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?

No bloody way. Why would I want to? It's MY name. Nobody can spell it or pronounce it, but that's not the point.

When you have kids you have various options. His name, your name, or one gender of kids his, other gender yours. Our decision has caused endless confusion and pissed off some of my in-laws but the kids are happy with it.

We both went double barrelled when we married as we were both the end of our family line, we have carried our names for our generation what small ones do is completely up to them (however, it is a sod off a name to sign at the front of a busy queue in tesco :-) )

Yes, I did. I hated my maiden name - it was the basis of the horrible nickname with which I was bullied for five years, all through senior school, until we went to sixth form college, when it finally stopped - too late to save me from all the damage the bullying caused.

didn't change. The easier option as it means doing nothing.

it's a choice. But I would suggest that if you do change, change it everywhere; two names is too confusing.

Nope didn't change my surname. H's family name does NOT reflect my background. I was given birth name by my parents and I see zero reason to give up.

I'm another who changed my name because my maiden name was kind of awful.

I kept my name when I got married 21 yrs ago. It seemed silly to me to change my name as I always thought it seemed more like being owned rather than being in a partnership. My husband had no problem with it. Then just after my husband was diagnosed with his illness we decided to reaffirm our wedding vows. I felt that my gift to him would be taking his name. He was astonished and after I explained that since we have no 'birth' children I wanted to have something of his that would always be mine. I'm not explaining this very well sorry. Our boys (not birth children, but ours all the same xxx love them) will tell anyone that I'm a firm feminist and are proud of me. I think it's up to each woman as to wether they change their names or not, but I must admit I don't understand why the kids are always assumed to take the fathers name if the woman doesn't change hers.

Dalek - and one of the many reasons I didn't change my name is because h's name is pure comedy. DS has his name though but I fought against their cultural background to name ds with dps's (father's side, of course) name as it was clear that ds would never get a job!

Having said that the school call me by h's name - I don't bother to correct them as I don't really care.

Coming late to this, but am I the only one who is deeply unimpressed buy chocolatemademefat's post below?

"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"

I would never dream of telling anyone that they are a twat for changing their name (even if it's a tradition I disagree with deeply). Should I start now??

Hi for what it is worth my DH and I were together for 7 yrs before we married and now we are approaching our silver wedding! I have always kept my Welsh maiden name for work/HMRC purps.
But for our 'married name' we agreed to put together my mother's maiden name and DH's surname - without a hyphen though given the original historical reason for that! This did have the advantage of bringing my DH to the front of the alphabet from near the end and he has been surprised at the difference this makes...
Our children use our married name - so really my old name is only operative in my work setting. Pretty simple really and not been any bother.

*by, not buy!

I did because it meant a lot to dh and I didn't mind either way. Another consideration for me is that when we have a child I would like to have the same name as them.

I would have double barrelled it but they don't go well together.

Nope. I like my name.

I changed mine, but what I really did was try to have it both ways and double-barrel it. So now I have a ridiculous last name, which is similar but still different to my husband's. And I still haven't finished changing my name on official stuff back in my home country, so I still have to answer to my old name sometimes. If I had to do it again, I don't think I would have bothered with it at all!

However, that said, it has been far easier to get through US Borders with the family because all of the passports have (at least in part) the same last name.

NB: the kids have my husband's last name. I'm the only weirdo.

No here too. Too lazy and too feminist for that.
DH did offer to change his name as DS has my name but I wasn't bothered either way so he kept his own because he couldn't be arsed to fill out the relevant paperwork.

Changed mine , its a nice surname though , might not have done it if it had been awful or boring

chocolatemademefat My surname was double barrelled to start with. DS has said when/if he marries he would like to use part of his own double barrelled surname and the surname name of his future (hypothetical) wife. If she is also double barrelled then they could choose one name or make a whole new one together.

Not rocket science love.

I didnt change mine,and the kids have mine too.Reason id that i dont see what reason there is for the children to automatically take the dads name.The only reason people can come up with is "its traditional" or "its nice".Well,sorry,but those are not reasons,they are just things that people say when they have no idea why they do things.

DH doesnt mind,i would of had a double barrell name if he wanted but he loathes them so they had mine.

Yes I did.
Nobody I know both socially and professionally has kept their name.

I know a few that returned to it when they divorced but then changed again when they remarried.

Yup! I didn't want to be a 'Smith' any longer (although I did exchange it for a Greek name which always gets mispronounced)!

I didn't change my name. Family still send post to mrs dh first name dh second name which drives me mad. My mil is a devout Christian and v traditional so somehow I mind less when she does it than when my mum does. My mum is a proclaimed feminist and divorced my dad 20 yrs ago after he came out as gay. She thinks marriage is pointless. I think she's trying to wind me up.

'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.'

Fair enough. I think you sound like a MASSIVE twat.

The nation of Spain and their double barrelled names. Oh yes, such twats. All of them.

I always kept maiden name for work, married for everything else. Worked fine for 16 years, then recently I got a new job through a contact of my DH and started working under married name too. Now totally confused and sounding like a complete idiot on the phone, hesitating before I say my surname!! This was the moment to change everything, but i still work freelance for the other company under my old name and was surprised how reluctant I feel to give it up! That has been my identity for more than 40 years..... (quite a few more than 40 years!!)

Will change mine my passport will sent off tge day after and my bank are sending me a form this week so i xan send it off asap have ordered 2 cerficates cant wait