What’s in a Name? How Kamala Harris’ Surname Could Make History

If elected to the highest office in the United States, Vice President Kamala Harris will be the first president with a last name different than their spouse, and experts think it’s a sign of the times.

“When you make a name for yourself using your family of origin name, you usually keep that because it’s your name, your calling card,” Claudia Goldin, a professor of economics at Harvard University, told Newsweek. “Let’s face it, she got married in 2014 when she had already been Attorney General. She had her career 100 times over.”

The practice of women taking on their spouse’s surname has been tradition for a long time. Last names used to serve as a function to organize society, forming patriarchal groups where women were often seen as lower down the family structure. In common English law, the context grew when married women were legally under the protection and authority of their husbands, known as coverture.

Even within the past century, women were not able to hold their own bank accounts, buy their own homes, or have a credit card.

“The laws are behind what women’s preferences might have been, making it all more difficult with keeping one’s own name,” Professor Deborah Carr, the director of Boston University’s Center of Innovation in Social Studies, told Newsweek.

Within the past few decades, “far more gender change has occurred in the U.S. labor market or the economy because of the incentives for women to change,” Dr. Jill Yavorsky, an associate professor in the sociology department at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, told Newsweek. Women with advanced degrees are the most likely to keep their surnames.

“Women who have higher education also tend to have higher feminist ideals,” Yavorsky said. “It’s also not surprising that individuals with higher education are more likely to keep their own surname in part because that might align better with how they think about themselves as very independent and autonomous.”

After graduating from the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, Harris began her law career as part of the district attorney’s office in Alameda County. She was elected district attorney of San Francisco in 2003. In 2010, she was elected California’s attorney general and reelected in 2014.

In 2013, Harris’s best friend Chrisette Hudlin happened to be the client of attorney Doug Emhoff. She set up the two, and the couple was married in 2014.

“Kamala married in her 40s and she had had career successes early on, so of course she made a name for herself as Harris,” Carr said. “It wasn’t even an option to take on Emhoff. It would be not rational.”

Goldin told Newsweek it’s about “making a name.”

“There’s absolutely no reason for her, a woman in the later part of the 20th century, let alone the early 21st century, to have changed her name,” Goldin said.

Yavorsky noted that even if women now were to consider a possible surname change, they may still face subtle—or explicit—pressures. Goldin said the in-laws could even potentially pressure the woman to change.

“Some people do things so it’s not to offend,” Goldin said.

Carr said that the people offended by Harris’s lack of conformity probably would not be voting for her in November anyway.

These pressures, as well as the historical context, are what could have pushed other prominent public figures like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to change her name. Hillary Clinton married former President Bill Clinton in 1975.

“She was sort of on the cusp of this really big change,” Goldin said.

Hillary Clinton’s last name battle started when her new husband was campaigning for governor. Bill’s then-campaign director Rudy Moore told The New Yorker in 1994 that Hillary Clinton’s maiden name was seen as a forefront issue because “a woman was expected to smile, and not give speeches.”

“There was some talk that part of the reason he lost was that his wife was too aggressive,” Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, told Newsweek. “If a woman acts in a way that a man would act in that role, she’s aggressive, and if she isn’t, she’s too weak.”

Hillary Clinton had argued that “Rodham” was her professional name. But even after Bill Clinton became governor, it was an issue. Frank White, the Republican who defeated Bill Clinton when he ran for re-election in 1980, reminded Arkansas that his wife was “Mrs. Frank White.”

When Bill Clinton lost, his wife went by “Hillary Clinton” to regain the voters.

“I learned the hard way that some voters in Arkansas were seriously offended by the fact that I kept my maiden name,” Hillary Clinton wrote in her memoir, Living History.

Tannen, the author of You Just Don’t Understand, noted the same thing happened with Hillary Clinton’s appearance.

“It’s really hard though to go woman by woman,” Yavorsky said. “You have to look at the pattern and trends.”

Yavorsky said a recent study showed that 80 percent of women still are making the legal swap. Forgoing a name change is becoming more popular for women who are postponing marriage, Carr said.

But Harris’s prominence could change this statistic.

“It raises the profile of the possibilities of women keeping their own names,” Yavorsky said. “That’s kind of up for the future to show us, but any time you’re raising the profile of different options for people to view, it’s opening up the option for new possibilities.”

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