makes sense since the wife is the head of a very wealthy and powerful clan.
- A convoluted example occurs in volume 10 of How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom when main character Souma Kazuya is formally coronated as King of the United Kingdom of Elfrieden and Amidonia and marries his Battle Harem. Due to Name Order Confusion early on,note his original surname ended up becoming his given name, and as two of his wives are the princesses of the two kingdoms whom his legitimacy as king partly depends on, he adopts his third queen Roroa Amidonia's surname as his middle name and his Top Wife Liscia Elfrieden's surname as his surname, resulting in the regnal name "Souma A. Elfrieden".
- The Hundred and One Dalmatians: Cruella de Vil mentions that she made her husband change his name to hers when they married because she was the last of her family.
- InCryptid: After Dominic De Luca and Verity Price get married, he takes Verity's last name to become Dominic Price, symbolizing a break with his Covenant past.
- In A Love for All Time by Bertrice Small, Queen Elizabeth commands one of her courtiers, Conn O'Malley, who is a troublesome Irishman, to marry Aidan St. Michael, who is a titled Englishwoman, and to take her name along with the title that went with it. He agreed, mainly because of the title. One of the queen's advisors pointed out that this would effectively make Conn an Englishman.
- In the October Daye series, fae marriages include all parties involved (since there's theoretically no upper limit on how many people can be married) taking the name of the one with the highest social status. So one character has her father's surname because he was higher-status than her mother, whereas another married M/M/F triad all take the wife's surname for the same reason. Among half-fae changelings, the rule seems to vary depending on how closely they're raised with fae culture. The protagonist, who was mostly raised by her surname-less fae mother and then ran away from home as a teen, uses her human father's surname to honor his memory.
- In Re:Zero, Wilhelm took on his wife Theresia's last name when they got married because the van Astrea are a noble house renowned for their swordsmanship. After avenging Theresia's death, he finally finds enough confidence in his own abilities to take up his original surname, Trias.
- In The Sharing Knife, Lakewalkers use a matrilineal system of naming and inheritance where the husband normally takes the wife's 'tent' name, and households are passed to the eldest daughter. Meanwhile, farmers use a patrilinal system. The mixed protagonist couple ends up using the Lakewalker custom after some confusion.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: When one Lannister king died without male heirs, his son-in-law changed his name from Joffrey Lydden to Joffrey Lannister as a condition of being given the throne.
- Tooth and Claw: In dragon society the higher ranking name is the one the couple takes but usually male dragons marry females of their rank or below, so there's an expectation of keeping the husband's name. At the end of the book, Sebeth has reconciled with her father and been named his heir before his death, elevating her into his position in society. Her lover Avan, whose position is higher than hers used to be and lower than it is now, is surprised when she says if they marry he'll have to change his name to hers. Avan hesitates saying it's as if he's her wife, but despite the strangeness of the position he's happy to accept.
- Tortall Universe: Beka Cooper's husband decides to take on her last name, citing that his mage name of Farmer Cape is nothing special. When asked what his birth name was, he reveals that it was Pincas Huckleburr.
- Villager A Wants to Save the Villainess No Matter What!: Allen took his wife Anastasia's last name and became Allen von Ramslett when they married at the end of the story.
- Yours Truly: In the epilogue, Jacob and Briana get married, and we find out he took her name. This is a Call-Back to a previous conversation, where she said, after her awful experiences with both her father and her first marriage, she would never take a man's name again, instead using her mother's maiden name. Jacob, ever-devoted to Bri, happily sheds his original surname to use hers, especially since it's their daughter's name, too.
Live-Action TV
- 30 Rock: Exaggerated when Jenna Maroney marries her boyfriend, Paul: he takes both her first and last names. The officiant sounds somewhat bemused introducing the couple as "Mrs. and Mr. Jenna Maroneys". Of course Paul is a Celebrity Impersonating drag performer who frequently dresses as Jenna, so this is the logical endpoint of their relationship.
