Getting married- ? do I change my name

[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.