Poll to follow. Taking the husband's last name upon marriage. Yes, no, other

[jenniferlee]

He took my last name.

[LostSurprise]

I don't know how people get it all done.

 

I couldn't get time off to do it, and lived nowhere near the SS office, so I left it alone for a few years. (Of course using my sick days before I got married to get stuff done at a suburban Chicago DMV did not encourage me to work too hard.)

 

The first year we were married I hyphenated *my name* on the tax forms (dh remained the same) and the bank account (I did have to go in for that but it took all of 15 minutes with a marriage certificate). No one said anything. I used only his name with family and only my maiden name at work. I hyphenated on legal documents.

 

After 2 babies and moving to another state I fixed it so we all had the same last name. It took three 20 minute discussions with the local SS office. Luckily they rarely had anyone else there. There was a bunch of paperwork, but because the government (tax forms) had accepted it for 2-3 years, I had all my other paperwork (marriage, my birth, old SS, etc) and all the boys' birth certificates were under his last name, they eventually stopped scowling and made out a new card.

 

Part of the scowling was because I changed my first name too. For some reason my parents had ordered my SS card in my nickname NOT my legal name. Don't ask. They were a lot nicer about the last name change then that. Also, having a baby on your hip and a toddler running around looking in waste baskets helps speed things up.

Edited August 14, 2012 by LostSurprise

[jenangelcat]

I took my husband's name but only because i wanted to cut all association with my maiden name.

[LizzyBee]

I took dh's name... but I had been married before and still had my xh's name, so I couldn't very well keep that name. :tongue_smilie: I thought about changing back to my maiden name after my divorce, but I wasn't real fond of my maiden name, so I didn't. If I had changed it back, I would never have changed it again.

 

I made one visit to SS and that took care of it there. For my diploma and degrees, I just attach a copy of my marriage certificate(s) and/or divorce decree depending on which name is on the document. I've never been asked to get my name changed on the actual documents.

 

I've never talked to my girls about changing their names or not. I don't have strong feelings about it either way.

[Julie Smith]

Yes, Denmark is begging parents (bonus money) to come up with new last names for their kids. About 70% or so of the population have one of five surnames. It's impossible to keep the paperwork from becoming completely insane and especially when you consider that there are some popular first names that keep getting used over and over and over again with those recurring last names. How many million Christian Hansens or Jens Johannsens can the system take before even the computer gets really confused? :D

 

Therefore it is becoming much more acceptable for children to not share the same last name as their parents.

 

Faith

 

Thank you Faith.

 

It was something I vaguely remember my Mom talking about. I think some of my family members in Denmark have different last names for the kids.

[BarbecueMom]

Another one here that dropped a Czech maiden name. I took DH's last name, which is still Eastern European, but shorter and easier to pronounce and spell.

[momma aimee]

never even thought about keeping my maidian name; :)

[vonfirmath]

I took my husband's. Back then it wasn't as common as it is now to hyphenate or keep the maiden name. It was really rare in our area at the time.

 

Nowadays, I sort of wished that I kept my maiden name. All the new ID rules related to homeland security make it desirable to do so. I have to drag around my "barely hanging on by a thread" marriage license anytime I do anything that requires proof of identification. I've had to do that a lot lately, so I am just that annoyed with the process.

 

...Why? I changed my name when I got married and have never needed the license since except to prove I was married to my husband for health insurance.

[VeritasMama]

I changed my maiden name to a second middle name because I wanted to keep it but I didnt want to hyphenate because I thought it would be a pain for forms. Turns out two middle names is way more of a pain.

 

The older I get, the more I like the fact that we all, myself and dh and dc, have the same last name. I grew up in a blended family situation so I never thought I would care about that, but for some reason now I do.

[JennyD]

In Venezuela, having the same last name as your kids implies that their father refused to put his name on the birth certificate. I don't enjoy the stinkeye, but I'd really rather not have the awkward silence as people try to figure out what the deal is with my kids' parentage that I'd get in Caracas if we had the same last name.

 

I knew Latin American naming norms were different but not the details -- thanks for sharing this! So interesting.

[ashfern]

My answer is other. I was going to hyphenate but my DH had a freaking cow about that. So instead, I replaced my middle name with my maiden name. :tongue_smilie: I never liked my middle name so it was a win-win for me. I was one semester from graduating with my undergrad degree so I just kept it as my original name. For the SS#, I just filled out some name change paperwork & easy-peasy they sent me a new card. :D

[AngelBee]

Kept my last name and added his.

