Did you change your surname upon marriage?

[Gryffindor]

Just that, really? And if you did, did you keep your maiden name professionally?

DH and I have been married a while now but through a combination of feminist thoughts, laziness and professional reputation I haven't changed. All married female friends have changed theirs, often with mind boggling speed!

Aibu to ask?

You are not BU to ask :)
I didn't change my name, but that's usual in my home country.
I know lots of women who haven't changed their names.

Nope I did not change.

It was important for me to keep my name. DH was totally cool with it

It is not compulsory and getting married is not about changing your name well not for us anyway

I am American in the US. I got married 30 years ago and did not change my name.

I changed mine, with mind boggling speed
I just felt like I really wanted to. I have no idea why. Just did.
It was a pain to change all my work stuff etc & i still get addressed as my maiden name a fair bit.
But it's totally up to you isn't it?

I wouldn't if I got married. Dp would like us to be married. One of his reasons for this is that he'd like me to have the same name as our dc.
They don't care. Why should I?! It's quite acceptable these days to have dc out of wedlock so I don't see it as a motivating factor!

I changed mine as fast as humanly possible.
I hated my maiden name, and couldn't wait to change it. I also changed it at work, despite my qualifications being in my maiden name.

A team mate of mine married and kept her maiden name for work and used her married name everywhere else. I like to think of it as being Clark Kent and Superman.

• as being like Clark Kent

No I didn't. I just use my maiden name for everything.

My DH is totally cool with me not changing, he is a feminist too.

In fact, the only person with an issue is my maternal GM who addresses EVERY birthday/xmas card etc to Mrs DHname...deliberately.

I do wonder what surname to give our (not yet conceived) kids though, our names don't double barrel well. What have the other non-changers done?

Kind of. I have been married now for over 20 years and my bank account is still in my maiden name. there doesn't seem much point in changing it now after all these years, too much faff just like it was to bring in my marriage certificate when I had just got married. also my car.

I kept my maiden name for a long time, then as the children got older, people just naturally started to use my married surname and I was happy to go along with it by then. It used to be important to me to keep my "identity", now I see it differently and I don't mind being Mrs X, it's almost a badge of honour after managing to stay married this long.

I changed my name to his because I liked his surname better than mine

No I didn't change my name

Neither did my DH

I don't mind that he didn't change his name

Nope. Didn't see the point. Still don't.

Nope. Kept my maiden name for no particular reason other than I like it and can't imagine being called anything other than Bluebees Maidenname.

I doubt DH has given it a second thought tbh and it's never bothered me or been an issue that I have a different name from my DC (who have DH's surname).

I'm not overly keen on double barrelled names and ours didn't go well together anyway. I suppose DCs could have had my name as easily but in all honesty I didn't think about it at the time (I might now!).

Yes, but I married young and had a maiden name everyone got wrong.

People can spell my married name and don't change the first letter. I don't get told I don't exist, which is kind if nice.

But it was utterly normal around university science labs, even 25years ago when I got married, for women to keep maiden names or even old married names because if the way the Citation system works. Once you've become a published scientist you stick to that name.

No I didn't. Still get asked after 6 years of marriage when I'm going to, still get told (after 12 years together) that it's not a real marriage if you don't change your name, still get told that our children won't know who I am because my name will be different to theirs

Now that I am expecting our first child there's been another wave of people assuming I'll change it.

Still get passive-aggressive correspondence from friends with Mrs DHName (my name is Ms Myname) ... I think they take it personally that I haven't changed it. Funnily enough, they tend to be the same people who get very worked up & aggressive when I say I might have an elective c-section. Go figure.

My dh and I both changed our names to a double barrelled version of our names. It is long and clunky but I wanted the same name as my children as did dh. He agreed it was unreasonable I would be the only one expected to change my name. Plus we are the only ones with our surname, which is nice. No idea what our dc will do when they marry.

Being older and quite old-fashioned, I do like the idea of a 'family' name. I don't care if it's his, hers or a new one, it just keeps things tidier.

I just like the idea of a family unit, where possible, sharing a name.

Yes and no.

I kept my maiden name for work, on my driving licence and for all my bank accounts/finances and on Facebook.

I changed my name on my passport and generally use DH's surname socially

Works for me!

I did. I wouldn't now, I don't think. I wish I'd hung onto my maiden and double-barrelled the dc.

I wanted DW to have the same surname as me if at all possible. Didn't mind if that meant me changing mine or her changing hers, but in the end she really wanted to change hers to mine so that's what we did.

Change your name or don't change your name. No-one cares. But double barreled names? If everyone decided to do that, in years to come how ridiculous would it be? How many names will your grand-children have? Stop it now. No-one is impressed.

And don't tell me I'm the only one who thinks it makes you sound like twats.

No I didn't change mine and neither did my mother or both of my grandmothers. My dad advised me not to either in case I got divorced and it would be a pita to change everything back. Thanks for the vote of confidence Dad.

Yes I changed it. We were planning to TTC and I liked the idea of us all having a family name and simply preferred DH's name to mine. DH would not have been at all bothered if I had kept my name. It was a massive PITA changing my name on everything though.

I felt like I didn't want to change it on priniciple, and also I was too lazy when it comes to dealing with all the paperwork

However I did end up changing it after 7 years, when I got pregnant. I did feel like it would be 'nicer' for some reason if we all had the same surname.