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.

Given the countries and religions where women keep their surname after marriage, I would be very interested to see the evidence that changing it on marriage has any implications whatsoever for equality.

I don’t think the majority of women will ever stop changing their name on marriage. We’ve had two weddings of late millennials in our family in the last five years, both women have changed their names. They seem to think I’m odd because I haven’t.

It’s a pretty classic indicator of educational levels and professional achievement.

The two women I referred to are both graduates, one has a masters and the other is halfway through hers. Both have professional jobs and want “the same name as my children”.

@rainsofcastamere I also live in a small village. To access my bank I have to travel to the nearest town.
Point is, if you want to change your surname it is doable, no excuses needed. I am a teacher with three kids and doing a Masters but I still had time to "add on" to my name when I married. As did my husband.

Is there a reason almost all children in UK are given their father's surname even when the parents aren't married? It can't be that 99% the mothers all have difficult to pronounce/too common/abusive father connotation surnames.

Something weird is going on.. whenever this thread comes up, there's always someone that comes along with a unique and specific reason, but it would have to be the case for 99% of women so unique and specific reasons are kind of irrelevant.

My DP has 2 sons with his surname from when he was married to their mum. When we get married I will keep my name, but happy for any children to have the same surname as my husband and therefore their brothers.

It won’t bother me having a different surname to my child, and I would never change my name.

@CelloCollage getting married full stop is a reasonably good indicator of education. Please can you point to the evidence as regards name changing.

Getting married is absolutely no indication of anything in itself. Could be you’ve just been bamboozled by the Most Special Day of Your Life stuff puddled by the wedding industry. The statistics are easily found via Google.

It does seem odd that people do that because it's not the tradition at all. I always wonder if it is because the mothers are hoping to get married and change their surname which seems a bit sad.

I felt the same and still do more than 25 years later. In contrast to what people say there is no benefit to having the same surname as your children.

@CelloCollage From the latest census

Given that they’re both highly intelligent I imagine it has. I can only conclude they wanted to change their names.

This is us. Though we are engaged, not yet married. Our kids have double barreled surnames! 😊

What is?
How?

I agree, it’s because women seem to want to bend themselves backwards to justify the name change. It’s rarely “I wanted to because it’s tradition” but rather a niche reason as to why she was always desperate to get rid of her surname but only waited for marriage to do it. The majority of women can’t have hard to spell names of terrible relationships with they fathers so just simply have changed it because it’s the done thing but for some reason no one wants so say that.

I think it's fair enough to say that you wanted to change your name because it was too hard too spell/ugly/they have no attachment to it and so on.

But a roughly equal number of men also have ugly or difficult to spell names. Yet virtually none of them choose to change them to a woman's. So yeah, sexist 'tradition' has a lot to do with it.

Wow! The snobbery there took my breath away.

Brilliant point, interested to see the responses to this.
A name in itself doesn't signify sexism/inequality. If a man forces a women to have his name or wint Mary her, that is of course wrong. If both people in a couple agree on taking his name, then I don't understand why this is an issue. Yes it's a tradition. So is Christmas and Easter for many people. Just because something is tradition doesn't necessarily make it bad or wrong.

Indeed. The inaccuracy is pretty staggering too.

@mushypaperstraws I'm the 1% then as my daughter had my name when we had her. I wasn't married at that point.
Now I'm married and we are all d-b'd, including hubby.

I have a foreign surname that's a pain in the neck but it's my name and it'll be with me for life. I was only married briefly in my 40s but would never have changed it even at a younger age.

I hate my (dads) surname. I use my mums surname on social media now. But I still legally have my dad's. I keep getting so busy at work that I'm always just exhausted and want to sleep by the time I get home. I must get round to changing my name properly this year.

I can see it being a pain at work changing my surname. My first name and last name is on about seven different systems.

And we can't call the it team directly. We have to log an it ticket online and they take ages to get back to us