Name changing

talgirl84 · May 2010

So I'm getting married in 30 days and I have compromised with my fiance and agreed to hyphenate my name with his. What is the difference between adding a hyphen and just adding his name without the hyphen?

Kristin789 · May 2010

>>What is the difference between adding a hyphen and just adding his name without the hyphen?

Let's say your name is Jane Doe and your FI's name is John Smith.

If you add the hyphen, your name will be Jane Doe-Smith, and you will be alphabetized under D - and people will call you Jane Doesmith with the two names run together as if it rhymes with the last name of Naismith.

If you do not add the hyphen, your name will be Jane Doe Smith, and you will be alphabetized under S - and people will call you Jane Smith.

Lenore2010 · May 2010

Not judging anyone else's choice, but I skipped the name blend deal. Our two names together hypened or not would have been very awkward.

talgirl84 · May 2010

Yeah I can understand how some people could have that problem. Lucky for me my last name is 3 letters long!

kaesha · May 2010

If I hadn't left my name the same, I would have added his on to mine, sans hyphen. I like the way that looks better.

cmkuno · June 2010

I've heard that if you hyphenate, the two names become one legal last name -- you must always use both together. If you don't hyphenate, you can chose to use both or just the second last name interchangeably -- they are BOTH equally legal last names.

However, as a practical matter, PP is correct -- if you don't hyphenate, it's likely your maiden name will get dropped more often than not. So if it's important that people call you by both last names, I would hyphenate.

karlakc · June 2010

I dropped my middle name and am using (my first name) (maiden name) (his name) as my legal name. No Hyphen. This way I am filed under "H" with my husband and children, but do not run into trouble if I choose to continue to use my maiden name at work (which I haven't decided on yet). I would hate to find that business contracts or legal documents were not valid because I was using the wrong name...

Name changing

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