Changing your last name?

[Deleted User]

Are any of you planning on changing your last names? If so, are you choosing one partner's name or hyphenating or did you choose a new one? I have a really long difficult last name but I've kind of grown into it. I do like her last name too so I'm undecided. What did you do?

QueerFemme

I'm changing my last name. I have no connection to it, and don't care if I keep it. I think it would be harder for someone who really loved their name and felt a strong family attachment.  For me, I'm ready to get rid of it.

bananabread1025

We've thought about hyphenating or finding some sort of combination of the two names and have decided that we'll just take one of the names we already have. We haven't decided which last name of the two yet, but that's what we landed on.

rowanmegaera

I'm changing mine to hers. 

 I've been married before and I didn't go back to my maiden name after the divorce so I am perfectly happy to get rid of this one.  Unfortunately because we live in Texas, even though we're going to New York to get married legally and the marriage certificate allows a name change, I am still going to have to go to court here to get it changed with the state.

Michonip

My fiancee is hyphenating her name to include my last name because we want our children to have the same name as both of us one day.  If we were not a same gendered couple, I would NOT want to change my name.

Also, I forgot to mention that we have the SAME first name, so she has to hyphenate her last name rather than taking mine completely because we'd have the EXACT name and that would probably cause us some problems down the road!

[Deleted User]

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_gay-weddings_changing-your-last-name?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special%20Topic%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:44Discussion:cc8356f4-c07b-496f-a0de-5fd7e7425cf1Post:c91cc85c-37dc-4540-8156-7d3633c84f63">Re: Changing your last name?</a>:
[QUOTE]I'm changing mine to hers.   I've been married before and I didn't go back to my maiden name after the divorce so I am perfectly happy to get rid of this one.  Unfortunately because we live in Texas, even though we're going to New York to get married legally and the marriage certificate allows a name change, I am still going to have to go to court here to get it changed with the state.
Posted by rowanmegaera[/QUOTE]

<div>I'd have to do this also. Not sure what all it entails. I might think on this some more. I like hearing what everyone else is doing though.</div>

[Deleted User]

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_gay-weddings_changing-your-last-name?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special%20Topic%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:44Discussion:cc8356f4-c07b-496f-a0de-5fd7e7425cf1Post:43cc80cc-4a98-45f2-961d-70ab05f0fb9f">Re: Changing your last name?</a>:
[QUOTE]My fiancee is hyphenating her name to include my last name because we want our children to have the same name as both of us one day.  If we were not a same gendered couple, I would NOT want to change my name. Also, I forgot to mention that we have the SAME first name, so she has to hyphenate her last name rather than taking mine completely because we'd have the EXACT name and that would probably cause us some problems down the road!
Posted by Michonip[/QUOTE]

<div>I can see why you are choosing that! That would likely be problematic! <img src="http://cdn.cl9.vanillaforums.com/downloaded/ver1.0/content/scripts/tinymce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-smile.gif" border="0" alt="Smile" title="Smile" /></div>

2dBride

Neither of us changed her name.  Then again, I didn't change mine when I was married to a man, either.  I just don't see the point of the whole custom.

mmy101

My partner was very attached to her last name (because of her late father), so I changed mine to hers. I wasn't very attached to mine and I love writing Mrs. ***** everything! We are lucky to live in Iowa, so it was pretty simple, good luck to those in the process!

borikenuno

He's changing his last name to mine. While I have a strong attachment to my historic appelido (family name, we're Puerto Rican), he's estranged from his family. For this reason, he doesn't mind taking my name.

LuckeeClover

We are combining ours together. We have a few coupled friends who did that and love the idea.

dtoddgray

I am going to hyphenate my last name. I am divorced and have two sons who have my name. I believe my fiance' is going to do the same. His name is going to be first and mine second. I

utterrandomness

I'm changing my last name to hers. I'm not particularly attached to my legal last name, nor really the last name I use most frequently, but my fiancee is attached to hers. It makes the most sense really. We are planning to travel a lot as well, and we look enough alike that if we had the same last name, most people would think we were sisters, which is an added element of safety in some situations.

theclovers

I am changing my last name to my girlfriends last name. I like my last name, but I enjoy how close my fiances family is and they LOVE their last name. So, to feel more like part, I decided to take her's.

sggeiger

We agonized over this too and finally decided to hypenate because if we have kids we want all of us to have the same last name. I think it'll just be easier if we encounter any resistance about who is the "real" parent if the person in the school/doctors office/etc. has the same last name as the kid.

My partner is really attached to her family name and lineage so I did tell her that if we have a boy and he wants to drop my name when he gets married (because what if his wife/husband also wants to hypenate and it gets crazy) that it's OK since I'm not as attached to my last name. I just don't want to drop it entirely. I think I might feel the same way if I was marrying a man.

Sarah

[Deleted User]

I think we may shuffle ours together and pick 2 out of 4... I'll admit that I had never thought about the intricacies of managing a union between two gals who were already raised with hyphenated names, but I think a quad-barreled name would be too much!

francophonia

We both wanted to keep our last names, but hyphenation wasn't a choice for us because my last name is already a hyphenate. I couldn't imagine giving my name up though. So we kept our respective names. When we had children we created a last name for them using our first names.