Wedding Blog
Hello hive! Long time no talk!
I know I’ve been pretty MIA since our big day, but before I get to posting about the rehearsal, wedding day, and honeymoon, I thought I’d share with you one MAJOR compromise that Mr. H and I had right before the wedding.
About two weeks before we were set to tie the knot, Mrs. (then Miss) H got a little nervous about the whole name change thing. OK, not just a little nervous, I got super duper emotional. I had decided earlier on that I would make my maiden name a second middle name, i.e.:
First Middle Maiden Last
When all of my wedding emotions hit me like a ton of bricks those couple of weeks before the wedding, I realized that one of my biggest emotions was that of losing my last name. I never thought that this would be such an issue, but I guess that finally coming to terms with no longer having the same name that I’d had for 26 years really was more sad then I had thought.
I talked to Mr. H about possibly not changing my name at all—he wasn’t into this.
I can’t blame him; he was excited to have me as his wife and for us to start our new family, with his family name. I, however, couldn’t let it go.
Mom H, surprisingly, found the solution. Mom H takes Spanish classes each week and her teacher suggested that maybe we change my name to the old-fashioned Hispanic tradition, i.e.:
First Middle Maiden de Married
I was sure that Mr. H wouldn’t go for this idea. To me it’s like using a hyphen, but with a “de” instead. I couldn’t believe it when not only did he agree to it, he liked it more then any of the options, including me taking his name solely. I do admit, it’s quite the mouthful, but it means a lot to me that I get to keep a little of my past while beginning my future with Mr. H. And most of all, it means the world to me that he realized how important this is to me. 
So now, my only task left is to figure out when I will find the time to make the dreaded trips to change my license, social security information, and to go get my new passport.
Did any of you choose an unconventional way to change your name?
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Share this post: It’s Only a Name… Or Is It?
When changing your name, i totally suggest http://www.missnowmrs.com such a god send!
I was having a hard time stomaching a name change. After having my name for so long! We are from two different backgrounds- Puerto rican (me) and he is Taiwanese. But I will have to ask him if he likes the idea Mom H proposed to you! In the hispanic culture it isn’t too uncommon to have two last names anyway! Thanks for sharing!!!
Actually one of the beauty parts of the Hispanic tradition you mentioned is that (at least here in Mexico) there is no LEGAL name change at all. It is just what people call you formally on invitations, etc. Also many women here use their husband’s last name socially (both First de Married and First Married) and again, there is no legal element involved. Might be easier just not to do the legal thing.
Thank you HAnnah I have been married over a year and still not motivated!!! know I will.
now. sorry
I just did a post on my blog last week about this very subject. Check it out.
http://ed-debi.blogspot.com
The name changing process is easier than most people make it out to be. I recently change my first name legally, hence changing everything along with it. I’m getting married in a few months and will be taking my FI’s name, and so will have to go through the entire process again. At least the government make it easy to change your last name, needing only a marriage certificate.
I’ve been going back and forth on this. FI will be really hurt if I don’t take his last name, and I’m fine with taking it; I just can’t decide if I will be First Middle Maiden Married or First Middle Married. My wedding is this weekend, so I guess I need to decide soon!
@pancakes: No you don’t! Take your time deciding. You can always change it later. I have a friend who kept her name, then when they had kids she decided she wanted the same last name as them so she changed it at that point. You could also think about doing First Maiden Married, and drop your middle name. That’s my plan.
I decided on the first middle maiden married route and I’m still adjusting to it, but I’m glad I kept my name and took his name as well.
I always thought I would be thrilled to drop my maiden name and take my husbands last name. But as soon as I got engaged, the reality hit me and I did not want to let go of the name that I grew up with and had for nearly 29 years. Dropping my middle name was also not an option because my middle name is my grandma’s name and that is something special. So, I kept my middle, placed my maiden name after it and changed my last name to his. Some people have it confused and think I hyphenated without the hyphen but I still go by Michelle Newlastname, while secretly still calling myself Michelle Maiden Newlastname in my head.
Mrs H, It’s so wonderful that you were not only able to find a solution that worked for both you and Mr H, but that it’s even in keeping with his (and now your ) heritage! Thanks for the great post about not only how emotional it can be for a bride to change her name, but also how emotional it can be for her groom. My husband still tears up every time he gets the mail and sees items addressed to my new name!
