Can’t make a decision on taking his name

[PoptartBarry]

Name change for this one (ha!)

I am getting married in one week and I still can’t make up my mind about changing my name. It’s driving me a bit mad so I want your opinions.

Have any of you changed your name and regretted it? Have any of you regretted NOT changing your name?

My surname is ‘foreign’ to English speakers, long and tricky for English speakers to pronounce so I’m not considering a double barrel. It would be too much!

Does anyone keep their maiden name at work and use their ‘married’ name in their private life? How do you feel about it now?

YABU = stop overthinking and change the name!

YANBU = no way, keep your own name!

Would love to hear your lived experiences.

Fair enough.

In our real life professional working middleish class works most of my friends kept their own name for work and became husbands name.

Very few double barrelled the children, generally thinking it was a mouthful/long/not well suited and what happens when they then meet someone. And it’s become quite a common thing to do.

I don't really like any of the traditional options. I took xh's name because it was a nicer name, and because my surname was inherited from my father anyway, so it was always a man's surname I was taking, whether that was father or husband.

I kept my name and have zero regrets.

I have a foreign last name. And first name. To me it felt strange having a difficult/foreign first name and then a very standard English last name.

Plus it's my name. I'm used to it and it's part of my cultural heritage. I don't want to change it.

I changed mine and no regrets (used maiden name at work for a while)
nos we’ve children I wanted us all to have the same name

to be honest not that many women I know have changed their name

If you wanted your children to have the same surname as you, why didn’t you give them yours and your DH change his?

I double barrelled mine. Our kids have both our names aswell. I'm glad I did because it looks very likely that we'll separate and it's easy to drop his name. I often just used mine anyway as it was easier.

Keep your name.

We both double-barrelled our names when we got married because we wanted to have the same name as each other.

I didn't realise before reading this thread how many women feel that their surname is their father's. My surname is as much my own property as my first name, they're on my birth certificate. I understand that this is different for children of blended families whose names were changed later.

Also, if your surname is your father's, surely his surname is his father's? Which doesn't seem like it solves the issue.

@shibr Why would I change my first name? As it happens I hate it and always have but aside from a minor irritation it's an irrelevance to my life.

I changed my surname because I wanted to signal to society that we are a family unit. I like tradition and while historically the practice indicated that on marriage a woman's legal identity was merged with that of her husband, it's absurd to suggest that this has any relevance in countries such as the UK today. The law is clear in that regard.

Interestingly countries where women keep their surname after marrying are often the same counties where women do not enjoy equal rights.

My identity has zero to do with the surname I was born with and everything to do with what I have achieved in my own right and who I am as a person.

Who cares? Everyone should do whatever they want because shock horror no one else cares what you are called or where you have got your name from.

It's not a legal requirement for you to change your name, it's your choice and everyone's choices are valid. It's not for others to decide that something is right or wrong just because they hold a different view of it.

Can I ask everyone who hasn't changed their name - Do you go by Mrs, Ms or Miss?

Ms

Ms. For a lot longer than I have been married.

I changed my name when marrying abusive ex . It was twenty plus years ago and it didn't occur to me not to. My childhood was also abusive. When I married second husband I choose to take his name to break away from my past.

I encourage both my dds to do what's best for them

I kept my maiden name when I got married over 30 years ago, I prefer it to my married name and it goes better with my first name. I honestly never thought about changing my name in marriage.

I think that’s actually something that’s often forgotten. Lots of us want to lose a surname that has difficult or painful connotations for us personally. Yes we could come up with a whole new surname but if we like the name of the man we’re marrying, why not just use that? It wasn’t until I got married that I realised how keen I was to get rid of the surname that connected me to a family that didn’t really want me. The way they behaved on my wedding day cemented that! It was a new beginning for me.

And yet, men never seem to make the same choice.

It does seem like women regard themselves and their achievements as “invisible” in some way: “My name, Johnson, has horrible connotations for me because of these other horrible people called Johnson,” as though that matters more than what THEY are like and what THEY have achieved in their life.

Whereas a man, I guess, thinks of his name primarily in terms of his identity vis-a-vis what he’s done and achieved throughout his life (work, education, social status, what his friends think of him etc.) - if some other people share the same name and are unpleasant, he probably does not let that define him.

I changed my name and have no regrets.

But why aren’t there men who feel this way? How many men take their wife’s name because they like her name (or any other reason)?

I think it would be so much better if they did. Changing name for me felt healthy and it’s a shame if men feel for whatever reason that they couldn’t do it. It needs to be normalised.

or, because of societal norms/pressures men don’t see it as an option. Or think it’s beneath them - either way that needs to be changed.

I happily changed my name on marriage. Hated my maiden surname, it would make me feel that I still 'belonged' to my father (no thanks!) plus it wasn't really 'our' surname anyway because having done some family tree stuff, the surname given to my paternal grandfather wasn't the surname of the man who fathered him so I didn't want to keep a 'random' surname that meant nothing.

DH's surname is much nicer anyway :)