 

I already had a son who had my last name.

 

All of the children also have both.

 

I believe if I hadn't already had a child, we all would have my husbands last name only.

 

I do not put a - inbetween names. Just a space.....because I am weird! :lol:

[Evergreen State Sue]

Took my husband's name, but replaced my middle name with my maiden name. I only use the initial of my maiden name in the middle, so someone would have to ask me what it stood for for me to give them the explanation. I only did that so that my initials could then spell a word, which I thought was fun since at the time I had a job where I initialed a lot of paperwork. I gladly took my husband's last name because it felt natural to be leaving my family of origin (symbolically) and creating a new family with my husband.

[Bluegoat]

I kept my maiden name. I considered changing it, but I really wasn't keen on getting all my cards and legal stuff changed. And knowing the army pay system I thought it was entirely possible I might go a year without getting any money if I threw them a complication.

 

I often use my husbands last name socially though. I like us having all one last name, and dd told me yesterday she prefers that as well, which surprised me somewhat.

[SKL]

I'm single, but I have experience with name changes from my kids' adoptions. What a royal pain, and this was for tots with hardly any "official" history.

 

I love the "idea" of the name change, but I find it sad that once a woman does that, she falls off the face of the earth as far as people who only knew her before her marriage. I recall my 5-year law school reunion, and between all the married names and hair color, I hardly recognized any of the women.

 

And I have a lot of stuff in my name. I think it would be a nightmare to change it all. House, bills, retirement funds, academic records, health records, professional licenses, employment history, drivers' license, passport, SSN, taxes, and a lot more. And I'm a pretty low-key person.

 

And I already have all the kids I'm likely to have, and they have my current last name.

 

So I don't think I'd do this. I might do it from a social perspective but keep my name legally as is.

[frugalmama]

I'm not married, and dd has my last name.

 

When I do marry, I won't be changing my name because it's a part of my religion {Islam} to not change the wife's family name even after marriage.

 

My kids will have their father's last name, with the exception hopefully of 1 son who I intend to name after my father with a name that has been in the family for over 200 years and handed down every other generation. There is no one left with that name as the tradition hasn't been kept up in recent generations, and I really want to continue it.

[QuirkyKapers]

Changed my last name to his. First, I was ready to write something new for a last name. Second, the hyphenated name did not sound good. :D

[dbmamaz]

super late reply - my mom used her maiden name proffesionally and i was shocked when she took her second husband's name. Neither husband even really suggested I change my name. Second husband's name is even harder to pronounce than mine.

 

funny thing tho - every kid has a different last name. DD has my name, ds 1 has his father's name and ds 2 has his father's name . . . hard to put a name on the mailbox. but it makes sense to us!

[Dewdrop]

I took my husband's name. When we went to apply for our license, the registrar asked if I wanted to keep my last name - Bennett - for my husband's very long very German name. When I said I was taking his name, she said "You must really love him!"

[SheilaZ]

I took my husband's last name and not only that, I bucked the southern tradition of using your maiden name as a new middle name.

I liked my original middle name because my father chose it for me...so I kept it with my new last name.

[Danestress]

it is just part of who I am - part of my identity and not something I would drop upon marriage. I have a distinctive Czech name, and I don't know .... it's hard to imagine me with an Anglo-Saxon name.

 

I have never had trouble with having a different name from my kids and husband. I always say his last name is my second favorite in the world, so I don't get annoyed if people use it for me. Likewise, DH sometimes gets called by my last name - like at the grocery store where our VIP card is in my name. He says it gives him a happy feeling, because he loves my family and doesn't mind being identified with it

[J-rap]

I took my husband's name, but I don't put pressure on my girls to change their names. However, I personally love having a shared name. To me, it's just another part of the union that takes place, and a family all having one last name to share is a nice symbol of unity. But I don't think taking the man's name is important. A couple could choose the woman's name, or a new name altogether. So I do like one shared name for the entire family, but if a couple chooses otherwise I certainly don't believe it's wrong.

[Little Nyssa]

I changed my name. I'm really sorry you had all that hassle, OP. It was very easy for me, I have never had any bureaucratic issue with it. Everything from IRS to bank to SS number has been very easy.

