Something to consider...

[Citizen Erased]

I want to take my soon to be husband's name. But, I am quite attached to my maiden name.

 

So, opinions on a person joining both names. Does it make people think the person isn't all in?

 

Also, should it be maiden name-married name or can it be married name-maiden name? Or just plain doesn't matter?

[laRubiaBonita]

when i got hitched i decided NOT to drop my maiden name; but i didn't want crazy hyphenations or to drop my middle name, so i just added Husbands last onto mine.

 

so i am Mrs. Husband, but my full name is LRB MiddleName Maiden Name Husband. so basically i have two middle names now.

 

i still get called Mrs. MaidenName Husband and i have to correct it; but it isn't that big a deal.

 

i just like all of my maiden name and i didn't want to drop anything.

 

Really i doesn't matter what you do with your name.... heck the both of you could create an entirely different last name and both be Mr. & Mrs. NameCreation.

Do what you feel is representative of who you are, were and will be.

[Irishlove]

My youngest daughter wants me to keep their last name. So I will keep my ex's last name and my new married name.

[USMCHokie]

I'm not a big fan of the hyphenated name. I'd rather she keep her maiden name than do the hyphenated nonsense. Besides, I'm not a big fan of my last name, so perhaps I could take hers...?

[Stung]

Well, IMO, anyone who's going to make rude assumptions about the state of your marriage based on your name can be summarily invited to suck it.

 

Hyphenate names are ok in my book, but then I gave my son one . It's more conventional to do MaidenName-MarriedName, but I know people who have done it the other way, too, if they cared more about the flow of the names or their personal history than convention. My sister-in-law did it that way, MarriedName-MaidenName.

 

I did what LRB did, almost, but the opposite (keep reading, that should start to make sense in a minute). I took my husband's last name as my 2nd middle name, and kept my own name intact. So I am still Stung MyLastName, but if anyone knows me or sees my full name they'd see I'm Stung MiddleName HisLastName MyLastName. I like names so I was happy to add one on, and now while his name is also a part of mine, my own name is still intact. Having his last name too is like a romantic secret I can choose to let people in on, or not.

 

These days, really, there seem to be a lot of "acceptable" variations on the old tradition.

[laRubiaBonita]

Well, IMO, anyone who's going to make rude assumptions about the state of your marriage based on your name can be summarily invited to suck it.

 

exactly!

 

as they say- opinions are like arseholes; everyone has one. i found this silime to be very true in wedding matters, and then it will lend itself to any plans you have or do not yet have about kids.

[jerbear]

Does not matter, it is your name.

 

I'm not a fan of hyphenated names. I can just imagine, Citizen Erased-ro. Do as you please.

[anne1707]

Another one here who is not a fan of hyphenated names. They don't always roll of the tongue well and sound "forced". You also need to consider the next generation. If you are Pyro-CE / CE-Pyro, then does that leaves your daughter, if you have one, with a triple (?) hyphenated name such as Pyro-CE-XXXX if she does not want to drop either your name or Pyro's.

[laRubiaBonita]

i have GOT IT!!!!!!! :bunny:

 

do the Create-A-Name and be Mrs. CE Loveshack and he can be Mr. Pyro Loveshack!!!!

 

Problem Solved!

[Stung]

Another one here who is not a fan of hyphenated names. They don't always roll of the tongue well and sound "forced". You also need to consider the next generation. If you are Pyro-CE / CE-Pyro, then does that leaves your daughter, if you have one, with a triple (?) hyphenated name such as Pyro-CE-XXXX if she does not want to drop either your name or Pyro's.

 

I just trust my kid to be smart enough to handle that for themselves when they're an adult. There are plenty of options they can choose, from dropping one name to keeping their names to making up an entirely different name to, okay, adding on one more. I want them to go with whatever works best for them.

 

Adding on names is done in Latin countries all the time and they seem to do okay.

[sweetjasmine]

I think it's a personal choice: what works for some isn't necessarily going to work for others. I've known a few people who decided to make up their own name based on each others' surnames. I've known others who just replaced their maiden names or kept them or hyphenated in one form or another. I think it'd be silly to assume how committed someone is based on what they did with their maiden name.

 

The only issue might be in dealing with people making incorrect assumptions about your name, and you having to correct them all the time.

 

Adding on names is done in Latin countries all the time and they seem to do okay.

 

Yep, and the way you handle it across generations is like this:

John Smith marries Jane Jones, so her name becomes Jane Smith-Jones. They have two children: Michael Smith-Jones and Betty Smith-Jones.

 

Michael Smith-Jones marries Lucy Miller, and her name becomes Lucy Smith-Miller (or Lucy Miller of Smith). The children are called Smith-Miller.

 

Betty Smith-Jones marries James Cooper, and her name becomes Betty Cooper-Smith (or Betty Smith of Cooper). The children are called Cooper-Smith.

 

When people insist on keeping all names, it can get a little crazy. Say Michael Smith-Jones marries Lucy Miller-Stevens. Their child would be George Jones of Smith and Miller of Stevens. This isn't really that common anymore, at least not in Latin America.

