A Short History of Hillary (Rodham) (Clinton)'s Changing Names

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What name will be on the Democratic ballot for president in November?

It’s not a rhetorical question. It’s not even a question about Bernie Sanders, whose numbers seem to have plateaued. It’s a question about how the Democratic frontrunner identifies herself.

On Monday, both the Associated Press and New York Times announced they would begin referring to her not as “Hillary Rodham Clinton” but simply as “Hillary Clinton.” That’s the culmination of a long, politically charged, and politically important evolution in how the candidate refers to herself.

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The Mononymy Trap

Hillary Rodham was a product of the women’s liberation movement. When she agreed to marry Bill Clinton—the third time he asked—she decided to keep her own name. Bill didn’t seem to have a problem with that. His mother did. Virginia Clinton Kelley recalled in her autobiography that when Bill told her, the day of the wedding, she began to weep. “I had never even conceived of such a thing. This had to be some new import from Chicago,” she recalled.

Hillary Rodham’s decision seemed evidence not only of her roots in a city up north, but also of the future. The couple was married in 1975, smack in the middle of a decade when








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