Changing name and title for marriage. pros and cons?

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When I was younger I wanted to change my name to my partners name but actually, now it comes down to it I think I want to keep my name. He is upset and wants to postpone the wedding so I can think about it.

All I can think though is I have to call my bank, my dbs is in my maiden name, my passport still has 8 years on it, my Dr's, my mortgage statement has my name all the other faff.
He won't be volunteering to make these calls for me.

I just signed a slip for the school this morning and writing my signature made me think about having to write a new name? After a lifetime of this name? What are the cons?

We are working class, excouncil house, labourers, you know, all the mums stay at home and all the dads are plasterers or carpenters or builders. I'd be the first out of my whole family and friends and even acquaintances to keep my own last name if I do it. I am feeling the pressure to be honest. (I feel these factors paint a picture of the type of circle I live in and the expectations on women in my community. Yes there are still places like this)

I mean despite having the same name as my children, I can't think of a single pro. Also I Don't want to change my title to Mrs or Ms, I want to be a miss (little miss grumpy about a potential name change) is that even allowed? Will I have to change my title as well? If so why?

I haven't had strong feelings either way and was just going to go along with changing my name and title but now it's coming closer I am backtracking. DP is seeing this as a sign of cold feet (hence asking to postpone until I'm sure). To be honest it's mostly the phonecalls and online forms putting me off.

It's not like we aren't committed, we have children and a house and have lived together for over a decade.
I asked if he would change his name to mine and he said no with a confused face, so you know. That made me want to keep my name even more.

And this is just rubbish really... If a woman doesn't want to change her name to that of her husband, she doesn't want to be seen as a family unit? Cmon... We aren't wearing t-shirts witn the family shield and name on it anyway so who would even know?! The strength of our "unit" doesn't rely so tenuously on us all taking the big man's surname.

YANBU. I’ve never understood why women are expected to change our names (well, I understand the roots from when a wife was her husband’s possession) but nowadays, why?

I didn’t change my name on marriage. I’ve used the title Ms for years anyway. Our DS has a double barreled surname, mine and DH’s stuck together with a hyphen.

DH and I are m/c now, but from lower m/c, w/c families where all the women took their husbands names. Amongst my friends though we nearly all kept our own names.

If your DP is from a w/c background where nobody does this I can see why he’d be upset or bewildered. But to postpone your wedding is mad- this isn’t personal, you just want to keep your own name. And that’s fine: it’s your right and your choice.

We both changed our names. I was going to keep my last name as a second middle name, but in the end he offered to double barrel too. We will be clear with our kids that there’s no pressure to keep one, both or either! I think this is a much stronger display of “team” than we both defer to the man tbh…

My DH has been called Mr BiggWither at times but it doesn't bother him. He took his wife's surname in his first marriage as he hated his original surname and its meaning.

We did have a bit of an argument when it came to naming our kids as there was absolutely no way my kids were going to have his ex's surname. He didn't want to change again in his professional life and didn't want to use my name in our private life so I did not compromise at all and they have my surname.

I was actually stopped at an airport and told the kids should have gone with my husband (we had split into different queues for speed). But like I said, didn’t bother me enough to change my entire life!

@Cantthinkofaname2203 it’s a myth/confirmation bias that if you have a different name it causes problems travelling. Many cultures don’t have “family” names and manage fine.

Part of me thinks it is stuff purposely used to pressure women away from changing the status quo!
'Ohh you better not keep your name, your kids might be removed from you at the airport and teachers won't believe you're the mother!'
Does this shit really fly with so many women in 2023?

Technically you need the extra documents if you aren’t travelling with all parties with PR. Nothing to do with names.

a grandparent travelling with a grandchild may have the same name, but may not have the authority to take the child out of the country.

I'm recently married and still coming across things I need to update my name on. And some things require you to send your documents away then you need to wait on them being returned before changing something else.

For me, I didn't hesitate to change my name. And I've been married and divorced before so had the whole hassle of name changing twice already.

