These Minnesota couples created a new last name for 'a name that is ours'

Before Allison Brummel and Mike Mueller tied the knot, they knew they would not follow social naming conventions. She would not take his last name, nor would they hyphenate and double-barrel it.

"We wanted something clear, something short and something everyone could pronounce," said Allison, recalling the couple's criteria at the time.

They got creative, but they still hewed to something borrowed. Taking the letters from their last names, they used an anagram generator to spit out some new possibilities. After chuckling over some mashups — "El Rumbler" or "Bull Lemur" — they landed on a new surname that they thought had a nice ring to it: Bell.

For their wedding on Summit Avenue in St. Paul, the couple had asked their guests to bring bells without explaining why. Friends and family obliged. On command, the guests sounded their little tinkly bells, front desk bells, cowbells and goat bells, as the couple made it official: They would now go by Mike and Allison Bell.

"I loved it for two reasons," Mike told me. "One, it was an outward and visible sign of equity between the two of us. We really were sharing something that was unique to both of us that incorporated the past with the future."

The other reason? "I have never liked my last name," he said, adding that "Mueller" always sounded sludgy on his ears.

Men like Mike are in the minority. As part of a 2018 Portland State University study of nearly 900 men, only 3% changed their name upon marriage. While the practice of inventing a new surname upon marriage is not widespread, it's not unheard of, either. When I posted a callout for these couples on Twitter, I thought it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Now I have enough needles to open a sewing factory.

Nor is the trend new. The Bells got hitched back in 2011. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was born with the surname Villar but added onto it after marrying Corina Raigosa in 1987. And Paul Fishman and his wife, Paula Goodman, a former St. Paul City Council member, simultaneously changed their last names to Maccabee, inspired by the Jewish rebel warriors who "in 167 B.C. defeated Syria and came close to vanquishing the vast armies of Rome," Paul said. The couple will celebrate their 43rd wedding anniversary this summer.

Symbolism was also important to Jen and Derek Reise. Former college sweethearts at St. Olaf, they settled on Reise (RYE-zuh), the Norwegian word for "journey." To them, it represented the adventure they were embarking on. For their ceremony they incorporated a reading from Walt Whitman's "Song of the Open Road": Will you give me yourself?/ will you come travel with me? /Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

"Getting married at 22 and 23, we were choosing to go on this journey together," Jen said. "We were not sure of what life was going to bring."

Derek, who was born a Burrows, said about the change: "My family thought it was strange. But it was accepted." It also helped that he was young and had not yet established himself professionally. What was more difficult at the time was the bureaucracy; living in Washington, D.C., he couldn't change his name as easily as a woman could upon marriage. He needed to get a court's approval.

Reise, it turns out, was a fitting word for the couple's marriage. Over the past two decades, Derek and Jen have pivoted, swapped stay-at-home parenting roles, and taken turns with being the breadwinner. They now are in their mid-40s with two teenagers who share their last name. They've told their children that if they want to part ways with the Reise name one day, Mom and Dad won't be offended. "A name is what suits the individual," Derek said.

Creative surnames are also found in LGBTQ couples like that of Jam and Elena Leomi. In queer communities, it's more common to experience estrangement from one's family of origin and focus on a chosen family, says Elena. An invented surname can allow partners to set some boundaries with past associations and start anew. The practice also bucks patriarchal notions that assumed women were property of their fathers and then their husbands.

"Women taking men's last names was part of the property handoff," Elena said. "In queer relationships, we get to subvert the norms. It's a way to say, 'We are in this relationship together.' "

Jam, who uses they/them pronouns, says they conceived of Leomi in part because both Jam and Elena are Leos — born one day apart in July. It's a nod to Elena's Swedish heritage, because the word "leo" means the same in English and Swedish. The last part, "omi," is the Yoruba word for "water," recognizing not only Jam's African American culture but also the fact that Elena took Jam to the Boundary Waters while they were dating.

"We wanted something that reflected us both," said Jam.

"I love having a name that is ours," said Elena.