Did you change your name when you got married?

[MooncakeandAvocato]

I’m getting married soon. I will not be changing my last name - it’s not a practice that appeals to either of us. Any children will be double barrelled. This is a decision with which we’re both very happy.

This has come up in conversation with our families and friends and the reactions have been interesting. Nothing particularly negative, as we’re very much the demographic for this sort of thing, but a few of my female friends/relatives (none of the male ones) have expressed mild surprise that I ‘don’t want his name’ and ‘he’s okay with it’.

I find this interesting, so I thought I’d bring it to MN. Did you change your last name upon marriage? Why or why not? Do you regret your decision to change/not change it?

To be perfectly clear, I am happy with our decision (not canvassing for opinions on it). I am also entirely supportive of every woman and every couple choosing the naming convention that best works for them, so not judging people for doing things differently to us. Just interested in hearing people‘s experiences.

There was a kid in my year who was in a cult where the women changed their first names rather than surnames so his mum was the equivalent of Brian-Kate Maidenname. Everyone thought it was weird but much later I thought it’s actually exactly the same thing.

Yes it is. And it’s getting fairly close to Ofjoseph and Ofwarren.

It’s not that long since wives used to be known as “Mrs John Smith”.

@Noooooogsh

Why is the husbands name always the most straightforward/nicest/obvious choice on these threads

I have noticed this and it rarely works the other way. I think a lot of us have been brought up thinking we’ll change our name on marriage. And for a lot of men it’s not a thought even if their partner has a nicer name.

I think though ‘straightforward’ is a more objective criteria than ‘nice’.
My partner has a really common name, which is in there with Smith, Wilson etc and so it is straightforward whereas most people haven’t encountered the surname and I always have to spell mine out. But yes no males in my family have changed their names so there are societal factors at play.

First marriage I was young and in lurrrve and I had an unusual maiden name that I was glad to get rid of. Kept my married name when I divorced as I had children and wanted to keep our names the same. Second marriage I changed my name again as children all grown up and didn't really want to keep my ex husbands name once married to new DH.

@twinkletoedelephant

Yes I changed my name from a beautiful double barrelled name to a very common surname. I regret it eveytime I see it written or have to sign something

So if you regret it, then change it back.

I kept mine, it never occurred to me to change - this is my name and my identity, and makes me, I'm fairly sure, unique. Briefly experimented with double-barrelled after we got married but it sounded atrocious.
The kids have DH's name, predominantly as the first names we chose didn't go with my (uncommon yet unexotic!) surname. Their first and middle names all have family links for me though.

@Hardbackwriter Yes! I had them suggest ‘helpful’ workarounds. ‘You know that you can use your name professionally and his socially’. Erm, no. I have no desire to do that, and you’ve missed the point entirely.

I changed mine and was happy to. No regrets. Quite like that we all have the same name.

[quote MooncakeandAvocato]@Staysexyanddontgetmurdered (I love My Favorite Murder, by the way) can I ask about the extremely negative reactions, if you don’t mind? What were they and from whom, etc? I don’t imagine I’ll get any, but might as well start steeling myself, now.[/quote]
There were a couple of my husband's work colleagues who really gave him a lot of grief for me having kept my name. Along the lines of "sort your misses out, get that s*it stamped out and show her who is boss". He works in the military in a very male dominated branch. We were shocked though and no longer see these people socially.
One of the more upsetting reactions for me though was the husband of a really good friend of mine. When he found out I was keeping my name he got very angry, and was visibly red in the face and cross. When I asked why the only answer he could come up with was "what's the point in being married if you have different names?!".
I have to admit I was shocked how many of my friends just took their husband's names without question. And it definitely makes people double take on form - filling out things, they assume I am either Mrs. Husband's name, or that we just aren't married...even if I have already told them we ARE married. It's weird how uncommon it still is to me. I think conversations like these are really important to challenge our beliefs though!!!
And MFM is just the best!!!

I changed my name when I got married - to be honest, I didn't like my maiden name - it had been used as the basis of the nasty nickname that was used by my bullies, the whole way through secondary school, so it doesn't have good connotations for me. We did consider double barrelling our names, but the combination sounded stupid.

But I do think it's a good thing that women now feel they have more choice in the matter - as far as I remember, it was much less common for a woman to keep her name when she got married, back when I got married (the early 90s). It certainly feels to me as if things have changed a lot, in this regard, since I got married.

Every woman should feel she has a free choice, and can be happy with the choice she makes.