[kokotg]

it is just part of who I am - part of my identity and not something I would drop upon marriage. I have a distinctive Czech name, and I don't know .... it's hard to imagine me with an Anglo-Saxon name.

 

 

This kind of thing is part of it for me, too. My last name is strongly identified with the area where I grew up and where we now live....roads are named after me and all that :). DH's last name, on the other hand, is quite uncommon and also quite recognizably Eastern European Jewish. I'd kind of feel like a poser with his name.

[nukeswife]

I took my husbands because my maiden name is Polish and I've never had one person who didn't know my family well say it right. Although my dh's name is spelled wrong if we don't tell people immediately how to spell it (we spell it with a "d" not a "t" like most expect) at least they can pronounce it correctly enough that I know they are talking to me.

 

I have a cousin that got married last year and has decided to keep her maiden name for now because it's such a hassle to get everything changed over and said she may change it if they ever have kids, her dh is perfectly fine with her keeping her name as well.

[FLDebbie]

it is just part of who I am - part of my identity and not something I would drop upon marriage. I have a distinctive Czech name, and I don't know .... it's hard to imagine me with an Anglo-Saxon name.

 

I have never had trouble with having a different name from my kids and husband. I always say his last name is my second favorite in the world, so I don't get annoyed if people use it for me. Likewise, DH sometimes gets called by my last name - like at the grocery store where our VIP card is in my name. He says it gives him a happy feeling, because he loves my family and doesn't mind being identified with it

 

:iagree:Other than the Czech part, this sounds just like us.

 

I can remember as a kid reading something in the Bible (or something in Sunday School) where the gist was the wife took her husband's name becasuse she became the property of the husband's family when they married. I remember thinking it was crazy to change your last name to show ownership and decided then and there never to change my name.

[AndrewsDK]

DH had always hated his name and wanted to change it. I told him I was only changing my name once, so if he wanted to change his name it had to be before the wedding.

 

He changed his 2 months before the wedding, I changed mine right after the wedding. His middle name was Andrew, our new last name is Andrews.

[anabelneri]

I picked the "made up a new last name" option, but it's really a merging of names. We dropped part of mine and stuck it on the front of his. His bachelor-name was relatively unusual, while the part of mine we kept is familiar and I loved having it... this isn't our name, but the sort of thing we did is if his last name was Slubble and mine had been O'Brien, our new name is O'Slubble. So not a hyphenation, but still connected to our names-of-origin.

 

:)

[edithcrawley]

I changed my name to his right after marriage. Nobody could spell my maiden name correctly (it was only 6 letters long but people kept trying to add an extra letter to the end). His was easier to spell.

 

As I'm fairly young, I didn't have too much of a history with my old name, other than graduating from college with it. My diploma matches my current name though because my school took a while to print the diplomas after graduation, and apparently, they use the name that you last told them about, even if the name change took place after graduation (I really didn't care what name ended up on the paper).

[DianeW88]

I took my dh's last name. My maiden name is a "famous one", and I was always asked, "are you related to....". Since the answer is "yes" and since I was getting weary of responding to the question, I was happy to have a "new identity". :D

 

Not that my maiden name was associated with anyone notorious or criminal, it was just not something I wanted to have to discuss every time I met someone new.

[Audrey]

Legally, I took my husband's last name. But, I already had AFTRA and Equity cards in my maiden name, so I kept it as my professional name.

 

FWIW, I should have changed my professional name, too, before my career kind of ended. My never liked my maiden name. It is an unusual and gutterally ugly name, but it was memorable enough that it worked for me. My married name is a beautiful, but simple French name. When you pronounce my first name the French way and say it with my married last name, it sounds sultry and exotic and lovely, which I am not, but I could play that. ;)

Edited August 15, 2012 by Audrey

[TiaTia]

his last name was Slubble and mine had been O'Brien, our new name is O'Slubble.:)

 

Love it! Short and wonderful.

 

DH wanted the same last name, so we both double-barreled our fathers' last names. Mine went first. For some reason, ditto with two other sets of friends who also combined names -- the gal's father's last name first, followed by his.

 

A fourth set of our friends who married about the same time decided to merge their names without the hyphen: he took her father's last name as his middle name, she moved that name to her middle slot, and they both go by his father's last name alone. But double-barreled would've worked very nicely for them, so we enjoy calling them the Young-___ies. Sounds like a great TV western, to our ears.

