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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to not want to take my Fiancee's last name?

45 replies

jempurd · 04/12/2008 20:25

I know it sounds really selfish, but I hate my fiancee's last name, and quite honestly I am dreading it becoming my name.
Go easy on me, I've not toLd anyone before so I really don't know what people are going to think, or just how unreasonable I am being.
I have mentioned him reverting to his mums maiden name (she is divorced from his dad) but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. He knows that I don't really like the name but I don't think he realises how worried I am about it.
AIBU to want to go to the maiden name after we marry?
(Little bit of history, he has a great reltionship with mums faily, doesn't see dad ofte, and zero contact with any others from that side)

OP posts:

Original poster

jempurd · 04/12/2008 20:53

thanks crushagrape, loving the anachronistic

OP posts:

2cats2many · 04/12/2008 20:56

YANBU. I kept my name after I married.

I actually found it a bit bewildering that everyone thought it was a big deal that I didn;t change my name. It didn't occur to me for a minute to change it.

Guadalupe · 04/12/2008 21:00

I kept mine. I don't like the sound of my name with his surname at all. It also happens to be the same as my mum's maiden name so I'm glad she felt like changing hers. Would have been funny if we'd had the same name though.

TheFallenMadonna · 04/12/2008 21:00

Odd isn't it? I was unusual among my acquaintance in that I did change my surname. My new name now incidentally being my name, as well as my husband's.

Original poster

jempurd · 04/12/2008 21:08

thank you everyone for your input, it has eased my mind to no end!

OP posts:

superfrenchie1 · 04/12/2008 21:08

i will not change my name for two reasons, 1. on principle - i don't need to change my identity & am no-one's property, and 2. because i don't like dp's surname and i like mine.

if i didn't feel so strongly about either of those things maybe i would consider it, but as it happens i feel strongly about both!

Occasional pangs of regret / weirdness about having different surname from the dcs though

sorry not v helpful... but no YANBU, don't change it if you don't want to!

notcitrus · 04/12/2008 21:17

It never occurred to me to change mine, even though I'm not that fond of it. I have a few publications etc in that name and it's certainly easier at work not changing your name mid-career.

However I agreed with MrNC that the offspring could have his easy-to-spell surname as long as they had my surname as a second middle name.

My dad was a bit worried about what to tell people who thought me keeping our name was odd, but I pointed out the name would die out if I didn't, which made him perfectly happy.

Quattrocento · 04/12/2008 21:23

Now I am wondering about the unpalatable name.

Bottom
Fling
Perks
Spark (actually I quite like this)
Nipper
Hedge

Jux · 04/12/2008 21:24

I changed my name because it upset dh so much when I wasn't keen on doing so. I was wrong wrong wrong and I still regret it, having been married for nearly 12 years and got completely used to my married name I still wish I'd hung on to my name.

Everybody having the same name in a family is not that important is it; it's far more important that you all feel like a family and surnames are not going to have that profound an effect. Your kids could be double-barrelled of yours and your dh's - that would knit everyone together.

TheFallenMadonna · 04/12/2008 21:24

I knew a couple where the husband chose to change his name. His name was Barsted.

TheFallenMadonna · 04/12/2008 21:27

It all depends Jux. To me, with my background, having the same surname is quite a big thing. But then, I'd already had my surname changed once, so doing it again was perhaps less of a big deal.

scifinerd · 04/12/2008 21:36

Apart from TheFallenMadonna does anyone else know of a bloke changing his name to his wife's?

TheFallenMadonna · 04/12/2008 21:38

I also know a couple who mutually double barrelled.

littlepig · 04/12/2008 21:42

Am also really curious about the terrible name

Guadalupe · 04/12/2008 21:44

Some friends of ours just changed theirs to her name. His family went beserk.

littlepig · 04/12/2008 21:44

ps - I liked the idea of keeping my own name at the time but changed becaase it was important to my husband and am now quite comfortable to be known by my new (and unusual) name. It's not so bad to change, even if it's a bit of a pain getting all your stuff changed at the time...

... and I didn't want to be labelled as a crazy feminist

Habbibu · 04/12/2008 21:47

Keep your own. I only changed mine because I liked DH's better...

scifinerd · 04/12/2008 21:49

I suggested when I got engaged that both my dh and I choose a new name together as neither of us wnated the other's name but liked having a shared name. Anyway our respective families went ape s..t and we ended up keeping our own names for a quiet life but I still wish we had chosen a whole new one. There was also huge resistance to me keeping my own name. I remember being astonished at the time at how emotive the whole subject was.

onthewarpath · 04/12/2008 22:07

I do not think it is shcking that you do not want to take your fiance's name. I am bi-national, Swiss-Italian, on my swiss Passport my married name is followed by my maiden name (no-).

On my italian one figures just my maiden name as married women do not take their husbands name under Italian low.

to everyone here I am known by my married name, Mrs.... although I always sign in my maiden name because I am so used to it, not because I have partucularely feminist views.

Can you not have both names, with or without-?

daffodill6 · 04/12/2008 22:12

I kept my name and am still married 17 years later!! As OTWP says not uncommon in Europe and DP is of Italian extraction so he's not fussed. Children have his name.... but don't like it and may change when older!!

Just accept that some people make assumptions and you will both be called by the wrong name at some point. Ignore it as its not their fault really.

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