- An unusual case in Breaking Bad: When Walter White forges his new identity after being publicly exposed as a drug lord, he uses the last name 'Lambert', his wife Skyler's maiden name, which she reverts to following Walt's exposure. The implication is that he still wants to see himself as part of his family despite them wanting nothing to do with him.
- Part of the Victim of the Week's backstory in Castle episode "Vampire Weekend". The victim didn't know that his birth mother had disappeared when he was a toddler and his father had remarried to his nanny, taking her name to escape the publicity since he was considered the prime suspect. In fact, the nanny killed the mother with this exact aim, and the victim when he worked it out.
- Charmed (1998): According to the comic continuation, Coop took the Halliwell name upon marrying Phoebe.
- Dark (2017): Unusually for the rural German setting, Regina Tiedemann's husband Aleksander was née Köhler, and took his wife's name upon marriage. When Clausen comments that this was especially odd in the 1980s, Aleksander replies that he wanted to keep Regina's name alive since she was an only child. It's also implied that doing so added legitimacy to him inheriting the swanky power plant job from his wealthy father-in-law, and helped him hide the fact that he killed a boy named Aleksander Köhler and stole his identity.
- In Doctor Who, the Doctor insists that this is the case after Amy Pond and Rory Williams get married, calling the latter Rory Pond despite his weak protests.
- In In Your Space!, when Bernie is gushing over Amelia, he imagines taking her last name.
- Kamen Rider:
- Kamen Rider Double: Upon marrying Saeko Sonozaki at the start of the series, Kirihiko Sudo takes her surname thanks to the Sonozaki family being very wealthy, owning the Futo Museum, and generally being Kirihiko's social superiors.
- Kamen Rider Gavv: Jiip Stomach takes on his wife Lizel's family name, Jaldak, as her family happens to be more prestigious than his by virtue of being the daughter of the Granute world's president.
- In Mork & Mindy, Mork takes Mindy's last name (McConnell). This is because Mork has no last name.
- Motherland: Fort Salem: This is standard in witch society, as one might expect given the importance of matrilines. Female witches pass their surnames on to their children and it's their husbands who change their name after marriage, even in the case of Raelle's father Edwin Collar, a civilian, who took his witch wife Willa Collar's name. Outside of witch society, it appears to still be the norm for the father's surname to be passed on among civilians.
- Murdoch Mysteries has Constable Higgins take the surname of his wife Ruth and has become Henry Higgins-Newsome. His friends are all a bit perplexed by this decision (this is Turn Of The Century Toronto,) but since Henry is merely a workaday policeman and the Newsomes are an incredibly prominent and wealthy local family, Henry doesn't need much convincing.
- Orphan Black: Donnie took his wife Alison's surname, Hendrix, in order to be rid of his Embarrassing Last Name Chubbs. Alison's mother considers Donnie pathetic and unmanly for taking his wife's name and still calls him Mr. Chubbs as an insult.
- Peacemaker (2022) has a lesbian example. Leota Adebayo pointedly takes her wife's last name when she marries her to hide her relation to her mother, Amanda Waller.
- In Underground, Tom Macon was born Tom Hawkes. He took his wife's name instead of the other way around, probably due to the Heir-In-Law situation (and because she was part of a prominent plantation family).
Professional Wrestling
- Mike Bennett competed in the WWE from 2017 to 2020 (with his real-life wife, the returning Maria Kanellis), taking Maria's real-life last name as part of a gimmick of a young couple in lust with each other.
Toy
- Japan's fashion doll line "Licca-chan" has Licca's French father Pierre Kayama.
Video Games
- In the backstory of Corpse Party, the Shinozaki family maintained its spiritual power by having the women in the family marry men willing to discard their family names for the sake of love. Unfortunately, the men who marry into the family have a tendency to die within a few years of their children (almost all female) being born.
- A variation in Dragon Age: Origins: Oghren took his wife Branka's first name as his new last name due to her status as a Paragon (Orzammar practices a form of Ancestor Veneration, and a Paragon is hailed as a "Living Ancestor" due to great achievements) while his family was in the warrior caste. Dwarven society states when a new House is founded, it's named after the Paragon that founds it, and the Paragon's first name becomes a last name.