[ThatCyndiGirl]

I took his name, but regret it. It feels like I lost part of my own identity by absorbing some of his. :glare:

[ksr5377]

I kept my last name and 8 years later I am still so happy that I did. Our children have DH's last name. I really just felt like changing my name would be giving up a part of myself. DH was a little annoyed in the beginning, I could tell, but I asked him to think about what it would feel like to change his name. He agreed he would want no part of it. I also think it helped that other than our discussion, I didn't make a huge deal of it. The minister introduced us as Mr. & Mrs., when strangers refer to me as Mrs. XXX I just answer etc. Of course the person I got the most flack from was my own mother, but I think it's because she was jealous she didn't keep her maiden name. She loved her maiden name and thinks her married name is so boring, but back in the 70's not changing it seemed to be a much bigger statement than it is today.

[tex-mex]

I detested my maiden name. Could not wait to legally change it when I married. Funny thing is, it is commonly mispelled or pronounced incorrectly. I then tell people that I married for love, not his last name. :D I still like my new last name better than my maiden name.

[Vanna]

My maiden name is cool, but common.

My hubby's last name is totally cool, and coupled with my first name I sound like someone "famous." LOL!

If his last name were dorkey, I wouldn't give the guy the time of day let alone fall in love and marry him (once, a friend tried to get me interested in a guy who's last name sounded like an insect. yeah... no:001_unsure:).

 

I always had plans to take on my hubby's last name after marriage, never to hyphenate or keep my maiden name.

[happypamama]

I changed my name to DH's name. I dropped my maiden name completely but kept my given first and middle names. My maiden name and my married name sound terrible together, for one thing. For another, I adore my middle name, and actually, it's a connection to my dad. When they were expecting me, they had chosen my first name but hadn't decided on a middle name yet; one day, my dad came home and announced that if the baby was a girl, her middle name would be Joy. (Who wouldn't love that? Also, my mom's name is Gail, which means "joy," so even though they didn't do that deliberately, it's a connection to her too.) I also have two brothers, and their wives took their name, so my dad's last name isn't going to be lost. So I do not feel bad about taking DH's name at all. :) (I hope that if DD gets married and changes her name, she'll drop our last name but keep her middle name too, because I love her middle name and chose it because it's my grandmother's middle name.)

 

Back in 1998, changing my name was easy. We just took the marriage license to the social security office and ordered a new SS card for me. When it came, I took it and my driver's license to the DMV and got a new license (we also moved to a new state), and then that was able to get us any other paperwork. I'm sorry it's such a pain now!

[mytwomonkeys]

i liked my maiden name (williams) and i love my married name now too (keith). both suit me fine and go nicely with my first name imho. i never considered keeping my maiden name. i did opt out of the southern tradition of losing my middle name and replacing it with my maiden name. i chose to keep my first and middle names and drop my maiden name all-together.

 

what's funny is my childhood friends still call me by my maiden name though when referring to me, and i've been married 12 years, lol. it's funny that they just don't see me as anyone else but that. i do the same with them too. :)

[IsabelC]

I took my husband's name because we knew we wanted children and wanted all of us to have the same family name. I liked his name better than mine, plus I wasn't really attached to my maiden name because it hadn't been in the family long (my father had changed his name).

 

If I were to make the decision now, I would prefer that we decide on a new family name that we can both change to. We just never considered that because we didn't think of it and hadn't heard of anyone who'd done it at the time.

[AndyJoy]

I took DH's last name without a second thought. I do really love the fact that it starts with the same letter as my maiden name so I got to keep my initials. In fact, both my maternal grandmother and mother married men with the same initial as their maiden name!

 

The name change process was no big deal. I went to the SS office, filled out a form, and got a new card in the mail a few weeks later. I took my marriage license and SS card to the DMV and got a new license. No problems at all, and this was in a well-populated part of CA that is notoriously a pain!

[Margaret H]

To me, regardless of what the last name is, be it from the husband, wife, hyphenated, blended, or random new one, the point is to have one last name to create a family.....as a couple, and more so, if you intend to have children.

[Lady Florida.]

I took dh's name without thinking about it. I wanted to. It really wasn't that difficult or expensive to make the change.

 

Since I don't have a middle name, and my maiden name doesn't sound like a last name, I use it as my middle name. Not hyphenated, just a middle name. (Those of you who know me on facebook, that's my maiden name in the middle.)