To want to change my name back?

[Jessieshome]

I had a very unusual surname before marriage, I loved it, we are a small family, and every time I had to tell someone my surname it would invite questions and I got to tell a little bit of my family history. It took me a while to change my name to my husbands after we got married but constant problems and questioning at airports when travelling with my kids on my own who have husbands surname got tiresome. Also I got a general feeling from relatives that I was being pretentious not to follow tradition (they're not usually that traditional!) and my husbands sad face when I said I didn't think I'd bother changing it convinced me to go with the flow/tradition and take on my husbands surname.

I have regretted it ever since and it has been 9 years. It feels like such a loss of identity, especially when it was such an unusual name, I don't know why I did it (I think I was just exhausted as we had 2 very young children at the time and it was easier to do what everyone wanted me to do).

My marriage is very happy and I am totally committed, I'm not sowing seeds for divorce or anything!

Would it be completely bonkers and ridiculous to change my name back, or perfectly understandable? Do you think everyone will assume I hate my husband and in laws (they are all wonderful)? Has anyone else changed their name back to their maiden name without getting divorced?!

Could you compromise and double barrel it with yours as the last name? Then just use your last name day to day and have your husband's/kids' surname for any administrative nonsense that is easier with some kind of link?

Personally I wouldn't think anything of it and I don't see why it's anyone else's business. I hope your husband is supportive.

I regret it too. Double barrel, then only use the bit you like on a day to day basis.

Wow, do people go searching to see what someone has posted on other threads? Bit weird?

That's a good point actually, they probably would be a bit sad, something to think about. I think they'd get over it though.

No, it’s done now. It will look silly to keep changing your name, and not nice for your husband and children.

Just feels really weird you remember as that was weeks ago? Anyway, I'm not 'passionate' about it, a couple of family members have double barrelled, I just think it's ridiculous, perhaps I use the word ridiculous more flippantly than you, I'm not passionately using it. Also, mine and husbands surname do not go well together, I doubt mine would double barrel well with anything, as it doesn't with my relatives, but they like it.

I would double barrel or change it back, but then I think it's an outdated and sexist tradition to change your name in the first place.

@feedbackhq why would they be sad? I've never shared a name with my mum and its never upset me

OK, seems my solution wouldn't work. What about just adding it back in without a double barrel, eg from Ann Smith to Ann Jones Smith or Ann Smith Jones.

I don't think not changing your name after marriage is weird at all but I also don't understand why parents choose to have a different surname from their children! That family connection would mean more to me than an older one.

I changed my name back after 10 years, I am happy it’s back, but it was a ball ache, there isn’t a system for going back to your maiden name without a divorce, everyone did accept my marriage certificate plus birth certificate. I am on my kids birth certificates in my ‘married’ name and I do think if I were to travel with them without dh it might be an issue, which is ridiculous but there we go. Last year they were quizzed by border force coming back from holiday, it was fine but I think the expectation is you have documentation if you don’t share surname.

16-letter hyphenated last name? | Mumsnet

The only unreasonable bit was changing it in the first place. If DH had made a 'sad face' about anything to do with me retaining my birth name rather than arbitrarily changing it because of the reactionary baggage associated with marriage, he'd have found himself very single. How entitled would you have to be to be 'sad' someone wasn't changing their name to yours?

DS was always going to have both of our names, the only conversation was in which order they were going to be. And they don't sound nice together at all, but it's not some kind of cutesy business brandname that has to trip off the tongue -- it's just the names of both his parents. I estimate about one third of his class also have both parents' surnames, and there are some far odder mixtures than ours.

I did. It's not British and I am obviously British with my accent, it's not obvious what nation it is from, people also struggle to pronounce it straight away, so it invites questions from people trying to guess the nationality, so they ask, I tell them, then they query why I have a foreign name but seem so 'British' so I explain how I have it. The conversation takes all of 2 minutes 😀and with real people in the real world, not customer service agents (can't remember the last time I even spoke to one of them!)

I regret changing my name, too.

Even though I'd probably say my new name is nicer, it definitely doesn't feel like my name.

Change it back.