Name Poll

mrsamyjones

What are you doing with your name after the wedding?

Also, why did you make that decision?

ocprincess

Taking his.

We are both very traditionally minded people, and never really considered the other ways.  Some of his family members (his family, everyone has changed their names, but his generation is more modern than the way I was raised) have asked me and I was like *blink* *blink* *shock* um, his name.  Ironically, my grandmother also asked me.  My parents and friends just assumed that I would take his.

FutureMsAlexander

Taking his legally, hyphenating professionally. I'm a writer and have become accustomed to my name. I have a really distinctive first name and an insanely common/boring maiden name. I'm taking his name because I feel it further symbolizes that we are a family unit. When we have children, I want everyone to have the same last name. I'm preferring Ms., not Mrs. though. I'm already getting mail addressed to "Mrs. Alexander" and it freaks me out.

Changing or keeping your name is an extremely personal choice and I respect anyone's decision to change or keep, go by Mrs. or Ms.--whatever. Forcing everyone to fit the mold you feel is right really makes you look like a turd. IMO.

carrieoz_76

Moving mine to my middle, and adding his as my last.  My dad thinks it's silly and has never heard of anyone doing it that way, but I'm seeing it done increasingly amongst other professionals my age, and I want to keep my name in some form (dammit).

impslave

I kept my name.

I could go on about how it felt unnatural taking his name and that I don't like how my first name sounds with his last name.  But simple truth is that I'm too freaking lazy to bother with it. 

carrieoz_76

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_name-poll?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:461fdbfb-87e1-4ce3-ba02-c3deb00ebbfePost:71087764-3285-4e81-afc0-ac5e03e0bb6d">Re: Name Poll</a>:
[QUOTE]Also, I roll my eyes because I find that people who don't change their names, in general, are people like the one I quoted before, who just seem full of themselves.  
Posted by luckyme502[/QUOTE]
I think maybe you don't know very many people.<div>
</div><div>The last two friends of mine who didn't change their names didn't like have a No Name Change party.  They didn't go around telling everyone they weren't changing their name and why.  They just ... didn't change it.  They're still the same regular, everyday average people.</div>

scoetto

I dropped my middle and moved my maiden to middle. So now I'm Scoetto OldLast NewLast. I really hated my middle growing up. When my sister married 7 mos later, she also dropped her middle and moved her maiden, although professionally she goes by First OldLast.

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

We did this poll on my club board the other day, and something like 40 people were changing and dropping their maiden name, 5 were moving their maiden to their middle, 4 were hyphenating, and about 5 of us were keeping or combining in some other way. I was surprised. I though it wouldn't be QUITE so skewed!

Anyway, it's been 27 years. (Edit: Almost 28. Geez, my birthday is soon.) I'm kinda attached to this name. Plus, my last name goes well with my other names. (My initials are M.M.M.) I like my middle name - it's short, unlike my first and last names, and it was my great-great-grandmother's name. So I want to keep it all. And my last name is too unwieldy to hyphenate. So there.

Unsure about what to do with our kids' last names, but I'd like for them to have the same last name as each other, if we have more than one.

Calypso1977

msmery, i know someone who gave her maiden name to both of her kids as their middle name as a way to keep both names in there.

*BeachBride0410*

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_name-poll?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:461fdbfb-87e1-4ce3-ba02-c3deb00ebbfePost:fcf6fa78-48e9-4b90-b982-fa96e358892d">Re: Name Poll</a>:
[QUOTE]I took my DH's last name.  I never had any inclination to do otherwise. 
Posted by julezlee[/QUOTE]

This....I don't have much of a relationship with my fathers side of the family nor do I have the best relationship with my dad.

trinalo

I'm taking his last name but changing my middle name to my maiden name... probably. I haven't made a final decision about the middle name just yet.

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_name-poll?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:461fdbfb-87e1-4ce3-ba02-c3deb00ebbfePost:78473254-2f7c-44da-acc0-48f843b1de7f">Re: Name Poll</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Name Poll : People have used last names in China since about 2800 BC, they were used in ancient Greece, during the Roman Empire.  In Britain, they have been widely in use since 13th century.  I can google too!
Posted by luckyme502[/QUOTE]

And are you aware of what marriage in the Roman Empire entailed? As soon as girls hit puberty (or even before) they were married off to 30 year old men. This meant they were taken to their husband's home and probably never saw their own family again.