 

In my family, the women keep their maiden names, and the children have hyphenated names or not. If someone with a hyphenated name marries and keeps the hyphenation, they usually drop the maternal name and keep the paternal one. A lot of people avoid the complications by either dropping the maternal names all together or keeping them legally but not using them in everyday situations.

 

The order of names matters because it indicates which name is paternal and which is maternal (and note that with simple combination/hyphenation, the order is paternal-maternal, but with the "of so-and-so" constructions, the order is maternal-paternal). Beware that if you change up the order and use both names regularly as part of your ordinary, legal, everyday name people will assume the one is your maiden name.

 

With my parents, something weird happened where they wanted the same last name for everyone, so my mother took my dad's hyphenated name (his dad's name + his mother's name) because he wanted to keep both. She agreed at the time, but then everyone always assumed the second name was her maiden name when it was really my paternal grandmother's maiden name. My mom didn't get along very well with my paternal grandmother, so being called the wrong name all the time by people who assume it must be her maiden name has been chapping her a-- for 40 years. Caveat emptor.

[myoung13]

With the risk of being chastised as the only one giving this opinion, I suggest taking his name. I know it's very traditional, but that is just how I am. I'm not worried about "other people thinking" you're not all in, I'm just worried about you not BEING all in. Marriage is a true blending of lives and anything you can do to outwardly do so helps you internalize it. The same is true for money. I am not a fan at all of keeping your money separate. These are just my opinions, but backed by observations.

[dreamingoftigers]

Legally I kept my maiden name.

 

Technically and socially we both hyphenated.

 

Like everything else about me, my name is bloody weird.

 

My parents loaded me up with middle names.

 

I am S____ E________ G____ C________ J___ R_______-T_____

 

Our daughter has her last name legally hyphenated.

 

I loved that my husband took my last name too. There was no son in my family that could carry the last name, but now we are all going for name changes.

 

My husband's stepfather decided to adopt him....at the age of 32.

 

So my current Irish-French last name will become German. I think my father may end up in an early grave.

 

I hated the hyphenation confusion. A handful of people got it right in 6 years. I (and my husband) were always getting called by my parents last name only. Blech.

 

Or they would completely botch it (and we have a really easy to pronounce name.) But his last name is close to a famous politician here, so everyone assumes it is that, even I did when we first got together.

 

Hyphenating has been irritating and it has caused administrative issues, no one files us in the same place twice, plus I have had to guess at the spelling errors more then a few times. For whatever reason combining the names just confuses the Hell out of people. It also increases the instancess of misspellings. Tremendously.

 

On the bright side you can tell who is a good listener.

ANd when I get mad at H, I just use my maiden name LOL

[Stung]

Hmm. I kept my maiden name, but my husband also kept his last name. Should I be worried about his commitment to ME? Whether HE is all in?

 

I don't understand why this judgment is leveled solely at the female.

 

Perhaps the only men who are really committed to their wives are the men who take their wife's last name, or at the very least choose to hyphenate their last name as well? I guess there is a real dearth of committed husbands, eh?

[laRubiaBonita]

Hmm. I kept my maiden name, but my husband also kept his last name. Should I be worried about his commitment to ME? Whether HE is all in?

 

I don't understand why this judgment is leveled solely at the female.

 

i never understood this doublestandard either.... other than the tradition of it, but traditions are not the set law- and who actually follows them all anyways?

[Stung]

Well its the tradition so most go along with no problem but if the woman rejects your name then there is a deep-seated issue. It is one of those cases like whether a woman will have sex with you where doing it means nothing but going actively against it speaks volumes.

 

The first image that comes into mind when a woman won't accept her husband's name is Carrie hyperventilating in her wedding dress and desperately tearing it off while breaking into hives. That's not too far from the truth. This is a woman's version of commitment phobia which men are always the one's to be blamed with and it feels some don't want to even accept that it exists.

 

I'm not sure who Carrie is supposed to be, and I'm sure there are some people with issues like that, but I kept my "maiden" name for a variety of personal, familial and professional reasons, and they had nothing to do with any commitment phobia. I was looking forward to my wedding, and it's one of the fondest memories of my life now, looking back. I haven't taken my wedding ring off since the ceremony. I had a baby with my husband, sank hundreds of thousands of dollars into real estate with him, wrote a will that stipulates where our ashes are to be scattered together, took care of him when he was sick, fought by his side in an unpleasant court battle for more custody of his daughter (whom I help raise)--I could go on. I just find it very odd that anyone would presume to make judgments on my level of commitment based on my name, or on my not being the kind of person who follows tradition without question.

 

Err don't get all mad about it.

 

I'm just old fashioned I suppose.

 

I'm not mad. I just think it's usually a good idea for people to take a second, critical look at society's traditions before they follow them, and especially before they start casting judgment on others because of them. As far as I am concerned anyone is welcome to do whatever they like with their own names without my condemnation, and I prefer the same courtesy be extended to me.

