Ladies who kept their name

beersandweirs · October 2014

Just wanted to get some input from other ladies that kept their maiden names when they got married. Have you decided what you are going to give your kids for a last name yet and why? Thought maybe someone would have some interesting perspective I hadn't thought of yet.

adorebel · October 2014

Great question! I kept my last name, so we are debating hyphenating or even giving one child my last name and one child his last name (this is either genius or crazy...). Neither of us is comfortable having all the kids take either his surname or my surname, but our names form a complex hyphen, and neither of us can just take the other's surname, for professional reasons...

BostonGayGal · October 2014

Mine. My wife has only spoken to one member of her family in 25 years so the fact that I birth the babies and my side of the family is close makes the decision pretty simple.

beersandweirs · October 2014

Right now my husband and I are leaning more towards hyphenating since neither of us has a super long last name, so hyphenating would not make it too long. I hate when people ask, "Well what are they going to do when they get married?!" I always respond that they will make the decision that feels right to them, just like I did.

Knottie45355413 · October 2014

They'll have my husband's last name. Interesting, I've never considered anything else. I'm not a fan of hyphenated names.

adorebel · October 2014

Agreed! (They might not even <gasp> choose to get married like we have!) Because of our last names making a wonky hyphen, I like the idea of one of our kids having my last name and one having his, but it's a little weird, and what happens if we have one or three kids? If we do hyphenate, I think we'll consider not giving them a middle name.

beersandweirs · October 2014

adorebel said:

Agreed! (They might not even <gasp> choose to get married like we have!) Because of our last names making a wonky hyphen, I like the idea of one of our kids having my last name and one having his, but it's a little weird, and what happens if we have one or three kids? If we do hyphenate, I think we'll consider not giving them a middle name.

I totally agree with liking the idea of one having your name and one having his, but I could also see how that could get a little weird in practice.

catmagick · October 2014

I changed mine but I sometimes regret it. I had a beautiful poetic Italian last name and now it is this crazy Polish name that no one can ever pronounce! Hahaha I don't think it's hard but apparently others do. It's not a terrible name, but I wanted to be "Mrs." and I wanted us to be "The Lastnames". I sometimes consider using my maiden name as a middle name for the kids.

TeacherMama7 · October 2014

As a teacher, I think it would be confusing to have kids with different last names. Even though they are one family, it would not seem that way. I would just give them all the dame last name to help the family feel more united and to help others recognize the group as a family.

Jtdd · October 2014

My oldest has a hyphenated last name and I would not reccomend it. But at the time I was with his father who had a horrible last name. He got picked on as a kid for it a lot so I did not want our son to have it. But he was a stubborn jerk and insisted that his name be included. I didn't want to hyphenate because our last names are long and go together horribly. The argument continued until our son was 7 days old. I was soooooo sleep deprived I couldn't argue any longer and we needed to fill out his birth certificate. In my sleep deprived state I decided that hyphenating didn't sound so bad and went ahead and did it. I've been putting it off but I know that I'm going to need to change it because I can let him continue through school with a name that doesn't even fit on his books... And the ex is probably gonna win the almost 6 year old argument and get his name.....but even if your last names kinda go together in my opinion they still seem kinda tacky. I think when they grow up it just doesn't sound professional enough then your making them choose at some point between moms name or dads name and their probably going to feel conflicted not wanting to hurt either parent.

Knottie45355413 · October 2014

cscamina said:
As a teacher, I think it would be confusing to have kids with different last names. Even though they are one family, it would not seem that way. I would just give them all the dame last name to help the family feel more united and to help others recognize the group as a family.

I completely disagree. A like name has nothing to do with whether or not you're a family. My siblings and I have different last names and have always felt and known that we are family. Is it really that hard for you to keep track of your students? And why do strangers have to recognize anything?

adorebel · October 2014

@cscamina, we are leaning towards that, but to be fair, your kids wouldn't be in the same grade/class, though (unless they were twins). I'm in education as well, and there are of course lots of step- and half-siblings with different last names and everyone figures it out...

mmmsly · October 2014

catmagick said:

I changed mine but I sometimes regret it. I had a beautiful poetic Italian last name and now it is this crazy Polish name that no one can ever pronounce! Hahaha I don't think it's hard but apparently others do. It's not a terrible name, but I wanted to be "Mrs." and I wanted us to be "The Lastnames". I sometimes consider using my maiden name as a middle name for the kids.

this.is.great. I took my hubbys name but ive had several friends use their maiden name as either their childs first or middle name. It's always so pretty when Ive seen it done and it makes people go "ahhh...i see what you did there" wink wink

KikiCohen · October 2014

One of my college profs never changed her name. Their kids had her LN as their MNs and the husband's LN.