- According to the lead writer of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the ancient hero Nerevar took his wife Ayem's House name, Indoril, upon marrying her. She was a high priestess belonging to one of the Great Houses, whereas he was formerly a caravan guard born to an irrelevant minor house. (Ayem later became the goddess Almalexia.)
- Played with in Escape from Monkey Island where Elaine took both last names, but because she's such a prominent figure on Melee Island, everyone assumes that protagonist Guybrush Threepwood took her name, leading to a Running Gag of him correcting everyone who calls him "Mr. Marley".
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses: In Bernadetta's non-Azure Moon ending with Felix, she convinces him to marry into House Varley. In their later years, he ends up handling most of the house's documents, signing them as Count Varley.
- In the Grim Tales series of mystery hidden object games, protagonist Anna Gray eventually marries a man named Dorian Black. However, as clarified in the installment The Generous Gift, he recognizes that Anna's name is synonymous with her detective work, and decides to take her last name instead of having her take his. And yes, this means that he becomes Dorian Gray.
- Persona 4: If the protagonist romances Yukiko Amagi, on Valentine's Day, she'll tell him that if he marries her, he'll have to take on her family name, since the Amagis run a historical inn. Given that Yukiko's mother is the current manager, it's likely that Mr. Amagi also had to change his former last name.
- The Sims:
- In The Sims 2, the couple takes the name of whoever initiates the marriage action. So, quite a few male Sims end up taking their wives' last names.
- The Capp and Summerdream families of Veronaville seem to follow a matrilineal tradition, as multiple generations show husbands taking their wives' surnames upon their marriage.
- Jason Greenman (né O'Mackey) from the Seasons expansion pack took his wife Rose's surname. This was apparently out of love for her and possibly a desire to become closer to her PlantSim heritage.
- The Tricou family of Downtown might fallow the matrilineal tradition as the sons-in-law of the family took their wives' last name and some players have suggested the family patriarch, Jon Smith Tricou, might have originally been Jon Smith and took the Tricou name when he married.
- A lot of player challenges place restrictions on this (legacy heirs must keep the legacy family name and such) and there are mods to choose the name or to enforce a "traditional" marriage, where different-sex couples take the male Sim's last name and same-sex couples both keep their own last names.
- The Sims 3 does things slightly differently, with the married couple taking the surname of the Sim who proposed, rather than the one who initiated the marriage ceremony. However, Sims' names can be changed at City Hall in this game, so players could get around this if they wished.
- Geoffrey Landgraab of Sunset Valley took his wife Nancy's surname upon marriage because the Landgraabs are old-money aristocrats who helped build the town.
- The Sims 4 does away with name changes upon marriage altogether, but is the first game in the series which allows players to edit characters in Create-A-Sim at any time, so last names of married couples can be changed entirely at the player's discretion.
- In The Sims 2, the couple takes the name of whoever initiates the marriage action. So, quite a few male Sims end up taking their wives' last names.
- Comes up a few times in the Trails Series:
- In The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, Erika Russell's husband Dan took her last name. We never even find out his maiden name.
- In the backstory of The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero, Elie MacDowell's father took her mother's last name, though they've long since divorced by the beginning of Zero, and neither parent was named in that arc. It's later revealed in The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak that his first name is Ryan and that after the divorce, he returned to his maiden name of Connery.
- In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, Irina Reinford's husband Franz took her last name. We later find out that his maiden name was Lughman, revealing that the "Professor Lughman" the party had encountered over the course of Cold Steel III was none other than Franz Reinford Back from the Dead.
- In World Neverland, a newly-married couple has the opportunity to take whichever last name they want, and NPC couples will do so more or less randomly, meaning about half of all in-game couples will have the husband take the wife's name. The exception is if the wife is the head of a Mountain Corps family or the kingdom's Queen or Crown Princess, in which case the husband will automatically take his wife's last name because he is now part of her prestigious family line.
