Author Adele Parks says there is 'nothing more romantic' than a husband taking his wife's surname

Author Adele Parks has revealed that she believes there is “nothing more romantic” than when a man takes his wife’s name, a gesture her own husband made on their three-year wedding anniversary.

Adele, who has been married to her husband for 15 years, recalled the moment when her husband, then Jim Pride, announced that he had changed his name to Jim Parks in an article for the Daily Mail.

“The man I had fallen in love with, Jim Pride, was now Jim Parks,” the author wrote. “In a crazily romantic, powerful and strong gesture he had taken my surname.”

According to Adele, when the couple got married, people automatically began calling them Mr and Mrs Pride - a name that she says sounded “lovely but not quite real”.

But despite the assumptions, and the fact that "more than 60 per cent of women still change their name to their husband's after marriage," Adele says she “never got around” to officially changing her name for a few reasons.

In addition to being 35 when they got married, which she claims is “a little old for reinvention”, Adele was already the author of five published novels and “used to seeing my name in print”.

However, Adele admits she wasn’t entirely comfortable with her and the couple’s son Conrad having a different name from her husband.

“I can’t pretend I was 100 per cent comfortable with that,” she wrote. “I felt we lacked something indefinable”.

She also acknowledged that there are practical advantages to sharing a last name as a family, such as when travelling, or receiving Christmas cards.

But it wasn’t until Conrad started primary school and “become aware of the name situation and didn’t like it” that Jim suggested changing his own name.

According to Adele, who admits she felt some regret about the loss of the name she fell in love with, Jim’s decision was met with reactions ranging from surprise and curiosity to outright disapproval.

Initially, Adele also feared people would think Jim was “under the thumb”, revealing that some men look “vaguely horrified” when they find out.

“I see them mentally cross their legs, convinced I’m the sort of woman who secretly dreams of castration,” she wrote.

However, Adele says she eventually realised that Jim’s decision to take her surname shouldn’t be as big of a deal as it is perceived to be.

“In the end I realised it shouldn’t be news that my husband did what hundreds of thousands of women do each year. Women are raised to be prepared to abandon their name, to put less value on it than a man - and it’s not right,” she concluded, adding that she wonders if in a generation’s time it will be “normal for a man to take his wife’s name”.