ElleJDubs · October 2014

My DS has my maiden name as his MN, I would've done first name but there's so many of us I thought it might be confusing!

lmfs90 · October 2014

We aren't married yet but we are going with my last name. My boyfriend is considering taking my name when we get married.

mmmsly · October 2014

lizmfsparks said:

We aren't married yet but we are going with my last name. My boyfriend is considering taking my name when we get married.

REALLY? mind.blown.

AngieL610 · October 2014

We're going with DH's last name and my last name as a middle name. A hypenated name for this kiddo would be 19 characters!

tinybride717 · October 2014

Legally and professionally, I kept my maiden name. Just too many documents/licenses to change, especially since we moved out of state about 2 months after we got hitched. Socially, I hyphenate (like my "file" at my hair salon has a hyphenated name for me), though. We are leaning toward the kiddo taking my husband's last name. I may eventually legally hyphenate, but doubtful. Friends still refer to us as "The Lastnames," so in my mind, this kind of social exposure to the name helps us feel cohesive, even though I didn't want to formally change anything.

I will be carrying and birthing this bubba, so I know for sure he/she is "mine." I feel like having the bubba take DH's name helps him feel a sense of involvement and pride...even though he's not the one dry heaving in the middle of the sidewalk after brunch

ninadelmar · October 2014

My husband's last name. I say people should do whatever feels right to them.

chochipper · October 2014

Well, we aren't married but don't plan to either. Honestly, we don't know yet. Possibly hyphenated since ours are each 5 letters. He said he would be fine with mine though. I think once we know a first name we will just choose what sounds best, haha.

lmfs90 · October 2014

@mmmsly yeah, both of my adopted parents and brother have passed away, so I am the last left with my last name and my boyfriend understands how much it means to me and he has a brother to keep his family name going.

a5swanson · October 2014

My kids will have DHs last name. Never really imagined anything else. His family was a little...twisted about me keeping my last name anyway. It's a gift for all!

cosmicgirl · October 2014

Hi. My DD has my husband's last name. It has never bothered me that it's not the same as mine since I chose to keep my maiden name. This baby will have my husband's name as well. In social settings I sometimes use his name, but I like my name and didn't want to change it.

mmmsly · October 2014

lizmfsparks said:

@mmmsly yeah, both of my adopted parents and brother have passed away, so I am the last left with my last name and my boyfriend understands how much it means to me and he has a brother to keep his family name going.

that is unbelievably sweet!! I am sorry for the loss of your famliy but that is a strong confident man who will consider taking your name.

seannemairi · October 2014

My husband doesn't care if I ever change my last name. I always planned on just giving the kids his last name. He doesn't care what their last names are either, both of our names are way too long to hyphenate. I don't care either. Honestly I haven't changed mine out of sheer laziness. I'm out of town for work 4 days a week and the last thing I want to do on my 3 precious days off is hang out at ss, dmv, bank, get my work badge changed, get a new passport, etc etc. It's daunting to think about haha.

bttfbetty467 · October 2014

I placed my maiden name as my middle. So may just do that for a middle name if we cant decide on a middle name anyway. I love my maiden name so I would like it if my kids had it too

TeacherMama7 · October 2014

@Knottie45355413‌ - I teach the whole school, so I have a lot of students. I really care about getting to know them, so I try to ways figure out which ones are siblings - it helps me to remember them. Of course, I would still care about them and try to connect the dots regardless of last name, just saying it would be easier. And as a teacher, I don't consider myself a stranger to them. I respect any decision people decide to go with for naming their own kids, but this is a message board and these are just my two cents. Peace.

amooraxo · October 2014

As I come from middle eastern background us ladies always keep our name but our children will have my husband's name. Even their middle names will be his first name (yes, even for girls). It's like this so that people know from what family you are from by who your father is. And maybe it's because we have very common names (both first and last) so it's hard to keep everyone straight! Some even keep their grandfather's and great grandfather's names in their names.

ciennah99 · October 2014

Not for sure but my husband's last name is way cooler than mine so I'm planning on his with possibly mine as the middle name. Our names are too long to hyphenate, that's why I didn't do that when I got married so I wouldn't do that to my child either.

Synnovus · October 2014

I've kept my last name and our #1 got mine last name so guess we'll use it for #2 as well.

gaylew5 · October 2014

I kept my last name. I think we will give the kiddo my H's last name. 1) because our names don't hyphenate well 2) i am mixed race and have an ethnic last name, but look mostly white.. my husband is white.. so i picture the kid looking pretty white. So if they had my last name, they'd probably get a lot of confused looks.. "Mr. Goswami??" **not my actual last name, duh!

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