Last Name

levieenrose · November 2014

OP, I hope that this decision gets easier for you and you come to the right decision for yourself.

Like many of the previous posters, I kept my last name. If we are lucky enough to have kids, they'll take his name...and I have to admit I get tickled when people call me Mrs. His-Last-Name. But honestly, it's just not me (as much as it would be nice to drop the ridiculous spelling and pronunciation of my last name), and either way he is totally OK with that.

hellosweetie1015 · November 2014

I'll be changing mine. I get little googly-eye feelings in my chest when I write my new name. I'm currently not exactly sure how much longer I'm going to be a [maiden name], but I started writing Cait [married name] in March, when we first started talking about getting married. I love love love it.

That being said, that's me, and that's my choice for my name. What you choose to do with your name, is 100% up to you. It doesn't have any effect on anyone other than you. Tell your FI that if he wants to call your choice for your name dumb, he can do it while he's sleeping on the couch.

raissyrais · November 2014

If it's for patriarchy reasons, you'll be better off choosing a whole different name and have BOTH you and your husband change your last names to the new one you picked on your own. Because believe it or not, your current last name has a long and strong lineage of being passed down from generations and generations of males.

But if you are truly attached to your last name, just hyphenate it. And yes people do use their married name for everyday things and their maiden name just for business.

porkchops926 · November 2014

kasmith1 said:

I haven't changed my name yet. I said it was because I wanted to make sure I could vote, and part of it was. (I live in Texas, we have a weird voting thing here making it difficult to vote if your name isn't exactly the same on the voter registration and your ID card.)

I'm having difficulty letting it go. I love Smith. I know that's weird. Who loves Smith? No one. It's Smith, it's common. At last estimate and according to howmanyofme.com, there are 2,811,634 of us. I like the anonymity of it. I have a difficult first name and it's the only name that anyone gets right. I have so many Smith jokes, mostly corny, but I love my name. It has been mine for 34 years. No one is ever going to get my name right again, any part of it, DH is from Spain and people butcher his name even though it's really not that difficult.

Will I change it, yes, eventually, but I will move Smith to the middle and I will always be a Smith.

I don't blame you at all for loving Smith. I would KILL for Smith. I've had a long German last name that everyone mispronounces my whole life, and who do I get engaged to? An Indian guy....

So yeah, hyphenation is out of the question. At least I'm used to pronouncing my name to other people because now I'm gonna have a real doozie.

nosietoes · November 2014

I won't be changing mine. Its far too much a part of my identity. FH isn't interested in taking my name. He feels similarly about his name. I have the name of my brother and my sister. That's important to me. My mum has always regretted changing her name. So much so that if we ever have a son, we've decided to give him my mum's maiden name, Kearns, as his middle name.

VictoriasImage · January 2015

In case this helps you at all, I felt the same way. I ended up saying screw it, I'm not changing anything. It was zero hassle legally, and I don't regret it. Not even a little.

velvethelicopters · January 2015

Legally, my last name can die. Socially, I've used the last name of a friend whose family took me in at 17 after the mind fuckery got too bad. Never got around to legally changing my name, mostly because it's a headache if not with marriage in my state.

So no question about taking DF last name. I'm going to go from First Middle Last to Nickname Friend Last DF Last. Gives me the name that's closest to family to me, kills the family of requirement connection (current middle) and my stupid made up first name, and I like DF last name with my nickname.

anjemon · January 2015

porkchops926 said:

kasmith1 said:

I haven't changed my name yet. I said it was because I wanted to make sure I could vote, and part of it was. (I live in Texas, we have a weird voting thing here making it difficult to vote if your name isn't exactly the same on the voter registration and your ID card.)

I'm having difficulty letting it go. I love Smith. I know that's weird. Who loves Smith? No one. It's Smith, it's common. At last estimate and according to howmanyofme.com, there are 2,811,634 of us. I like the anonymity of it. I have a difficult first name and it's the only name that anyone gets right. I have so many Smith jokes, mostly corny, but I love my name. It has been mine for 34 years. No one is ever going to get my name right again, any part of it, DH is from Spain and people butcher his name even though it's really not that difficult.

Will I change it, yes, eventually, but I will move Smith to the middle and I will always be a Smith.

I don't blame you at all for loving Smith. I would KILL for Smith. I've had a long German last name that everyone mispronounces my whole life, and who do I get engaged to? An Indian guy....

So yeah, hyphenation is out of the question. At least I'm used to pronouncing my name to other people because now I'm gonna have a real doozie.

I'm changing from Smith, to something super Polish. My first name is a little bit unusual because my parents wanted to offset Smith (my mom ended up Sally Smith, poor mom). I'm not really looking forward to having to spell both my first and last names to everyone.

