Getting married- ? do I change my name

[DebW]

I believe in keeping one name for life. When I married in 1980, dh said he thought families should have the same last name. I disagreed, but said if he felt strongly about it he could change his name. He didn't. If he had insisted I change mine, I wouldn't have married him, because that would have meant he was an MCP (who remembers what that stands for?). Fast forward to 2 years ago when we went to marriage counseling (we should be divorcing this year), and among his complaints were that I didn't change my name and would never agree to a joint bank account. The bigger problem was that I married the wrong gender - the other things were just symptoms. I did kind of always resent that both kids got his last name. I wanted my last name for one and his for the other.

[Andrea]

... he was an MCP (who remembers what that stands for?)...

Microsoft Certified Professional
Maritime Communications Partner
Molecular and Cellular Proteomics
Medical Center at Princeton
Metal Coating Process

Ah... here we go- male chauvinist pig!

I knew google wouldn't fail me...

[Biciclista]

I'll confess; I remembered (what MCP meant)

[Andrea]

Is 27.75 old enough to know? I think I'd heard it before but forgotten.

[Crankin]

I remembered, Deb, and I laughed!
I didn't change my name the first time, but people started calling me by his last name anyway. It caused a hassle with the ASU legal aid divorce I got in 1977. I had to go through the process of legally changing it back.
I come from a culture (at least in New England) where everyone pretty much uses her birth name as her middle name when she gets married, if she is changing her last name. I didn't realize this was different from what is common. When DH and I were planning our marriage, the name change thing was the only thing we disagreed on. He really wanted me to take his name, so I did. Then, after a few years, he realized it didn't matter in the least to him (he was raised by very traditional parents) and suggested that I change back. But, by this time I didn't care so much. Legally, I am Robyn birth name, DH's last name. I sign everything this way, with no hyphen. People don't call me that, though, although around here it is very common to do so. I think because I was a teacher, people just went with the Mrs. DH's last name...
As I said, around here many people don't change their name, use hyphenated names, or do as I have. It's common to have families with many different last names. Both of my kids have my birth name as their middle name. At first, they hated it, but when we moved to a community with more progressive values and half the kids had hyphenated names, they realized it wasn't that "weird." The oldest one uses it on all official documents (like his college diploma), but the younger one uses his initial only. I don't think he even knows how to spell it correctly (it's a slightly different spelling of a name that while it isn't super common, is recognizable).
Once in awhile, I think that this is the only thing I gave in on, but in retrospect, I have been married for almost 30 years and there's more important things!

[Aggie_Ama]

We got married May 24, I graduated May 9. So guess what the all important paper handed to me by Dr. Robert Gates from Texas A&M says my name is? My Aggie Ring says Amanda J. Birth Last Name (I can't believe it all fit in a size 5.5 ring). I am cool with it. I am still me and my family thinks I am still one of them even if my legal name is different.

[lph]

It's up to everyone to make their own decision for their own reasons, but personally I can't see any reason I would want to change my name, ever. I'm not married, for that matter, but for all practical purposes, and in all the ways that count, we're married, and I call him my husband. (In Norwegian that neatly comes out as "my man", which is quite correct )

Basically I consider marriage a private matter, as private as what I vote, what my religious views are, what my interests are and who my friends are. Not a secret, mind you, but something that I don't feel the need to state publicly by changing my name. I'm me with my name, the man I'm married to is someone else.

Our son carries both our surnames. Mine is the most unusual, so that became his given surname, while my dh's surname became his middle name. To keep things a little simpler we gave him just one first name, a slightly unusual one. I promised dh that I would use our son's full name on all occasions so that dh's surname wouldn't "disappear".

Likewise I have my mother's maiden name as my middle name. I hated it like the plague as a teenager, as a grown-up I suddenly appreciated having both my parents represented in my name and I use both names actively today.

[ZenSojourner]

I'll confess; I remembered (what MCP meant)

I used to call my son (jokingly) a male chauvinist piglet when he was little.

In fact it got to be a running joke. He'd think up something semi-obnoxious to say just to get me to call him that, LOL!

To this day every once in awhile he'll pop out with something very definitely not PC to get a laugh, such as (and I quote):

"I happen to know that women are emotional timebombs who must be sheltered from the ways of the world lest they be overcome"

LOL!

I don't think he remembers how it got started.

As for the name change stuff, I didn't and I'm glad. This was discussed with my ex prior to the marriage at some length and then lo and behold, like 3 days before the wedding, he claims we never talked about it. I wasn't about to let him pressure me into a name change at the last minute, but it was a warning sign that the marriage was in trouble before it ever started.

The stuff about kids and last names is pretty silly as well. There are tons of yours-mine-and-ours families these days, should the kids with the "different" names feel badly? Of course not. My son had a different last name than I did for his entire life and he thought that was entirely normal. He's working on a PhD, no drugs, alcohol, STDs, car wrecks, stealing, vandalism, arson, or out-of-wedlock children. I didn't list murder, because he is a notorious killer-of-houseplants.

The fact that he had a "different" last name than I did doesn't seem to have kept him from growing up to be a well-adjusted adult.

[Karma007]

I used to call my son (jokingly) a male chauvinist piglet when he was little.

In fact it got to be a running joke. He'd think up something semi-obnoxious to say just to get me to call him that, LOL!


"I happen to know that women are emotional timebombs who must be sheltered from the ways of the world lest they be overcome"

That's funny!

[Zen]

"I happen to know that women are emotional timebombs who must be sheltered from the ways of the world lest they be overcome"

Overcome? By "the vapors"?
check out the treatment for the vapors

[ZenSojourner]

Probably. When he said it (we were IM-ing), I pointed out that one of our founding fathers, Patrick Henry, had locked his wife up in the basement because she was "crazy". That's what too much reading will do for a woman.

He promptly Googled it - I must say he hasn't been as trusting of me since the Jackalope incident when he was 9 - discovered it was true, and proclaimed, "Patrick Henry is my Hero!"

He's a pistol.

[Flur]

I took DH's name, gladly. BUT, I was already in the midst of name-identity crisis. My birth father and my mom never married, so I had my mom's last name at birth. This was just fine by me (who wants the name of a guy who wishes she hadn't existed in the first place?). But my mom remarried and her new husband (my dad) adopted me, and I took his name when I was 9. We weren't very close when I was growing up, and I didn't relate to the name at all, plus it's Scottish and I don't look at all Scottish so it caused people to probe. By the time I got to college I wanted to change my name back, but I thought it would hurt his feelings so I didn't.

So when DH and I decided to get married it was an easy decision for me. I got to take a name that I liked, and have a reason for having it that people don't question. And now it feels more like me than any of the other names. If something happened and we got divorced I wouldn't change it back. It's who I am now.