Jennifer Lopez vs. Jennifer Lynn Affleck

Much has been written about what message changing one's name when you get married sends to women; good, bad and indifferent and so let me add my two unasked for cents.

Sadly, I have seen many Latina women and Jennifer Lopez is a Latina women change their names especially when the new name does not have any associations with latino culture. Jennifer has written about how she was denied opportunities for being Latina. Exhibit one: the Netflix HalfTime documentary about the NFL Super Bowl half time incident where two Latina women, Jennifer Lopez and Shakira, shared the show usually given to one male. If I was a betting woman, I would say Jennifer is trying to say she is American with no qualifiers. Not Latina, not female, just American!

My own experience, when I went in to get my marriage license oh so many years ago in New York, I hadn’t thought about the issue. We walked up to the City Clerk’s window, asked for the paperwork and there was a simple question: Will you be changing your name? Simple answer: No. I didn’t think, I just reacted. No prior discussion had been had. No real discussion after either. A simple raising of his eyes said everything but that was essentially the end of that.

Years later we had children. The children got his name. I would take them places, they had one last name I had another. I think it sort of bothered them or they realized that that was not the norm. At some point my son wanted a dog. It took a while, but we finally got a dog. My children were insistent that Bella also needed a last name. Her last name? Mine. That was their way of rounding the family, closing the loop if you wish. The human children had their father’s last name. The pets had mine. I thought it was very funny and cute. To the day I think it is funny and cute.

Yes, I have always liked my last name so I don’t have issues like other women may have (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/23/opinion/jlo-jennifer-lopez-ben-affleck.html .) My last name is Solé, not Spanish, not French, Catalan! What does it mean? Sun. Spanish for sun? Sol. French for sun? Soleil. Catalan? Solé. My father’s family originally came from the area near Barcelona and in Barcelona Solé is about as common as Smith or Rodriguez. So, it isn’t some beautifully exotic or rare name, but it is my name and I like it. I cannot think of a last name that I would like more! So, when I was asked to change my name, the instinctive answer was no.

There is a lot of talk of patriarchy in the process and whether women should take their husbands name when they marry. That kind of talk and discussion never made sense to me. I have a man’s name, my fathers. It is just as patriarchal as taking the name of my husband would be. I don’t believe I should get any credit for keeping “my” name. However, when minority women actively seek to marry someone who is not a minority and change their name to that person’s that is something else. I doubt we would have seen some huge announcement much less this decision made had the potential change been to Jennifer Rodriguez.

To think that a woman at her level would still feel that slighted by her Latinaness! I for one believe that like Shakira, one of Jennifer’s incredible strengths is that she is a Latina. I wish she felt the same way and owned it a whole lot more.