- Yandere Simulator: The Aishi surname seems to always be passed through the wife. It's notorious for the fact that every woman in the family is a Yandere who kidnaps her high-school Senpai and forces him into a relationship. So, in this case, the husband taking the wife's surname (not by choice) seems to indicate the nature of their relationship and the way Yandere-ism runs in the family.
Visual Novels
- Majikoi! Love Me Seriously!: Yamato Naoe becomes Yamato Kuki in Monshiro's afterstory since the Kuki family is about on par with the heads of first world nations. He quickly gains the status of a Kuki with his own personal attendant (Stacy or Lee) and treatment from servants equal to that of the Kuki siblings.
- PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo: Harue's husband took on her name, Shigima, because her family is renowned in the police force.
- In Parascientific Escape, it's heavily implied that the head of the Amabishi Corporation, Evsej Amabishi, took his wife's name on marriage. He has a Russian first name and his daughter Merja is half-Russian, half-Japanese, which implies that her father is the one she got her Russian heritage from. It's also shown that the Amabishi Corp used to be far more corrupt until Evsej came along and suddenly cleaned it up, which would make sense with someone who joined the corporation suddenly (as by marriage).
- In the backstory of Umineko: When They Cry, Eva Ushiromiya, having been passed over to be the family heir, married Hideyoshi in the hopes of producing a child when her older brother and his wife had trouble conceiving. For Hideyoshi, who didn't have any remaining family of his own, it was an easy decision to take Eva's last name to make it possible for their son George to be considered as a potential family head.
- Walkure Romanze: Takahiro manages to form a relationship with Noel or Celia regardless of the difference in class. At the end of their routes, he marries into the Ascot or Aintree families respectively.
Web Animation
- ACTUALLY HAPPENED: After he gets married to his girlfriend Kathie, Noah takes her surname in order to distance himself from his parents.
- RWBY: RWBY teammate Weiss Schnee's father Jacques Gelè changed his last name upon his marriage to her mother Willow Schnee in order to gain profit and recognition off of the fame the name entailed, specifically the social status of the Schnee family and the Schnee Dust Company. This worked as he was later named the president of the company and successor to his father-in-law Nicholas Schnee.
Webcomics
- Cirque Royale: A side doodle on the comic's tumblr reveals that Aries married into the Cashworthy name; it was his wife Gemma's last name and he dropped his original last name.
- Dominic Deegan: Dominic's father Donovan didn't have a last name before his marriage to Miranda Deegan, on account of being an orphan who didn't know his birth parents' names. Flashbacks show that Miranda used this to guilt-trip her disapproving parents into accepting him.
- Ennui GO!: When Izzy, Darcy and Tanya marry each other at the end of part 1, Izzy and Tanya take Darcy's last name, Slater; in Izzy's case, it's a sign of her character development in distancing herself from her old self-destructive ways and starting over after dealing with her traumatic past.
- Kevin & Kell has several examples, usually resulting from previous ostracization of the husband in the marriage:
- When Kevin married Kell, he changed his (and his adopted daughter's) last name to his wife's, mainly because he had been disowned by his family. Considering he's a rabbit and Kell's a wolf, the name change was the least of people's concerns.
- According to the FAQ, Kell convinced Rudy to change his surname from Foxglove (his father's last name) to Dewclaw after his father's death.
- When Dip marries Caniche, he takes her last name of Chien, since, as a former wild animal, he never had a last name to give her. Or a first name, for that matter: Dip is short for diploma, which was his original occupation, being raised to be eaten by a college graduate (Rhonda, in Dip's case), with their diploma tattooed on him to be removed and tanned after being eaten.
- An interesting circumstance between Ophelia Stoat and George Gopher: Ophelia had to fake her death to escape pelt hunters, and received a turtle shell previously used by the frog Todd, deciding to take the name Ophelia Turtle. When she and George married, the wider turtle community accepted both of them in, and invited George to live as a turtle as well (using a 3D-printed shell he previously made). Since George's father at the time was literally plotting his death, he changed his last name to Ophelia's.
- One comic reveals Carl took Leona's last name of Mangle. It wasn't like his last name was ever revealed anyway.
