I am Whittlesea-Clark
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
If you have known me for a while, you would remember me as ‘Phillip Whittlesea’. However, more recently, I have been going by my married name of Whittlesea-Clark.
It’s been a slow, and very gradual change over the last seven years, starting with me updating my social media. But I didn’t get around to updating the ‘legal’ name on my passport, until now.
I am happy to report, as of the 5th June 2025, my official government ID shows my new married name.
‘Seven Years?!’ I hear you exclaim. That is quite a long time to put off a name change.
Well, back in 2017 — when I got married — we had been trying to decide what we planned to do with our names. Would one of us take the others? Were we going to keep our ‘maiden’ names? Should we hyphenate (double-barrel)? What about inventing a new name?
Interestingly the UK Deed Poll Office records name change statistics. Take, keep, and hyphenation, are 90%, 3%, and 7% respectively.
So the vast majority of people take their partners name, but we didn’t really like the idea of that; it felt too patriarchal. Of the 90% of people who adopt their partners name, 86% of those are Female.
We wanted to do something that placed us as equals in the relationship. So that left us with keeping our own names, hyphenation, or inventing a new name.
Now neither of us are J. R. R. Tolkien, so we stayed clear of making up a name, and we both agreed to keep our names. It’s just easier. Less paperwork etc.
However, about a month before our vows, my other half surprised me with a rogue hyphen.
This came with a promise of “you don’t have to change yours as well. I just want a fancy double-barrelled name”.
Great. Now I’m going to look like a fool that didn’t want to take their partners name. Not very equal of me.
To be fair, Whittlesea-Clark is quite a nice name. But being an engineer, no decision could be made without considering the benefits, and the downsides.
Pros:
- It gives our family unit a single name to refer to ourselves by.
- It’s ‘globally unique’. Barely anyone has ‘Whittlesea’, so the hyphenated name will be one of a kind1.
- It shows my long-term commitment to my partner.
Cons:
- Forms have a maximum number of characters, 17 characters is a lot. Is this going to be an issue?
- People are always misspelling ‘Whittlesea’, how are they going to manage with ‘Clark’ on the end. “Is that with an ‘e’ or without?” will occupy the rest of my days.
- I’ll need a new Passport, Driving License, change the deeds on the house, change the V5C. The list goes on.
- I know for a fact, every system engineer around the world is making assumptions about names (see this famous blog). Will I even be able to enter a hyphen into websites2?
- I literally just renewed my passport.
- If we get divorced, I will have to unwind all the changes.
Several people have asked me about how my family feel on the matter. My response to them is always that my partner and my dogs are my family too; I’m still keeping the name, just changing it a bit.
Generally, I think all the downsides are manageable, and all the positives desirable. As a consummate procrastinator I made all the ‘soft’ and easy changes first, starting with social media, then my bank, and finally as of this month, my Passport.
All the other things are to come (like my driving licence), but I’ll get there.
The only place I will still use my ‘maiden’ name, is my digital handles.
I am still using pwhittlesea on GitHub because changing it will be annoying, and I will continue to sign up to services with pwhittlesea because it is short and easy to type.
So, I am Phillip Whittlesea-Clark. Finally.
Or, as the UK government want me to word it:
I Phillip Whittlesea of <redacted> have given up my name Phillip Whittlesea and have adopted for all purposes the name Phillip Whittlesea-Clark.
Flows right off the tongue, doesn’t it?
Thanks for reading!