My DH has 3 kids to a previous relationship so for me, changing my name made us feel more like a proper family. DH has quite an uncommon surname and has always been proud of it so was very excited to add a Mrs to the clan (he wasn't married to his kids mum). I think if I said I didn't want to change my name he would have been disappointed but would have understood my reasons and it wouldn't have changed anything in regards to getting married.

I have retained my maiden name professionally because I'm known within my industry by my maiden name and I work with different nationalities and my maiden name is definitely easier to say than my married name.

I've never felt like I've lost my identity, more so gained another part to it.

Like you say, it's your name and you're the one know has to go to all the effort of making the changes, learning a new signature etc. It's very easy for DP to comment when he doesn't have to do anything.

We aren't really going to postpone he just said it flippantly.
And I did include what kind of community we are a part of. It's not a red flag, but it is what is expected of me fro everyone.

I feel it's both my duty to pave the way for younger generations (logoutsettings kept her name so I'm keeping mine) but also my duty to have the same name as my family (husband and children)

In the grand scheme nothing matters but it is a big decision to me.
I'm excited to be a wife and mother (girlfriend isn't what I am, I'm a wife. he's a husband, I already call him husband) but I also gave my baby my grandmother's maiden name (works as a first name) to keep her name going. It upset me when she died that she wasn't names the same as everyone else in her family. All of her sisters had different names and I want the same name as my sister still. Its all sentimental. Ah.

I fly internationally alone with the kids every year, I've never had any issues regarding having a separate name.

It is much easier to keep it. If you are over 30, you have got a substantial chunk of your adult life under your current name; it will be disruptive to change it.

Your DH was happy to have two kids while being unmarried, so it's a bit late for him to suddenly claim that he wants to do things the traditional way, IMO.

Totally agree! The number of times I’ve heard women use this as
justification is ridiculous. It’s a way to avoid the more thorny conversation around patriarchy and the roles women can play in perpetuating it.

@sunshineonly sorry - reading properly your husband took your surname TBF, but my point about being "seen as a family unit" still stands and let's face it 99.999% of the time it will be the woman giving up her name.

We double barrelled when we got married. I was adamant I wouldn’t take his name, so this was a compromise on both sides. I had a double barrel maiden name, so I kept one part and ditched the other part.

I’m lazy (and apparently tight!) so I travelled on my maiden name passport until it was time to renew it when I switched to my married name. It was never an issue. When I travelled to Dubai I took my marriage certificate with me as ‘proof’ if it were needed given we were sharing a room. Other than that I changed my name on documents as they came up, and any new accounts I used my married name.

I don’t really know why I was so against taking just DH’s name. It just seems very outdated, I didn’t want to be reduced to just Mrs on official letters received, and if we divorce I’d have a different name to my children which I was very against. I know people will say about keeping my ‘father's’ name, but to my mind it’s not his name, it’s MINE!

I wish I'd kept my name. This name changing thing is a vestige of a patriarchal society which we'd do well to leave behind. Stick to your guns

Exactly, it's so common for mother's not to have the same surname as their kids. Most people I know with kids had them without being married. It's pretty normal these days.

I changed mine cos for me it's one of the things I looked forward to doing (especially since my maiden name always got pronounced and/or spelled incorrectly by people)
I have to say though I've never changed it at my bank, only changed my passport name last year after being married for yeeeeears and I've still not changed it on my drivers licence but have replaced the licence twice since- justchanged the photo not the name.
I think it's as big a deal as you want it to be tbh. I've never had any bother having some things in my maiden name, and couldn't be arsed with phone calls like you say.
I love that me, hubby and the kids share the same surname. To me it's something I loved as a child, it's part of our identity as a family unit for me and makes family history so much easier for any relatives in the future looking back 😊
I say that cos I remember my mum doing her family history and it was hard enough without that 😄
It's not something worth postponing your wedding over though so tell hubby to be to have a word with himself.