I could argue that women began changing their names as a symbol of the fact their husband had ownership of them, legally. And perhaps THAT is the tradition you're keeping alive. However, I'm not arguing that, since I respect people's choices to do what they wish, <em>especially </em>when it in now way affects me.

Good to know my choice to keep my name, which is very unique, which I identify with, which I will have two degrees under by the end of this year, which is very Scottish (my father is half Scottish) and which I very much like is frowned upon by a stranger on the internet because I'm not famous and haven't published a book under it.<img src="http://cdn.cl9.vanillaforums.com/downloaded/ver1.0/content/scripts/tinymce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-undecided.gif" border="0" alt="Undecided" title="Undecided" />

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_name-poll?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:461fdbfb-87e1-4ce3-ba02-c3deb00ebbfePost:3425a22a-8324-4b5f-8b78-3fbefb5f5e6d">Re: Name Poll</a>:
[QUOTE]msmery, i know someone who gave her maiden name to both of her kids as their middle name as a way to keep both names in there.
Posted by Calypso1977[/QUOTE]

I'm thinking about that! My FI has two middles - his mother's maiden name is his second middle, but he usually goes by First FirstMiddleInitial Last. He doesn't even use it, but it's still there. (It's on his college diplomas and will be on our wedding invitations.) So if we have a boy, we're thinking of First FamilyMiddle Mylast Hislast. If we have a girl, I'm thinking about just making her middle name the same as my middle. So each child would have one of "my" names. I have a friend who did that - both her daughers have her first name as their middle name, and her husband's last name.

Really, I kind of want to put half my name (again, it's a Scottish prefix) in front of FI's last name and give them a "new" last name. But FI is a little hesitant, so I'm thinking of the compromise above.

Calypso1977

id love it if our kids could just have my name, but H has said no way.  he's still bothered at times that i dont have his name, but he understands, and i think its more that he's gotten crap from his family for "allowing" it to happen.  his family is extremely outdated in so many ways, and he grew up in a very gender divided home where girls did X and boys did Y and that was that.  they dont konw how to handle someone who views the world without gender.

ohwhynot

FWIW, my children have different last names (one has dad's, one has mom's), and it's never caused any kind of problem.  It kind of bugs me when the assumption is that kids will have dad's name, leaving mom as the "odd one out" in the family.  If anything, doesn't it make more sense for them to have mom's name as the default? 
Anyway, if you think it might cause problems for the kids, all I can tell you is that in my experience (and my former sil's experience - she named her kids the same way), it hasn't. 

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

Thanks OWN! As a kid, I know I liked being identified as my brother's sister, based on a shared last name, so that's really why I'm thinking I want them to be the same. I really don't mind not having the same last name as all or some of my offspring, though. With divorces and blended families, I really don't think it's something unusual. I now have a different last name than my mom, as she changed her name when she remarried. I think different last names for siblings is more uncommon (except step siblings, of course).

FI's best friend and his wife did what you did though - their older daugher has his last name and their younger daughter has her last name. There are a lot of imperfect solutions to this, aren't there? It's nice that in Latin American countries, kids automatically get 2 last names - mom's and dad's.

portia.young

I'm taking his name, even though my last name is much cooler!  But his bumps me up in the alphabet

polichik

We're doing something complicated but cool.

Here are our names now (clearly not real names!):
Mary Anne Smith
James Earl Jones

Here's what we'll be:
Mary (First) Anne (Middle) Smith Jones (two last names)
James (First) Earl Smith (two middle names) Jones

We'll go by the Mary and James Smith Jones, and our kids will have the last name Smith Jones.

tlv204

I'm a gajillion hours late on this, but oh well. I took his (and replaced my middle with maiden), mainly because I wanted us as a family to have a last name. I would have been perfectly fine with any version that ended with us having the same last name. Him taking mine, me taking his, combining, hyphenating, etc. as long as we ended up with the same last name. I really do miss my maiden name, but having it as a middle name helps and it was important to H. I didn't care quite enough to start a fight about it since I knew he cared more about keeping his name than I did.