 

By the way, I thought that was you! I'm glad you're not feeling negative about CE and Pyro anymore. They're a good match.

[Stung]

i never understood this doublestandard either.... other than the tradition of it, but traditions are not the set law- and who actually follows them all anyways?

 

 

If we all followed every old tradition our grandparents and great-great-grandparents followed, I imagine we'd all live very different lives. While some things in history fascinate and seem quite romantic and honorable, I for one am glad I'm not bound by all the same constraints and superstitions as my ancestors.

[denise_xo]

Or just plain doesn't matter?

 

This would be my general sentiment.

Some friends of mine solved it by both changing their names - i.e. both husband and wives changed their surnames to a third surname that somehow had family significance for both of them.

[I Luv the Chariot OH]

Well its the tradition so most go along with no problem but if the woman rejects your name then there is a deep-seated issue. It is one of those cases like whether a woman will have sex with you where doing it means nothing but going actively against it speaks volumes.

 

The first image that comes into mind when a woman won't accept her husband's name is Carrie hyperventilating in her wedding dress and desperately tearing it off while breaking into hives. That's not too far from the truth. This is a woman's version of commitment phobia which men are always the one's to be blamed with and it feels some don't want to even accept that it exists.

WHAT????

 

Obviously we must be from very different generations, but honestly...you realize it's not 1932, right? You realize that the original reason women were forced to take their man's last name was for ownership, right? And you do realize that nowadays, women have rights and are empowered...right?

 

This old-fashioned conservatism is ridiculous. I realize it may not be so in some relationships (and that's incredibly sad), but my man and I are equals, and we are agreeing on a new last name to suit both of us to demonstrate that (one of many ways we plan on doing so). Devil's Advocate, hopefully you never meet a strong & empowered woman like me in real life, or you're in for trouble

[Stung]

My father had two children with my mother and put them through private school. They bought a house together which they lived in for 25 years. They had been together since college. They were married for ~35 years. My father stuck with my mother through a 10 year battle against cancer until her death. He plans to be buried with her and already has his name on the gravestone. He doesn't even love or care about her. External circumstances mean nothing.[/quote

 

And are you suggesting that one person changing their name to conform to a tradition would have proven a different dynamic or perhaps changed something in this scenario..?

 

I might point out, also, although it doesn't sound like the kind of marriage I hoping to maintain emotionally, it does actually sound like they were VERY committed to each other.

 

Sorry about your mother.

[Lauriebell82]

I took my husband's last name, personally I like the tradition and the family unit being joined like that. My husband is traditional also, he said it's a dealbreaker for him (wife not changing her name). It wasn't a problem because I never intended to keep my maiden name.

 

It's been my experience that when a wife keeps her maiden name and the children have the husband's last name, confusion ensues when the kids go to school (as in getting called "Mrs husband's last name). I do know wives who handle that well and just simply correct them.

 

I vote for you to keep your maiden name as a middle name and take his last name (without hyphenation). Ultimately the choice is your's though, do whatever you feel comfortable doing.

[laRubiaBonita]

My husband is traditional also, he said it's a dealbreaker for him (wife not changing her name).

 

Really? THAT would be a deal breaker???? Wow!

 

i am impressed that some men care so much.... but a deal breaker?

[Els]

Really? THAT would be a deal breaker???? Wow!

 

i am impressed that some men care so much.... but a deal breaker?

 

Eh, I've heard worse where dealbreakers are concerned. Besides, if it matters that much to the guy, he probably should kinda make it a dealbreaker, since otherwise there would be great disparity between him and the girl in terms of gender role beliefs and overall mindset.

 

I personally have never, ever met a single couple, back where I come from, where the woman didn't take the man's, so it's not something I've given much thought really. Besides, bf does most of the stuff that a guy is traditionally 'supposed to do', so I would feel really ****ty denying him this perk if we were to marry.

 

I think OP should do whatever she feels best for herself and her bf though, and screw what society thinks. Easier said than done, of course.

[hitzpink]

My fiance would understand and support me if I chose to keep my maiden name or hyphenate our names together, but I'm taking his last name. When you get married you are leaving your family of origin in a sense and forming a new family of your own. So I think you should all have the same last name, whether it be the husband's, the wife's, or a comination of both.

[allina]

I took my husband's last name, personally I like the tradition and the family unit being joined like that. My husband is traditional also, he said it's a dealbreaker for him (wife not changing her name). It wasn't a problem because I never intended to keep my maiden name.

 

It's been my experience that when a wife keeps her maiden name and the children have the husband's last name, confusion ensues when the kids go to school (as in getting called "Mrs husband's last name). I do know wives who handle that well and just simply correct them.

 

I vote for you to keep your maiden name as a middle name and take his last name (without hyphenation). Ultimately the choice is your's though, do whatever you feel comfortable doing.

 

I don't know if I'd call myself traditional but me taking my husband's name was a given. While saying it's a deal breaker is a little much imo it does seem sort of wrong not to take your husband's name. I know I might get flamed for this but I believe women should take their husband's name.