Grrr...

Your name though is most likely just that of another man - your father. So it's six of one and half a dozen of the other

This is the stupidest argument and it keeps coming up. My name came from my father but it's fucking mine ok? I'm not borrowing it. That argument follows the line of thought that women are the property of men and that surnames are used to denote which man the woman belongs to. Women's surnames belong to them as much as men's do. To believe otherwise is to believe we are less than men. I'm sure you will deny you believe that but unfortunately you have internalised it and you believe it on a subconscious level.

I do not understand changing names on marriage and I think it's an awful waste of time and effort, especially when half of marriages end in divorce. I have seen friends go through the embarrassment of changing back and it's completely hideous- making public a situation which is really private.
I wish women didn't do it.

It's obvious why women choose to take their partner's last name.

Women's last names are a)only their father's name anyway b)ugly c)really common d) boring e)really hard to spell. And anyway, they want to have the same name as their children.

Men's last names are a)spontaneously generated b)nice sounding c)dying out d) really interesting e) easy to spell. And are passed automatically to their children by an unquestionable law of nature.

See? It's simple, really.

I've kept my maiden name as well as use my married name. Im Dr x at work and Mrs Y outside. Although sometimes I'm Dr Y but that's a separate issue. My kids are all Y and I've inserted both names in my passport so we don't get into trouble when I'm at the airport without the dh!

All my friends (I'm not from here) continue to use their maiden names at work. One has double barrelled it. Over here though everyone I know has changed over to their husbands names.

I took my DH's surname when we got married purely because I wanted us, and our children to all have the same surname, and double barrelling was in no way an option (my very long, foreign maiden name, with a million consonants in it and my very British, one syllable married name do not go together very well at all!).
I have friends who changed to their DH's name when they got married but kept their maiden name for work. One of them is a teacher and is still "Miss X" at work, the other is a doctor who is "Dr X-Y" rather than just "Dr X" as she was before marriage.

My kids have a double barrel name (mine & DP), I always knew I would keep my surname, I'm the only girl in our family and I kinda don't want to be the one left out of our strong family unit. Now I have kids I will be keeping my surname but adding my DP's on the end

*custom

I took DH's name (although the customer of being referred to as Mrs is clearly ridiculous).
I dislike my maiden name for several reasons which would out me and I just like his name better, but I always feel slightly as if I've lost my feminist credentials somehow!! I must admit, it is nice to be the "XXX family" but possibly if I didn't have such a silly maiden name there might have been a way for us both to change our names to something new.

It's strange that it upset your DH. It was no comment on him, all hospitals have to refer to the babies by the name of the admitted patient ie the mother, whatever their registered surname will be.

It's really a personal choice thing, isn't it? You don't automatically legally change your name when married. You just become entitled to use an additional name instead if you choose. It was explained to me that you could choose to use any of the surnames that are on your birth and marriage certificates for your official ID. So you could order a new passport as [Firstname][Mumsurname] or [Firstname][Dadsurname] and marriage expands your choices to include [Firstname][Husbandsurname]. So even at any point into marriage or divorce, you could order a new passport or driving licence as Ms [Firstname][Mumsname] even if you'd never been known by that name before.

i think a lot of people who do choose to change, do it at their own pace. I didn't change it right away. I changed it 5 years into my marriage when DS was born - but on the hospital records he was born as Baby Myname, which really upset DH. Not for patriarchal reasons I hasten to add, but DH is adopted and is physically very dissimilar to the rest of his family, so having a biological family who are indisputably linked to him is very important to him. DS was registered in his name and I changed mine to match. (But only when my passport actually expired, I'm stingy like that.) Mind you the joke was on DH in the end - DH is swarthy and dark-featured and his family are all pale skinned, blue eyed and blond/ginger... as is DS.

Hesterton, if that's the case, then her HTB'sname is also just that of his father, and why should she switch to her FIL's name?

When do women ever get to say their name is THEIRS? On another thread, a few posters are baffled by divorced women who did change name not changing back. Many posters also say, "oh, your birth name is just your dad's anyway". So are women just some kind of nameless state and only men have names that are truly theirs?

I have kept my name and go by Ms. I'd been living with DH for over 10 years and we were in our thirties before we married. Our kids have my family name as a given middle name and DH's as their family name. MIL always addresses birthday cards to me as Mrs (DH initial) (DH family name) and my parents get it wrong too. When I corrected my Dad recently he said: "I don't know why you bothered getting married!" Works fine for me.

I regret changing my last name and the first year of marriage was tough as losing something so integral to my identity alongside what seemed like life changing drastically had an effect on me. It definitely brought out my inner 50s housewife - I told her to fuck off a while ago though.

I would like us all to change names now and have both surnames but I'm worried my dc are too old (early primary) and it will make it difficult for them at school.

DH and I both changed our names to something else when we married. We chose another surname from distant family history. DH's father said that his grandfather would be 'spinning in his grave'.

Thanks for that, Bridget. If you read on through the single page of the thread, you'll note that, after posting that and clearly indicating I had read it on another thread, I found some more accurate info and posted it less than half an hour later and many hours before your post.

HTH.

I am not married, but if/when I get married I would consider taking my DP's name. I have no emotional ties to my surname (it is a very very common surname, so not something that is unique to my family) and I would like to have the same surname as any eventual children. However I agree that the system in the UK is bizarre and patriarchal. I would consider another solution (double barrelling or something) but I will have to see how I feel when the times comes.
I also agree with MrsJamin that pretty much all a lot of wedding traditions and customs are sexist, I suppose because they hark back to a time when your father or husband literally owned you.

70% of woman do not change their surname when they get married? What utter rubbish!!!!!

I'm still surprised by the number of women I know who change their name after marriage. It's definitely in the majority. Either immediately when they married or when they next changed jobs. My kids have my husband's last name. My 5 year old asks occasionally why I have a different name but isn't particularly concerned.
I always refused to answer mail addressed to Mrs husband. My pil got the message eventually.

I got married over 10 years ago, taking DHs surname, partly that was an easy decision because I prefer his surname. However I think I might have not come to the same conclusion now, just because the default does seem sexist. I like how we have the same surname and that people know we are married, TBH. If you don't change your name it's not obvious that you're married? Although men don't change their names to indicate they are married. Hmph. I'm unpicking sexist stuff about marriage at the moment! There's a lot of it, like the giving away, who gets to make a speech... What's sweet and traditional, and what's outright sexist?

My kids have my name.

I suspect people think that is much odder than keeping your own last name. People don't ask about it at all.

Do your children have your name, OP?