- I Love Yoo: After marrying Yui, Rand adopted the Hirahara surname.
- Moon Over June has a lesbian example. The former Dr. Summer Winters M.D. made a point to adopt her wife's name after they married because: A) she considered her old name silly in its own right, B) she was tired of being so close to the end of the alphabet, C) she finds her brothers aggravating enough to take any opportunity to distance herself from them, and D) having researched what Akagawa actually means ('Red River') she found it fitting. Hatsuki for her part decided to change her last name essentially on impulse after overhearing Summer answer the phone, leading later to considerable confusion when Doctors Akagawa (M.D.) and Winters (PhD) went before a judge to formally adopt each other's daughters.
- Downplayed in The Order of the Stick: Daigo hasn't officially taken his wife's last name (Kato), but they've used it for the name of their newly-established noble house. Daigo is saving the reveal his own last name for an emergency where he would need more Nominal Importance in order to survive.
- In Precocious, the Oven family's surname came from Sydney. Joseph changed his when they married. His reason is quoted below:
Joseph Oven: I mean, my last name was Brungster! I couldn't subject my kids to that with a clean conscience.
- Kevyn Andreyasn and "Elf" Foxworthy marry in the four-month Time Skip between Books 16 and 17 of Schlock Mercenary; the fact that he takes her name is never commented on directly, with him being referred to as "Captain Foxworthy" for the first time in passing near the end of Book 17.
- A lesbian example in Shortpacked!: Leslie was adamant that she would take Robin's last name of DeSanto because she was disowned by her family for being a lesbian, plus their kids already had Robin's last name. Robin tries to talk her into combining their names in fun ways (DeBeano or BeSanto, for example) or using an anagram for their last name. Leslie didn't bite.
- Leslie: I've wanted your name ever since I met you. Today I subdue you and take it, like a trophy or a prize I mount on my wall.
- In Something*Positive, Jason Pratchett decides to take Aubrey Chorde's surname, mostly because of issues with his dad.
- In WOLFHUNT's prequel comic Hollyhock Rust, Jamie Bauer is perfectly fine taking Aurelia Hollyhock's surname. It's mentioned that this is traditional, but not specified if this means for all witches or just when the wife is a Covenhead.
Web Original
- BuzzFeed writer Andy Golder was né Neuenschwander and he discussed his reasons for changing his name to his wife's (wanting her to keep the name she used professionally and disliking his own last name, which he found unwieldy), as well as the Double Standard around the act (people automatically assumed his wife would change her name and are taken aback and confused by how he did instead) in this article.
Western Animation
- American Dad!: In "Portrait of Francine's Genitals", Jeff Fischer mentions that he has taken Hayley's last name after marriage, making him Jeff Smith.
- Arcane: The city council's titles are passed through lineage and when a fan asked the writers about it, the writers confirmed that councilwoman Kiramman kept her surname and her husband took it on.
- Big City Greens: When Alice Green first met her husband Ernest, she asks him to take her last name upon accepting the proposal, revealing Alice was the one who held the Green family name at the time.
- In the episode of Hey Arnold! where Arnold dreams he marries Helga, he ends up being called Arnold "Pataki", both to show what a nightmare he thinks marrying her would be and to keep up the mystery of what his surname is.note
- Monster High (2022): Clawdeen's dad Apollo took her mom Selena's surname (Wolf) when they got married, apparently because he found it cooler than his own surname.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil:
- When Star Butterfly's parents married, her father (born River Johansen) took her mother's last name. This is apparently tradition for the Butterfly Family; since the throne is matriarchal and most of its born members are female, the husband of a queen or heiress apparent always takes the Butterfly name so they can continue the lineage.
- The same thing happened with demon prince Tom's parents. His Mewman father Dave ("maiden" name unknown) took his wife's last name after marrying the demon queen Wrathmelior Lucitor.
- The Simpsons: "The Color Yellow" reveals that the Simpsons are descended from Mabel Simpson, a member of the Underground Railroad, and Virgil, a former slave whose escape she aided. Mabel divorced her then-husband Hiram Simpson to marry Virgil, but kept her former married name, which Virgil also took since he had no surname himself.
