To think this is more romantic than taking your husband's last name

[YesIamYourSisterInLaw]

I would prefer when me and DP get married if we all ( me him and DS) change our last name to something completely different that we all like. To me this is more romantic as it feels like we will both be coming together in marriage and starting a fresh with a new name that reflects our family.
DP isn't writing off the idea and has said he will think about it. I think if he wasn't taking outside views into consideration he would say yes but his concern is probably more to how his parents may react (I'm guessing as he's never shown any attachment to his last name)

Anyway our situation aside what are your views on this

I think that sounds lovely :) But I can see why he might not. As women we accept from an early age that we wont keep the surname we were born with, or pass it to our children, but men have it drilled into them from an early age that they will pass this on, or 'continue the family line'. Especially if he is an only son he must find that hard to give up

This is really strange but dh and I talked about this earlier this evening.

We each kept our own name upon marriage. One dc has my name and one has his name. We came up with the lovely idea today that we could all have the same name if we just chose a new one.

Exciting yes. Trying to find a good name - hard.

Go for it!

Whatever works for you both

I found it easier to take my husband's name, due to our circumstances, and obviously from a practical view, it's less paperwork.

I do like the thought behind picking a name together though.

Lovely idea

Actually I think it is a rather neat idea, but oh my, when it comes to Ancestry.co.uk in 50 + years - what a nightmare :)

I am hoping to be divorced soon, (wow that is another thread isnt it - hoping!) and I dont want to keep my marrried name, and as much as my original surname is 'ok' I kind of like the idea of a completely new surname! I am having some difficulty deciding on what though :)

Perfectly nice and workable idea. Or - as several people I know have done - both take one another's names on marriage in addition to your own, so the whole family, including any children you may have, have the surname Smith Walker.

we planned to change both of our names to double barrelled (mine first then his) which is what we've called DS..... but to be honest neither of us have got around to doing it yet after nearly 5 years! It's way more complicated for men to change their names than for women (on marriage) which is ridiculous but unfortunately true! We still hope to do it but there has just never been a time yet that we've been willing to be without our passports (and for us, residents visas is an issue too). I think it's a great idea to just choose a new name for everyone if you can get around the practical issues!

Nigglenaggle no he does have a brother although he insists he will never have children. He is however only 20 and if you had asked me at 20 i would have said the same.
It probably doesn't help that we have a son rather than a daughter which may make it more of a sore point for the inlaws
I guess it's easy for me to be in love with the idea because i have no real attachment to my last name and think my dad is a wanker anyway
Nothing about traditional marriage screams out to me, we will be married on a beach, abroad, with DS walking me down the aisle

My husband suggested this.

I suggested we take my family name (why should it automatically be his?!), he suggested we start a new one.

As it was though, I'd prefer mine or his (naural, as you love your family) and agree, how on earth would you ever choose a new one?!

Good luck - why not let your DS choose?

We went double barrelled: seems to work.
We got married under a tree and walked each other to our place in our circle of friends and family.
Weddings are whatever you want them to be - and marriages too.

Would it be a real name like Jones or a completely made up name like Shananabangabooboo?

Yama i know and finding a name that goes well with everyone's first name just makes it harder

ladyintheradiator I'd like my children to share a name with both of us and if neither of us changed our name then someone would be left out which already bugs me. As i said in a previous post i'm not particularly attached to my last name though and maybe if i was i'd feel differently

charlottelucas our names don't go together at all, it would sound flipping ridiculous although that would have been my first choice if they did

angel my Ds is 1 so i'd rather it wasn't abablahblah. I was hoping for an improvement on my current last name
rainyday no a real last name, having had an unusual one for so long i'm quite fond of one's like Jones, Adams, etc

DH and I seriously considered this before we got married, and picked a name. (We met at a conference at a university, the name was the name of the building the conference was in). In the end we didn't because I wanted to keep my name. Even further along, I did change my name when I was expecting DC1, but am still Dr Maiden Name at work.

ROFL YesI :) Our son would choose 'Agoo' I think :)

Personally I chose to just keep my own name (and so did DH) as I didn't want the hassle of changing everything (plus I'd probably keep forgetting!). That seems the most straightforward way to me.

If you both want to do it then good for you though. The only problem I can think is that there might be some difficulties changing names on things like passports, you might need some document like a deed poll as your marriage certificate won't be much help!

What does your DS want to do? Presumably if he's old enough to walk you down the aisle, he's old enough to have an opinion?

Each to their own but I would expect quite a lot of internal eye rolling from other people!

Do you think your families might feel a bit sad that you neither of you will share a name with them? Would you choose a name with meaning? e.g. something to do with your location/origins? That might make it easier to explain.

you can pick an alias anyway - and then just ask to be known as that, in fact pick a few alias after you get bored with the first

Princess Consuela Bananahammock and Crap Bag always had an appeal to me.....lol

Why not do what the Americans and continentals do

Jane Smith become Jane Smith Brown - not hyphenated, Smith becomes a "middle" name

Merging Smith and Brown to become a new name would be either Broth or Smown, neither of which are attractive. Green and Black would be Greck or Bleen. Nope the merger thing isn't working for me at all.

OP, i'm now jealous that I never thought of that when I got married. Instead I kept my surname, too much hassle to change, and gave the children DH's, which caused a lot of confusion with schools and doctors when the children were young. Almost as if people found it hard to believe...(don't get me started emoticon).
I say go for it, it's a lovely way to start your new family unit :-)

ephiny He's 1 but he'll be about 3 by the time we get married as were saving for the huge expense that is Florida

Fruit I don't think my family will be sad as it would never have been expected for me to keep my last name but i do think DP's might have something to say about it. The thing is that they do have another son so it's not like they will loose all chance of "carrying on the name". I do freely admit though that i d9on't "get" the whole last name must be carried on thing anyway, i mean it's pot luck if you have a boy and you could just as easily have all girls and no choice on whether your name is carried on

It's great that there are so many ways of doing this now. My sister and her new DH are thinking of both changing to a name from a few generations back on his side, that is only a few letters away from her existing surname. So it will have a connection and special meaning to both of them.

I took DH's name as I had no attachment to mine, but any DCs will have a middle name from my Mum's side.

abablahblah... Has a certain ring to it