It absolutely was a genuine question, it isn’t something I have ever come across as I know literally no-one with a double barrelled name and no-one who has double-barrelled their children’s names. I do appreciate that having the same thing said must be very tedious, but it certainly wasn’t to catch anyone out, rather what do people actually do in practice.
I think if my my name was double and I had to drop half I’d feel a bit guilty which ever way I chose.

I changed my name, and it’s not something I regret. I’ve been married for 9 years and it feels like the name is mine.

It wasn’t a given that I’d take it and DH wouldn’t have minded if I hadn’t. I wanted us to have the same name though, and for any future DC (we aren’t likely to have any now but was in the plan at the time) to have the same name. DH taking mine wouldn’t have worked as a minor speech impediment meant that he couldn’t pronounce it properly. It’s a British name and not exotic, but he doesn’t get it quite right and had to practice for our wedding vows. I didn’t want to double barrel as it would have made my name too long, and it didn’t really go well together. We didn’t think of creating a new name and both changing, but to be honest there isn’t a good way to combine our surnames. DH was also more keen to pass his name on (alone or double barrelled) to any DC as he is the only son of an only son, whereas this wasn’t important to me as my name had already been passed on by my brother, and my remarried parents don’t have the same name anyway so passing on family names didn’t mean as much to me.

Although having kids didn’t work out for us, I’m still happy with my decision and I do feel like it makes me feel more connected to his family. I’m sure I still would have been close to them without taking his name and they absolutely wouldn’t have cared if I hadn’t, but it’s just something extra that makes me feel like one of them. I feel like I made a choice rather than just following convention with my decision anyway.

My sister-in-law and her husband both have two surnames. They picked one each to give to the kids.

Did you change your last name upon marriage? Why or why not? Do you regret your decision to change/not change it?

No. Because I think it is a ridiculous, outmoded, anti-feminist practice. Not one bit.

I am in my 50s and know women in their 20s who recently married and have changed their name. Each to their own, but not for me.

You would consider me terribly old fashioned but I happily took my husbands name and gave it to our dc.

I just don't get the whole double barrelling thing as it's so egotistical to think that child is bothered about having two names. It's an encumbrance in life and they then can't do the same thing for their kids as it just would end up with future generations having 8 then 16 names and so on.

Personally my identity is in my first name so I liked being x Smith when I was a kid the same as the rest of my fam (mum dad and siblings) just the same as I like.being x Jones now (me ex h and our kids) and most of our friends are the smiths or the.Thompsons or whatever.

I will keep my "ex's name" until my kids are no longer dependent on me as it's our family name and that's more important to me than my own identity. My identity is probably more about me as a mum in importance than anything else anyway despite having a v successful career.

I'm considering remarriage with my current partner and will stick with my current name but when my kids grow up I'll probably change to share a name with my new husband.

I got married 29 years ago and didn't change my surname. Our 3 children have my husband's surname (following much discussion (!)) on the basis that I got to choose all their first names.

Just to add that DC have DH's name ( sadly) and I have never had a problem with this in 20 years of travel and living in various countries. Their passports mention parents' names.

I changed my name.
No particular reason except I wanted us all to have the same name and I dont like double barrelled names
I dont regret it.
Where I live it's still not common to keep your original name. Even senior managers change their name when they get married.
My Facebook is filled with people with the married name and in brackets their old one.

I didn't change my name for a number of reasons. My husband was very supportive of my decision but his family was less so - he's from a different sort of background to me so it was something no one had ever done before. I'm really happy with my decision. We have one child and we double barrelled his name.

I changed mine. I couldn't wait to get rid of my fathers surname. He's a nasty bully.
I wanted us all to have the same surname and I really wanted to change it.

I changed mine. I just wanted to. I had an unusual surname that I hated growing up but grew to like as I got late teens/early 20s. But I knew I always wanted to have my future husbands.
I like that we all have the same name DC included, double barrelled just isn't for me and it would have been way too much with my maiden name and DH name.

@Staysexyanddontgetmurdered That is utterly disgusting! I’m so sorry you experienced that. Must have been horrible!

He took my name 😊

My preference was to keep my surname, and his preference was for us to both have the same surname, so that was that.

I changed mine, I did it because I wanted to have the same surname as my children and also my married surname is much much better than my maiden name was!

Can I ask the people who say, as they do in large numbers on these threads, that their DH's surname was far nicer than theirs, hence them changing it -- what did your DH's sisters do when they married? Did they keep their lovely birth surnames? Or only marry men with even nicer surnames?

Yes I did.
Mainly because I think double barrelled names sound silly for kids (what happens when Jane Smith-Jones married John Evans-Davies and has kids - are the kids called Flossie Smith-Jones-Evans-Davies?) and I wanted us all to have the same name.