why is she Melinda French Gates now? it’s not like anyone would suddenly not recognize the name Melinda Gates. Her name was on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Going by Melinda French Gates seems like something one would do if there was already another Melinda Gates, and one needed to differentiate from them.
That and changing your name is actually pretty annoying, and it only gets more annoying when you have a lot of assets with a particular legal name tied to them.
She has lawyers and accountants that will do a lot of the heavy lifting, but it’s still an obnoxious pain the butt.
It’s pretty common to see people change their name when they get married, but come divorce time say “nah, fuck that, I’m not doing that shit again.”
No, the vast majority of people who change their last name to their partners’ drop their middle name and replace it with their maiden last name. That’s what my wife did, as well as 95% of the people I know who have done this. This is totally average and not actually the thing you’re trying to make it out to be.
If she’s smart, she’ll leave the hyphen out. Anyone with a hyphenated name will tell you that’s it’s annoying as fuck. A lot of digital products and records don’t support hyphens and throw errors when they see the character.
why is she Melinda French Gates now? it’s not like anyone would suddenly not recognize the name Melinda Gates. Her name was on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Going by Melinda French Gates seems like something one would do if there was already another Melinda Gates, and one needed to differentiate from them.
Or if she wanted you to remember who she was (gates) and somehow start to separate herself and distance herself from her former husband.
Many divorced women choose to hyphenate to make a transition of sorts without losing a major part of their identity
as i said in another comment:
in the article (and others about this), her name isn’t hyphenated, and when only referred to by her last name, it’s just “Gates”
Why does the dash matter so much?
without the dash, it seems like it’s her middle name
That doesn’t really matter, though.
Agreed, but like second last name middle name.
A lot of people had names like that where I grew up
i don’t particularly care what she calls herself. i was just curious
Melinda Romania Gates
Probably to bring French to the forefront after divorcing Bill.
Better question would be why she kept Gates but that’s probably for recognition purposes, I’d guess.
That and changing your name is actually pretty annoying, and it only gets more annoying when you have a lot of assets with a particular legal name tied to them.
She has lawyers and accountants that will do a lot of the heavy lifting, but it’s still an obnoxious pain the butt.
It’s pretty common to see people change their name when they get married, but come divorce time say “nah, fuck that, I’m not doing that shit again.”
Maybe she just wants to user her previous surname more now that she’s divorced?
Huh
wouldn’t that be Melinda French-Gates?
No, the vast majority of people who change their last name to their partners’ drop their middle name and replace it with their maiden last name. That’s what my wife did, as well as 95% of the people I know who have done this. This is totally average and not actually the thing you’re trying to make it out to be.
Not trying to be weird, but to understand - roughly what age range and location are you talking about?
I’m a divorced 52yo woman living in the Chicago suburbs and this is news to me.
I’ve never heard of it before either. It doesn’t seem weird to me. Just, the assertion that it’s overwhelmingly common does not sound right.
My frame of reference is 30-45 year olds in Texas, but also everyone’s parents who are 70+ now. What do people do in Chicago?
i’m not “trying to make it out” to be anything. i was just curious.
If she’s smart, she’ll leave the hyphen out. Anyone with a hyphenated name will tell you that’s it’s annoying as fuck. A lot of digital products and records don’t support hyphens and throw errors when they see the character.