Introducing Mr. and Mrs. What?

One Times writer explains her new last name.

Published February 6, 2006 11:01AM (EST)

A few weeks ago, Broadsheet readers had an animated discussion about choosing their kids' last names. Here's an article from Sunday's New York Times Styles section that continues that conversation: Jodi Rudoren, née Wilgoren, explains how she and her husband Gary, née Ruderman, fashioned a new last name for both of them.

Rudoren, 35, wrote 926 stories under her old byline -- Jodi Wilgoren -- for the paper. Yet, she says that celebrating her couplehood with her new name, and having the same last name as any future kids, makes it worth it to her to give up the old one. And despite enduring barbs from clients and friends, her husband, a 43-year-old architect and playwright, is on board, too: "When I suggested that Gary put himself in my place -- in the place of most women -- facing the choice of abandoning his family name or of not having the same name as his kids, he eventually became a convert to combination," Rudoren writes.

Here's wishing the couple some little Rudorens who will carry on the new family name, at least until they grow up, and create new last names with their own mates.


By Katharine Mieszkowski

Katharine Mieszkowski is a senior writer for Salon.

MORE FROM Katharine Mieszkowski


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