GTKY: Changing your name after marriage (or not!)

hanna23

I took my husbands name :-) It was hard for me to give up my maiden name, for some reason I got emotional about it, but I was also very proud to take my husbands last name. 
I still miss my last name sometimes...five years later, but when I think about it, it wouldn't even feel natural to have my maiden name anymore, I'm a Mrs. and proud to be!

britneyfaye

I took DH last name and made my maiden name my middle name. So I dropped my original middle name.

BeeGirl2

I took my husbands last name but a small part of me felt bad because I was the last of 3 girls to leve the name behind... My father was deceased so that made it even more sad. So when I had DS #1 I made his middle name my maiden name. That made me feel better!

Mrs.DeRuysscher

i am currently in the beginning process of changing our name over but i choose to take his last name

southerngirl2B

I took his last name and was thrilled to do so! I also changed my middle name to my maiden name.

RoastyToasty

@bbg676 Same here! There was even a Facebook group for people with my first and maiden names. Now I think I might be the only one.

My maiden name was very very common. I'm happy to have DH's last name, but I had to get used to it always being mispronounced and misspelled. 

kdhuling

I left my maiden name as a second middle name and took hubs last name.

CrazyDaisy8

I changed my LN to my H's LN and just dropped my maiden name. It was a really hard decision for me because I felt like I was losing my identity. My FN is Bridget and with my maiden LN I was the only one in the world with my name. I loved that fact. It was also very German which made me feel close to my heritage. My H's LN is so generic and there are so many people who now have the same name as me. I went from being unique to just another person in the crowd.

I made my decision after thinking about it for months because my then FI sat me down an told me how much it meant to him that I had the same name as he did. I appreciated it and I knew how much it took for him to talk to me about it. I respected his views and took his name. In retrospect I can't imagine not having his name but I still secretly like my maiden LN better.

NerdyLucy

Joy2611 said:

EDIT: Socially, I'll answer to his name if people want to call me that.  It's certainly part of who I am.  I'm sure our kid's teachers will refer to me as Mrs. HisLastName.  I'm a lot of things: Mrs. HisLastName, Ms. MyLastName and Dr. MyLastName, but I only get one legal name.  I'm not changing that for anyone.

Yeah, pretty much this.

I'm keeping my name, but people have called us by each other's last names for years.  We recently got married on our 12th dating anniversary, so we've been together for quite some time. 

People who don't know us well have called me Mrs. HisLastName for a long time, and people have even called him Mr. or Dr. MyLastName.  Our pets are under my name at the vet, so the vet and some of the staff assume he has my last name. Neither of us mind.  We usually only correct them if it's important. 

tealowl

I'm an SS!

When I was married previously, I took his last name, only because I have a boring common name. It was a pain in the ass to change it everywhere and now when I'm divorced I'll have to change it all back.

I'm not doing this again. S/O's last name is similar to mine, so no need to change it in the future if we ever get married...

SCSmith2011

I voted took my partner's last name but I also kept my maiden name for work. However in real life I don't use my maiden name at all because the DMV wouldn't let me have is have my maiden name as a middle name (since I also kept my middle name).

So for work I am: First name Maiden name Married name

IRL I am: First name Middle initial Married name

SS: For my first marriage I never took his name.

FrodaBaggins

I took his name legally, but kept my maiden name professionally. I work in a creative field and all my credits/website are in my maiden name, so it just made sense. So at the office I am known by maiden but drivers' license, passport, etc - everything is his. He straight up asked me to! I was super surprised. I wasn't planning on it and I think he knew, but the way he phrased it was so sweet and meaningful that I absolutely had no problem with it and now I dig being Mrs. HisLastName.

megs2011

I changed my last name. It was one of the only things my husband asked of me when we got married. It meant a lot to him so I did it.

ap142193

I changed my name, but in hindsight I wish I had kept my maiden name as a 2nd middle name. I do use a hyphened version professionally though.

ap142193

It was a hard decision for me to make. I felt like changing my name would causr me to lose part of myself.  It meant a lot to my husband that I changed it and in the end im glad I did. It makes me feel lie we are truely connected. The hardest thing was changing my social security card because I felt like I was givung up the person I had been for 30 years. I wish that our social security cards included a blank for "maiden name."  I think I will always regret not adding it myself as another middle name.

maplesugarkisses

This is something I am fighting with in my mind. My last marriage I took his last name. I changed back after the divorce and now have almost an appreciation for my maiden name. My DS has his name hyphenated (my maiden, exh's last). Now that I am engaged and planning a wedding I just always thought I would take DF's last name. ( my last name is a very commonly used word, yet everyone spells or pronounces it wrong.. His name is very unique and I love the sound of it ) my big thing now though is my DS will hae a completely different name than us and future siblings. I never heard of putting the maiden name as a second middle name though! That is interesting

Belou52579

I only just got married in May...I plan to take his name but the longer I wait, the harder it is to make myself take the steps. From what I can see I'm going to have to get copies of the marriage cert, go to the SS office, then to the DMV, then to our banks, then to my HR department, then log in online to 30k different accounts that have my name on them...I don't know what's stopping me.

MMason12

Without a doubt I took my DH's last name.  I never thought about keeping my maiden name at all.  I changed my mine the Monday morning after we got married on Saturday. 

On a side note -- my Mother kept her 1st married name since it was my sister and I's last name until we were 12 when she got remarried.  Then she hyphenated her last name 1st Married Name-2nd Married Name until my sister was 18 and graduated high school.  Then she dropped her 1st married name and now just has the one last name.  Talk about a cluster-f*** of last names when she has to fill out paperwork asking for all her previous names. lol  

mikescutie7

I changed my name to my husband's right away. My maiden name is extremely common and I wasn't too sad to change it