@katie (@pancakes): Actually, it depends state by state. In Oregon (where I was married), you have to declare your name change on the marriage license, so you must decide prior to the wedding. If you change your mind later, you must go to court and do it the long way. Also, Oregon limits how you may change your name using a marriage license, so actually, Mrs H’s clever compromise wouldn’t be possible (in OR) without changing your name in court.
That’s so cool! What a great solution - and so much more elegant than a hyphen.
I was able to change mine to First middle Maiden Married. Which sounds the same as a few mentioned above, but my official last name is now Maiden Married - no hyphen. I like it because when I have kids and later on, people can assume and alphabetize me with the kids under the married name, but I can get away with going by either. It is really handy because no matter which name people write important info (like checks) too, both are on my drivers license! I also didn’t change my name professionally - so it is nice to have identification that has my maiden name on it so it “matches” my business cards.
I always knew that I wouldn’t change my name, and honestly I wouldn’t have even dated someone who felt it was important for me to take his name, so I think that kind of happens pre-wedding in a subconcious way.
also I am 29, and it would be incredibly wierd to take any other name than my own legally. informally, socially, I am fine with people calling me by his name, but technically and legally, my name is important to me has established me for 29 years, so no its not just a name.
I agree with you, beaninca, about not even *dating* a guy who’s so sexist and/or insecure as to care about me changing my name.
I have been struggling with the name change challenge for a while. I decided to go with First Middle Maiden Married but still felt conflicted. Recently FI agreed to add my maiden name to his name (my maiden name is a pretty standard boy’s first name). So now he’ll be First Middle Maiden Last too! And as sad as I am to technically lose my last name, I feel better that he’s compromising too.
This is such a gut-wrenching thing for me too! I have a bit of a different situation because my fiance - and everyone else who’s not in my family - calls me by my last name. In fact, when I talk to myself in my head, I call myself by my last name!
I did toss about the idea of dropping my first and middle names, but that feels a little disrespectful to my mother. Plus it’s just plain weird.
I’m going the First Middle Maiden Last route (I think), and I’m trying to remember ladies like Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jacqueline Onassis Kennedy when I get wistful about it.
Because I’m in the same camp, where I want my whole family to have the same last name. No political reason there; I just like the idea of being The [Lastname]s. Also, we’re planning on giving our kids my last name as their middle names, so it sticks around for at least a generation.
I like the idea of First Middle Maiden de Last, but I don’t know if I like the way it sounds with our names in particular.
i didnt change my name. all through our five year relationship prior to being engaged he always said he wouls like his wife to have his last name. i was always uncomfortable because i never wanted to give up my name. once we were engagedf though, he just turned ont he light and realized that he really didnt care, and i kept my last name. i DO liek when peopel cal me by his last name, but legally, my business name is also my last name. it would have messed up a lot of things. he knew that this is what i wanted jsut as badly as what he wanted, and we agreed to just keep our own names. marriage is about compromise, and this was an easy one after all.
I’m going to hyphenate our two names (Annie Middle Maiden-Married). I’m Vietnamese-American (and an only child) and he’s German-American, so I want to honor my heritage, too, instead of taking his name completely.
hey Lina
re: being insecure. awhile back i had mass emailed a group of my friends. Well, one had went to my newly married friend’s husband, and when he received the email, he saw her email name, standard generic yahoo first name underscore last, and turns out I got her *in trouble as he threw a tantrum about how she disrepescted him by keeping her old email addy!!
It definitely does depend on your state. I live in Pennsylvania and wanted to have two middle names - middle and maiden. However, the department of transportation wouldn’t allow when I went to change it on my driver’s license! Right there, on the spot, I had to decide if I wanted to drop my middle name or my maiden name forever. I was devastated and hated it (and continue to hate PennDot for it.) However, I did decide to drop my maiden name on my license, which was a hard decision for me. I still continue to use it though, especially at work, where everyone knows me by my maiden name. Why does the government have to be so involved??? I hate it….
