Man Wins Right To Take Wife's Surname As His Own

You'd think this would be easier.

All Michael Buday wanted to do was take the last name of his wife, Diana Bijon, when they married.

But it took two years, a lawsuit alleging sex discrimination and a change in California law before he picked up his new drivers license in the name of Michael Bijon on Monday.

"It was personal. I feel much closer to (Diana's) father than I do mine. She asked me to take her name and I thought it would be very simple. I never imagined the state would make it so difficult," Michael Bijon, 31, told reporters.

...

After months of frustration, the Los Angeles computer programmer and his ER nurse wife Diana, 29, took their problem to the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

A double barrel name would have been no problem, nor would Diana and Michael deciding to each keep their birth names. But California and some 40 other U.S. states provided no place on the marriage license application, and driving license, for the groom to choose the bride's surname.

Portly Pirate calls this the ultimate in P-whippitude, but...

Buday... or Bijon? Question: If you're a guy with a lame last name and your wife has a better one, is there any allowance here?

What if you were dating, say, a girl with the last name Reagan, for example? And your own last name was Lipshitz?

Not good enough? Okay, what if she's part Commanche Indian and her real given last name is Skywalker? You still gonna cling to your lame name out of a sense of patriarchal obligation, huh?

Not me. I'd be Ace Skywalker so fast it would make your head spin, buddy.

posted by Ace at 06:01 PM

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