- Star Wars:
- Heavily implied in Star Wars: The Clone Wars with Cut and Suu Lawquane. Cut is a Clone Trooper who deserted; since Clone Troopers don't have last names, "Lawquane" must have been Suu's last name which Cut adopted after marrying her.
- Alrich Wren of Star Wars Rebels takes his name from his wife Countess Ursa Wren. This is apparently commonplace on Mandalore, since who gets the family name depends on rank rather than gender. And the Wrens are one of the top clans within House Vizsla (the former ruling house of Mandalore), immediately subordinate to Clan Vizsla itself.
Real Life
- Jiroemon Kimura, primarily known for being the only male verified to have reached 116 years of age, and for being the last surviving World War I veteran from any country (though the latter fact wasn't discovered until after his passing). He was born Kinjiro Miyake, and changed his name on marriage since his wife's family did not have a male heir.
- NFL's London Fletcher-Baker adopted the Baker to honor his father-in-law.
- A Hollywood talent manager named Elaine Lively divorced her husband but kept Lively as her surname, rather than go back to her maiden name, McAlpin. In 1979, she married character actor Ernie Brown. Realizing that "Lively" was a much more distinctive last name than "Brown", Ernie adopted his wife's name, using Ernie Lively as a Stage Name. Blake Lively and Eric Lively, the two children of Ernie and Elaine, have Brown as their birth name, but use Lively professionally, matching their half-siblings from Elaine's first marriage, Jason Lively, Lori Lively and Robyn Lively.
- When John Lennon married Yoko Ono, he legally changed his middle name from Winston to Ono.
- Jack White was born Jack Gillis and took Meg White's surname when they got married. He kept the last name even after they divorced.
- An interesting variant came when Big Time Rush alumnus Carlos Pena decided to marry former Spy Kids star Alexa Vega. Upon their marriage; the new husband and wife decided to combine their last names into PenaVega.
- Actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson represents a hybrid form of the trope. Before marriage he had simply been Aaron Johnson and director Sam Taylor-Johnson had been Sam Taylor-Wood. When they got married he incorporated the first part of her hyphenated surname into his name and she changed the second part to his surname.
- King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard bassist Lucas Harwood took his wife's surname when marrying. Earlier releases from the band credit him under his original surname, Lucas Skinner.
- A variant of this happened with British writer Lafcadio Hearn. When he became a Japanese citizen, he renamed himself Koizumi Yakumo, with Koizumi being the surname of his wife "Koizumi Setsuko", and Yakumo from yakumotatsu, a Japanese poetic modifier. His wife of course was also the last daughter of a prominent samurai clan, so it also contributed to why he named himself the way he did.
- In The Middle Ages, most dynasties were named after their old holding thus there are a few cases where younger siblings form a line which became known by their matrilineal line because the core holding fell to their older siblings. In some cases, they weren't related at all and just invested by the king or adopted when the original family died out. By The Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age, proper royal families with their heraldry became the norm. By the 18th century dynasties became often synonymous with their kingdom so when the royal family went extinct there was now a new motivation to keep the old name. Most people are aware that the Russian Romanovs (1725), Monégasque Grimaldis (1731 and for a second time in 1977), Austrian Habsburgs (1780), Dutch Orange-Nassau (1962) and the remaining Nassaus of Luxembourg (1985) all went extinct in agnatic line but informally took the Wife's name to continue the line.
- Frederik X of Denmark is called a "Glücksburg" through his mother but his father was from a French patrician family. The most confusing case has to be The British Royal Family: the current Mountbatten-Windsor family is a combination of Elizabeth II's The House of Windsor (actually Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha) and Prince Philip's Mountbatten (actually Battenberg) both changed their name during World War I, which would have made Charles III a Battenberg… had Prince Philip not taken his mothers name — he was from the Greek royal family, making the current British dynasty the Glücksburgs.
- Melissa Rauch's husband, who was born Winston Beigel, took her name when they married.