few weeks ago, as she
was preparing to an-
chor a segment,
Channel 4 health re-
porter and newlywed Lila
Lazarus slipped.
But it wasn't a physical
fall; rather, she stumbled
over her new name.
Known as Lila Orbach for
33 years, she introduced her-
self to the viewing audience
as "Lila 0-Lazarus," an
Irish-sounding surname.
"I couldn't believe I did
that," she said, laughing.
"Even when people call now
and ask for Lila Lazarus I
want to ask, 'Who?"
Having difficulty with a
name change is not a new
phenomenon. For decades,
women have struggled to
mentally take on a new
name, having formed an
identity or attachment to the
one they were given at birth.
In addition to having to
make changes to checking
and savings accounts, cred-
it cards and driver's licenses, new-
ly-married women have had to
become comfortable answering to
a name which they often associ-
ate with their mother-in-law.
Starting in the late 1960s,
some American women began to
refuse to drop their birth names
completely, adding on the hub-
by's name with a hyphen like a
caboose at the end of a train, or
not taking it at all. The change
was prompted by a rise of radical
feminism, coupled with growing
numbers of women in the work
force.
"Particularly women who had
furthered their education and had
established themselves didn't
want to change their names,"
says Lynda Giles, a Bloomfield
Hills psychologist who has been
in practice for 22 years.
"Other women feel it as a loy-
alty issue or a personal identity,"
which they want to keep, she
adds.
But the 1990s ushered in a dif-
ferent way of thinking. No longer
are women bound to hyphenat-
ing names, just as they were not
bound to changing them in the
1970s.
In fact, there is less of an incli-
nation now to follow any such
trends. Women are keeping their
maiden names, trading them in
for their husband's surname, hy-
phenating and using their former
last name as a middle name,
without a hyphen.

A

Above: Marianne Milgrom Bloomberg and Robert Bloomberg: A combination, but no hyphen.

Opposite page: Lila Orbach took Jeff Lazarus' name without a second thought.

And behind every combination
of names, there is a reason for the
change.
For Mara Topper of Detroit,
the decision to keep her maiden
name had to do with a level of
comfort as well as her husband's
refusal to accept a hyphenated
family name.
"If you are entering into a mar-
riage, you are sharing a life. I
wanted to share a name. I never
considered just taking his name,"
she said of her husband, David
Warmbier. "My name strongly
represented who I am."
When David balked at the hy-
phenation idea, she stuck with
plan No. 2: keeping her own last
name. Although her in-laws oc-
casionally send mail addressed to
"Mara Warmbier," she said she
is secure in her decision.
"I have never regretted it," she
said. "My name is my own. It is
what my parents created for me.
It is who I am."
When Jenifer Adler was 13,
she watched her older brother get
married and vowed that some-
day she too would have a tradi-
tional wedding, complete with a
name change. So when her turn
came 13 years later, she took her
husband Mitch Rosenwasser's
last name with no further
thought.

A change in one's
name may seem
like a natural after
marriage — but
• not for some.

JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR

SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

OK, maybe one.
"The only thought I had was
that it is a much longer name,"
she said. "But I wanted to take
it."
Because she expressed her de-
sire to change her name early on,
she never faced any backlash for
her decision.
"No one has ever said anything
about it," she said.
When Marianne Milgrom was
considering marriage to Robert
Bloomberg, dropping her name
was not something she was com-
fortable with, but she wasn't sure
what to do. With only sisters —
no brothers to carry on the fami-
ly name — she wanted to main-
tain her family's surname. But
she also wanted her future chil-

dren to have a single family
name.
She turned to her sisters and
their experiences. The oldest, Ca-
role Lasser, had dropped the fam-
ily name when she married 20
years ago. Her second sister,
Paula Milgrom, kept the family
name without adding her hus-
band's. Her third sister kept the
family name as her middle name
and added her husband's name
on the back without hyphenating,
making her Marcia Milgrom
Dodge.
She decided to add her hus-
band's last name, leaving her
maiden name in the middle.
"I have a monogram now,"
Marianne Milgrom Bloomberg
said. "It is kind of fun. If you nev-
er really had one, it is neat."
But the change was not all fun
and games. Unsure of how to ad-
dress the issue, she told co-work-
ers at the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit to continue
to call her Marianne Milgrom.
Meanwhile, others had begun to
call her Mrs. Bloomberg.
After a job change which made
her director of development at
Hillel Day School, she began to
use her full legal name. She wish-
es she had made the change from
the start.
"If you are going to change it,

change it," Bloomberg a
es. "Don't worry about
They will catch on."
While women traditional
ly have borne the brunt of
name game, men aren't ex,
actly immune to trends. Al-
though it is more common for
a man to retain his name afz
ter marriage, some men are
bucking convention and opt-
ing for hyphenated family
names. Some, although ad-
mittedly only few, take their
wives' surname or adopt an
entirely new last name.
When David Harf married
Nancy Gad in 1978, he want-
ed a name that would be re-
flective of their two lives
becoming one, something they
could pass on to a future child.
The pair became known as
the Gad-Harfs.
"We didn't feel like we were
pioneers," Mr. Gad-Harf says.
"We did what was right for us,
and we didn't care what peo-
ple would think."
Giles says comfort on the
parts of both the woman and the
man should motivate any deci-
sions to change a name. Of the
women she knows who have hy-
phenated, she says they didn't feel
comfortable with an outright
change, "and their husbands ac-
cepted that."
Couples seem to discuss the
matter and work toward a mu-
tually agreeable decision, Giles
adds.
"People have lots of different
reasons for changing or keeping
their names; it doesn't have to be
a focus of conflict."
For Lazarus, the name change
came in the first days of her mar-
riage. With no prompting from
her husband Jeff, she adopted his
last name, both professionally
and socially.
"During the honeymoon, every-
one was calling me `Mrs Lazarus,'
and I guess I got attached to it,"
she says. "Perhaps if it had been
another name with 16 syllables,
I might have considered it differ-
ently."
The move was seen as political
by some members of the Channel c , ,r;?,
4-viewing audience. Some called ,-
to offer congratulations on the
nuptials, while others said, "Way
to go."
"Some of the people who called
were clearly traditionalists, but
it wasn't a political statement," <
Lazarus says of the change. "I love
my husband. And I love his
- name." ❑

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