WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- First there was DotComGuy, now there's the DotComCouple.
Two New Zealanders getting married this weekend plan to amalgamate their surnames -- not with a conventional hyphen -- but with a dot. On Saturday, Rob Flahive and Liz Hill will become Rob and Liz flahive.hill.
"One of the first things that Liz and I did together as a couple was to get an e-mail address," said Flahive, a 47-year-old IT consultant.
The pair, who met through their shared passion for yachting, decided to link Rob's surname with Liz's. "We've been partners for a few years and we've got used to saying flahive.hill," Hill said.
That made the next step easy.
"We decided to get married at the end of last year or January and my partner just suggested that that's what he'd like us to be called. It was his idea," Hill, a 47-year-old teacher, said.
It was, Flahive says, just an off-the-cuff idea when the topic of marriage came up. "OK, we'll have to call ourselves flahive.hill then," he said.
They haven't officially changed their names yet but the wedding invitations are already carrying their new moniker. "Our wedding invitation says 'Rob and Liz flahive.hill invite' so and so. We've put flahive.hill in lower case, so that's on the wedding invitation. And the replies were to be by phone or e-mail, just in keeping with the way we communicate these days," Hill said.
The wedding, to be held at a Wellington marina near where the couple sails, won't be the standard white wedding: "It's great when you are in your 20s or whatever," Flahive says. "For us, we can break outside of that mold."
In order to make the name change official, the couple will have to start by making a statutory declaration that they wish to change their names, according to Dinah Vincent, spokeswoman for the government department that registers births, deaths and marriages.
It's then up to the registrar general to decide if the name will be accepted, she says. The criteria for deciding on names are "sort of common-sense stuff like 'not offensive,' 'not misappropriating titles,'" she said.
In fact, in New Zealand you can use any name you like as long as you are not doing it for illegal purposes, Vincent said.
Flahive sees the planned name change as evidence of the equal footing he and Liz have in the relationship. "One of the many reasons why Liz and I are together is that Liz has always treated me as an equal. There's been no 'you must do this because you're a guy' at all with her."
Hill's advice for the new millennium: "Forget the hyphen. Use a dot."