I do enjoy the anonymity of Smith. You can google my name and never find me for pages and pages. I think if I had siblings who were male I would be more reluctant about "leaving the family" and having a different last name. I liked referring to us as "The Smith Family". But both my sisters have already married out of the Smith name, so I'm not too upset about it.

Blergbot · January 2015

I didn't change my last name. I'm very attached to it as part of my identity. It's been my name my whole life, so why would I change that? My H was totally in agreement and it never even came up as an issue. But we were undecided on having kids. Hypothetically, I was cool with our hypothetical child having my H's last name.

Cut to me getting knocked up before we had even resolved the issue of whether or not we wanted kids. I've found that I feel rather strongly about my child carrying my name, and I think it's unfair that I should settle for a middle name, while my H automatically gets the last name, just because he has a penis. My H has "taken hypenation/two last names off the table." He won't hear of it. His first choice would be his last name (he has graciously allowed me to have the middle name--gee, thanks), second choice would be my last name, but he's not too happy about it, because then people will think he's the step-dad. I reminded him that, while that's true, the same goes for me. My mother has a different last name, and growing up, she was always having to prove that she's my mom. If she wrote a note to school, she'd always have to sign it: Her Name (Blergbot's mother). A hyphen would solve this, no?

But then there's the argument that when our son grows up and gets married, he'll have to choose, or add yet another name. I'm ok with my name being eventually dropped, if that's my adult son's choice. But what will probably wind up happening is that I will hyphenate my last name, and then my son will take H's last name. I'm dissatisfied, but, of course, I have to be the one to comprimise. I'm the woman.

All that is to say, make sure you discuss this issue with your FI ahead of time.

photokitty · January 2015

I've struggled with it, but a year and a half later I still have my maiden name bc doing nothing is easier than making a decision. I'll probably never change it, but I may consider it when we have kids. More likely I'll keep my name and give all the kids my last name as thier middle name. I'm not a fan of giving kids hyphenated name, but it's a personal choice.

brideiguess · January 2015

I'm struggling with this too. Really, deep down, I kinda just want to keep my own name. My name isn't Smith but it is another very common name - I'm nearly un-Googleable and I like it that way. It's the name that is on my high school and college diplomas, and the name that's going on my masters degree when I finish that before our marriage.

I thought my FI would be okay with me keeping my name, and that it would be the end of that conversation, since he's been around my feminist self for so long. But he was a little sadder about the prospect of having different names than I thought he would be - especially since in his birth country, women don't change their names at all on marriage!

We put a hyphenated version of our last names on our cats' nametags (silly I know) and now he's grown to really like the idea of hyphenating, and would like us both to hyphenate. I'd never consider it if he weren't going to do it too, but since he is willing, it gives me pause.

I'm not a huuuuge fan of our hyphenated names, but at least we have short easy names - it wouldn't be hard to pronounce or too unwieldy. It is nice to think that we would have the same last name together and with potential children, without sacrificing my half of the family. I do wonder what the children would decide to do when they get married - hyphenation is a one-generation solution. (Then again - they can cross that bridge when they get there, if they are even ever born.) I don't want to use different names personally and professionally. I don't think I could keep track of that.

Ultimately he wants me to do what I am most comfortable with. I just don't know what to do, and I don't want to make him sad. I have a good long time to decide, at least.

sophhabobopha · January 2015

I'm changing mine. My last name is a pain in the ass, and I feel more like a member of FI's family than my own (minus my mom and siblings).

It's your choice.

rcher912 · January 2015

I think it's actually a good thing to struggle with this decision. It's a big one that affects a major part of your identity, and to do anything (change or keep) without giving it due consideration, I feel like that's missing the whole point of a name.

I'll be changing mine, for many reasons that @hellosweetie1015 mentioned. I also just love love love the idea of being "The X Family" as opposed to Mr. X and Mrs. Y and "The X-Y family". I know a ton of people who hyphenated or kept their maiden name, for various reasons.

My radical feminist friends decry my undying urge to change my name to FI's (I'll probably get rid of mine altogether), but meh. It's a very personal decision, and it's only yours to make!!

JaniV123 · January 2015

We have had this discussion and so far no one is changing of hyphenating the names.

Its not traditional here in Puerto Rico to change your name, just socially you can be called "Mary Jane Martinez of Lopez" instead of using both last names.

We considered both cnaging our last name to a hyphenated one to have the same last name as a family but he is of the thought of having them alphabetically organized, leaving his in first place, and I said I wanted mine to be first. So we concluded that as of now, no one is changing last names.

My last name is incredibly important to me and its so unique, and my families are so unique and important in the town history I never want to loose that. So I am a little sad about the family name thing but, w/e

jdluvr06 · January 2015

H changed his last name to mine. It was a long complicated process though. It took months, tons of paperwork, and he had to talk to a judge.

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