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.

I always feel.that the 'never occurred to me to change my name ' types say it with a certain degree of smugness and superiority.

I didn't take my husband's name even though it was something I always imagined I would do. I initially did change it and just didn't like it and reverted back to my maiden name. My reasons are:

• it just didn't feel like my name. I almost felt homesick for my maiden name. It was a part of my identity and suddenly it was gone.
• I don't want this bit to sound snobby as that is not how it feels. My family has a really rich heritage and we can trace our direct ancestors back to almost 10 generations and the name has always been associated with the family. My husband's last name is his dad's last name and he doesn't know anything about his dad's family - to the point where he doesn't really know how many aunts and uncles he has on that side. For me it felt really strange going from a name I know so much about to one where even the name-bearer doesn't know anything about the family. It felt meaningless for me.
• Lastly, we're both Muslim and in Islam it is much more preferred that women keep their name than take their husbands. Even though I was born and raised in a western society where it's the norm to take your husband's name, for me, I leaned into my islamic identify to partly justify it to anyone who challenged my decision.

Edit to add: when I did change my name first it was really because I thought that's just what was expected when a woman gets married but it never really felt right for me. When I reverted back to my maiden name I felt really glad I did and haven't regretted it since.

We had a baby just over a year ago and she has both mine (her middle name) and my husband's name (last name).

One more edit after reading some responses - I also personally didn't mind if my children had a different name to me as I really did just feel that strongly about my own name.

I'm one of those and I can tell you exactly why I gave my son his father's surname. I didn't want my son connected to my vile , toxic and abuse family. I had a dogs life as a child and I wanted my son to have no connection to that family. Not to mention the hundreds of news articles about my sibling and their many many arrests.

My surname caused me terrible teasing at school. Most people can’t spell it. But it’s interesting and shows my Norman ancestry. Most importantly, for me - 35 years ago - it felt like a statement of my feminist principles to keep it.

Oh and DHs is a variant of a surname where the more common ending is ‘on’ and his is ‘in’ so spelling issues would still have been a thing

Kept my own name, double barelled the DCs (my surname first so he’s quite oftenhas just my surname used😆

I did change it but regret it somewhat. However, I think if you don't change your surname the children should also have your surname. I don't understand those who for feminist principles keep their own surname but then let their children take the man's name.

😅 Feelings, nothing more than feelings. . . 🎶

I'm one of those "types." 😅 Married for nearly 25 years and no, it never occurred to me to change my name.

In Middle Eastern customs you do not change your name. I’ve kept my the same as has my mother.

I changed mine 10 years and love my new name. DH offered to take mine, but he had the better name! Are you going to have kids? If you don't change your name, are you going to end up with a different name to them?

Same here. Can never understand why women change their name unless their name is something horrendous they can't wait to get rid of

I asked my husband before we married if he wanted to change his name. He said no and I said me neither. Keeping our own names seemed logical. My name is extremely complex whereas his is short and simple but it's my name so I really struggle to understand why I'd take his name just because we're married.

The children have his name purely because it's an easier name. He wanted them to take mine but I figured I'd give them an easier life.

I agree, except my name was not an easy one to spell or pronounce and if you haven’t had that experience then it would be difficult to understand how much it can hold you back - e.g. people will direct things to colleagues over you purely because they can’t remember how to spell or say your name.

So the children have my DH’a name just so their professional lives are not affected.
However, if my name was more “straightforward” I would have fought tooth and nail to use my surname.

I have kept my surname and it doesn’t bother my DC or us that their surname is not the same as mine and doesn’t affect how cohesive our family is. My DS sometimes says he is going to add my surname to his when he is older.

I also jremember that when we got married the wedding couple’s mothers are not on the marriage certificate, just the father I think - hopefully that has changed!

In order of popularity, it seems the choices being made are:

1. Take his name
2. Wife and kids double-barrel (unclear whether man does too, or who gets top billing)
3. Wife keeps her name, kids get his
4. Come up with new name entirely

Everyone takes wife's name? Heaven forfend. Women's surnames are either very tricky to spell, or very ordinary*, so it just makes practical sense to let them die.

*These two things are not at all contradictory

Kept maiden name at work, married name at home. Has worked fine for the last 20 years but if I was making the decision again I wouldn't have bothered with married name at all. I think it's more and more common to keep your own and it's admin. The only advantage I can see is that in a public facing role I am unGoogleable for private life, but that would have been easily handled by social media privacy settings. I don't know what we would have done re the children's surnames - I think that probably matters to DH more than my name. Our two surnames together is not a good combo so it would never be double barrelled.

I took my husbands name, I had never intended not to, I didn't really think much of it but my husbands family found it very unusual and questioned why I would do that as they felt their foreign surname would disadvantage me in the UK!
In their culture the woman doesn't change her surname but the kids always get the fathers surname.. which equally I wouldn't like personally.
I had my dads surname growing up (who I only saw a few times a year) and so had a different surname to my family that I lived with (mum, step dad, half sister) and I didn't really like it, it made me feel like the odd one out.
So I think deep down I wanted to share a surname with my husband and children, to feel like a family unit in that way, to avoid the awkwardness that came with having to explain our family dynamic in certain situations in my childhood.
Though obviously its all much more common now, so would be less noticeable.

Edited to add for the people getting aggravated about why husbands don't take the wife's surname - mine probably would have if I'd asked (though it would have complicated things with his visas for the UK) BUT I personally had no attachment to my surname that only tied me to my relatively absent real father

very tricky to spell

Mine is very tricky to spell and pronounce but I chose to keep it because it is mine but I succeeded in spite of it. However, I don’t want to burden my DCs with that.
Incidentally, we gave our children short and easy to spell forenames - they will probably end up giving their children flamboyant ones!

Why is it “nice” to all have the same name? It makes no difference to me, we don’t need to match to be a cohesive family unit

I always wonder how their brothers cope! Maybe they marry women with better names than them and change without a second thought. It just makes sense!

Kept my name and am very glad I did. I don't understand why anyone would follow the patriarchal tradition of taking a man's name.

The DC also have my last name.

DH is fine with this.

Totally agree . On forms where it says ‘Maiden Name’ I cross out ‘ Maiden ‘ !

It’s just my name , same as a man’s name is his name .

It seems a shame that so many people automatically give DC their father's name. He's no more important than their mother!

I changed mine because I was teased about my surname as a child and I was glad to get rid of it. No regrets, but I would totally keep your own name if you actually like it.

As a child, I always wished that my mum had kept her maiden name and that we kids had taken that!