For clarity's sake, it is worth stating that I am a gentleman mumsnetter who is due to get married in the spring.
My fiancée is keeping her surname after the marriage. It wasn't something we'd discussed, it was just something both of us assumed that we would both keep our surnames on marriage.
Anyway over the last few weeks I've been shocked at some people's reaction to this.
My fiancée met her Aunt who was over from Australia who asked her what her surname would be after marriage, to which she responded 'same as it is now.' her Aunt was a bit dumbfounded and her Aunt's husband who is a bit of a stereotypical unreconstructed Aussie male, starting going on about 'what sort of bloke would stand for that' I'm amazed he hasn't put his foot down' etc etc.
A male friend of my parents had a similar reaction. He asked my mum how she felt about there being another Mrs Hat in the family and when she explained there wouldn't be, he was beside himself.
Am I really surprised that people have such definite opinions on such things and feel entitled to express them to us in quite vehement terms?
AIBU?
AIBU to be surprised that in 2013 people are up in arms about a woman keeping her surname on marriage?
ComposHat · 31/01/2013 23:45
In the UK I was Mrs Me-OH. DDs are Me-OH too, much to the PIL's disgust. In Chile I am automatically Señora Me, in Spanish it's always Father-Mother until marriage when it changes to Husband-Father, which the DCs get too. When people see DD's documents they assume it's Mr Me and Mrs OH, and address him accordingly
. He genuinely doesn't object now that he's got his head around it.
MIL went as far as registering my DDs at the Drs in the UK under OH's name despite knowing what their name is.
Firstly, congratulations Compo!
This gets on my nerves. I did not change my name when I got married. It never occurred to me I would and, frankly, I find it unbelievable that people still do such a thing, I think it's sexist and something out of the dark ages. There, I said it! And I don't get the 'preserving the family name' line at all. You mean your family as opposed to mine? Er... why?
LRD is right, some people do seem to take it personally when you don't. I would not dream of telling someone else what I think about them changing their names upon marriage (as above, other than to a bunch of strangers on the net ), and certainly not without being asked directly and by someone I am very familiar with, and being at pains not to offend them. However, people do see fit to tell me what they think of me and DH for not having changed it.
My answer is always "Well, DH didn't want to change his, what was I supposed to do, beat him into submission?". DD's name is double-barrelled (as is mine) and PILs chose to ignore it. In fact, I am convinced they don't even know how to spell it [rolls eyes].
The thing I just don't understand is the amount of people who have asked me 'So you haven't changed your name. How does that work then?' Honestly, you need to be told how it works? 
It works by not spending ages and a fortune telling banks and passport offices, the DVLA, work colleagues, clients, etc. that you have a new name. No?
I've kept my name because I like it better than dh's surname but even after being married for nearly 10 years, I still get post addressed to Mrs . or occasionally to Mrs . Very rarely does dh get called mr . If I'm asked, I give Ms My surname. I'm not married to my father so I'm not Mrs My surname yet as I am married it's nice to move away from Miss and so be a bit more grown up (that makes me sound about 14 and desperate to be old, I know :o).
However, it's amazing the way that lots of institutions are not set up to deal with it. My bank I was able to register my marriage certificate and it is on file electronically and so when I get cheques to Mrs I can put them in, no problem. On the other hand, when I tried to put such a cheque into our joint account which is at DH's bank (yes, I'm looking at you, Natwest) they said that the only way I could deposit such a cheque is to take my passport and marriage certificate in each time (so no quick deposits then), they couldn't have it on file and see that sometimes people guess deliberately get my name wrong. Their loss, means all my cheques (not lots but probably a couple every christmas or birthday - always the same people!). It's not like it is a very rare thing, it's something they should be able to sort out in their systems. And other things where they automatically assume that if you are married you have the same name and you can't change it on the system if you don't.
I would have like to have had my surname used for my dc's names as well as dh's as my parents only had 2 girls and so the name is about to die out. However, as dh was very ill around the time ds1 was born, it was as much as we could do to choose a name and we never even got on to talking about surnames. When we came to register ds2, I said I wanted to include it - I suddenly remembered at the registry office (again, we hadn't got round to discussing it beforehand because we were still trying to sort out first names for him and still didn't really agree/decided - we both thought we had agreed something different for the middle name so when the registrar asked what the name was going to be, we gave different answers. Not good when you have already booked a date right at the very end of the time available legally to do it!). DH did a flat absolutely not to including my surname (even as a middle name rather than a surname) because ds1 didn't have it and he didn't think it fair for one of them to have it and not both, and he didn't think it was worth the effort of changing ds1's name by deed poll, that it would cause complications for him later 
. In hindsight, I wish I'd stuck to my guns and got it included as a double barrelled surname so both kids had both our surnames but I was ill at the time and time was running out and we were disagreeing about the middle name too - something had to give and it was that.
dh's brother got married to his second wife, who happened to have the same first name as his first wife. She didn't want to be a 'Version 2' or discover that stuff got sent to the wrong wife (not remarried, had kept her name, lived in the same place). So at their wedding BIL had changed his name the day before and dropped his surname as his middle name was one that you could use as a surname or first name. Then when he got married SIL automatically got his new name (it wasn't a surprise to her, they had decided jointly to do it and had looked for a surname they both liked, this was their joint favoured solution) However when FIL realised what was happening he subsequently didn't speak to BIL for a couple of years on the basis that he was so upset that his family name was being discarded.
We both double barrelled by deed poll when we got married, as this seemed the most equal thing to do for us (we knew we both wanted the same name as our children when we had them, and giving up my name was a feminist issue for me personally).
My husband had various ridiculous comments about adding my name, and the fact I was keeping mine (including that I didn't think his name was good enough for me) and that he was clearly under the thumb
Just ignore the comments OP. Congratulations 
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