I have been married for over 20 years and I have kept my name. Luckily DH isn't bothered. In fact he finds it extremely funny to be called Mr SpringBunnies. I think once everyone around you got used to you keeping your name, no one will say a thing. You need to do what you are comfortable with.

I am one of Dr, Miss, Ms or Mrs. You'll find when you are younger, you are referred to Miss, and when you get to middle aged, you'll automatically become a Mrs. I put Dr if I fill in a form myself. Same with your name, keep the title you want. But don't be surprised 20 years later, you'll automatically changed into an old Mrs.

He is upset and wants to postpone the wedding so I can think about it.

He needs to grow up.

It sounds like you already have children who have his last name? I would personally change my name in this situation because having the same name as my children is important to me (I appreciate it isn't for everyone!). I changed my name because DH and I both wanted the same name as our children, and my surname was the same as DH's first name (so if he'd changed he'd have been eg Andrew Andrews) and I felt it was very reasonable of him not to want to be that. He has close friends who have changed their names on marriage so I don't think it was a big deal to him, but the name would have been silly.

You don't have to change your title. I've always been Ms (pre marriage and now during).

Oh and my signature is a kinda flourish with only the first initial really legible so I never thought to change it 🤷‍♀️
I don't really see why that bit worries folk unless they basically write their name clearly for a signature ✍️

My surname reflects my ethnicity and my first name is British, eg Sarah Ogunwole (obv not my real name). Changing to DH’s surname would make me Sarah Bloggs, which completely disconnects me from my heritage. So I kept my name.

Nobody has batted an eyelid really. The doctor and dentist etc still has me down as Miss Ogunwole, they probably don’t even know I’m married and why do they need to? And I will answer to Mrs Bloggs, it’s no big deal. I don’t go around getting all militant about my name, I can’t be bothered to correct people if it’s something unimportant like DC’s football coach calling me Mrs Bloggs. In fact sometimes I purposely call myself Mrs Bloggs for anonymity, because it prevents people googling me. Nobody who knows me as Mrs Bloggs is going to be able to snoop on me because I appear on the electoral roll and LinkedIn as Sarah Ogunwole.

I find it so weird that women change their title after marriage as if to signify to the world that they have achieved the hallowed status of marriage. So odd and old fashioned.

I didn't change my title (always been Ms) but I don't think all women who use Mrs do it to signify they've achieved the "hallowed status". I think some women think you just sort of have to. OP asked if she was even allowed to keep calling herself miss.

Kept mine, have never encountered all this hassle with doctors/school/travel that people talk about. I just didn't see the need to change it.

I kept my name and the only people it bothered were my mil, one of DH's aunts and one of mine. I occasionally use his name unofficially eg if I don't want to use my name, and he does the same with mine. It makes it so much easier identifying spam callers. Mr nonever? No sorry, he wouldn't be interested in buying a conservatory. Byeee.

I am Mrs though - don't really know why!

I kept mine, because why would I change it?
Kids have DHs name because similarly to OP there is some bad family history on my side and I don't feel a positive attachment to my family name, to the extent it should be passed on. Whilst strongly feeling that its "my" name and changing my name as an adult is weird.

I do think going forwards, eventually it'll just be my awesome siblings and cousins with my family name, when the old (👎) generation dies out and that I may feel some sadness about my kids not having our name. But.... not everything in life is perfect.

It doesn't bother me in the slightest having a different name to my kids. We all get to have a name and keep it and make it our own.

Also agree, red flags if this is an issue for your future husband.

@RightWhereYouLeftMe

I didn't change my title (always been Ms) but I don't think all women who use Mrs do it to signify they've achieved the "hallowed status". I think some women think you just sort of have to

But that’s pretty shocking in itself right?

The fact that in 2023 people still believe there’s any kind of obligation to change their name is shocking. Or the OP’s perspective where she knows she doesn’t have to but is being bullied by her husband to do it and fears the judgement of her wider social network.

I do also think a lot of these arguments about practicality (hassles of having different surnames etc) are figleaves for the fact people basically fear the judgement. In reality millions of families where the parents have different surnames manage fine.