I already changed my name on facebook and I love it. I’m glad the two of you found a way to compromise.
i know a couple that did HernameHisname, no hyphen, no space, just another capital letter. it sounds neat together but I feel bad for their kids, since no one will EVER spell it right.
we’re going with a hybrid of the two, since neither of us want to give up our names but we still want to establish ourselves as one family. however, as the day RAPIDLY approaches even i question this decision as being wacky. i don’t know, i’ll probably stick with it.
I have an Irish last name that starts O’xxxxx and is a very unique spelling.
My FI’s last name is a common boy’s first name.
FI does not want to change his name because he thinks “guys don’t do that stuff”. I don’t want to lose my last name because it’s becoming extinct!
I keep suggesting a combination of the two names, not a hyphenation, but O’boy name
I think it’s an awesome idea, I don’t lose the O or the apostrophe, he still gets to keep all of his last name but with a small addition. And then he’d get to move up in the alphabet!
He still thinks guys shouldn’t change their name, something silly about tracing family trees…
Have a little patience for the guys who insist you change their name. The idea might just be new to them. My fiance has never known a woman in his whole life who kept her maiden name or hyphenated (yes, he grew up very sheltered). So the whole concept was new to him and felt insulting, like I didn’t want people to know I was married to him. Just as it’s hard for us, it may be hard for him, as well. It wasn’t until I told him to think about changing his name that he understood how that would feel.
I’ve gone over the name change thing a zillion times and can’t decide what to do. I might do “mylast hislast” with or without a hyphen for my last name, so (just like gji7 above) I have all options open to me. This way my initials don’t change and I can just tack on the last name.
It’s a hard process, though. I’ve had my name for 33 years and can’t imagine not being a “mylast” anymore.
What I came up with was:
First Middle Married Maiden
And lmdh, my *old* state had room on the driver’s licenses to put both on. My *new* state doesn’t. Neither does the voter’s registration cards. They picked different “middle” names.
I’m just going to take my Federal Government Issued ID with me to the polls.
I love the Maiden de Married!! Unfortunately my combination of names sounds a bit retarded like that!
@Sorcha:
I love it! I think the O’Boy is a great idea. My sister in law did that on accident! She had a O’Irish name and made it her middle name, but most paperwork is First Middle Initial Last, so she ends up being Deb O’Married. She loves it even though it was never intended.
My thing is that not only do I indentify myself by the name (as in people who think im like my dad say oh shes such a Maiden Name! And I love it.) AND My maiden name is up at the front of the alphabet… and my fiance’s is allll the way at the back. I know its silly - but I dont know if i want to move to the back of the alphabet line! Am I the only one bothered by this silly notion?
i am asian and my husband is european. my husband is going to take on my last name. we have friends who did the same. he was asian and she is european.
there are more ways than one!
I like that idea as well, and I considered it when I married my husband, but then decided on a hyphenate.
However, my name changing process has a hitch. Like some people in hispanic culture, my husband’s legal last name is ParentalLastName - MaternialLastName. That’s what it says on his driver’s licence, SS card, etc. (He normally goes by his Parental Last Name.) When I went to change my name to FirstName MiddleName MyMaidenName-Husband’sParentalLastName, I was told I could not. I had to take his full hyphenate last name. So if I wanted to include his last name, that would be FirstName Middle MaidenName-Husband’sPartentalLastName-Husband’sMaternialLast Name. Yikes! My last name alone is a long last name.
As of now I can’t even take just his Parental Last Name. So I still have my maiden name, and am debating on going to court to leagally changing my name to what I want it to be. So I’m stuck. I use my hyphenate name now, but legally it has not changed.
[...] Mrs. Hydrangea posted recently about her decision to change her name in a rather unusual way, and it got me thinking about my name decision (ahem, more like a non-decision). Having been married before, I’ve done the name change thing (and then reversed it). The whole thing was awful. When I first adopted my new married name, I felt lost, like all of my history up to that point had been wiped out, even though I was 21 at the time. Then when I reverted to my maiden name, I was even more devastated. In the years I was married, I graduated and my career really took off. Suddenly, the plaques and awards on my wall were in a different name. “That’s not me anymore!” I’d think each time I’d look at them… but I’d left my maiden name so long before that it didn’t feel right either. And I won’t mention the awkwardness of being congratulated by coworkers (whom I obviously didn’t know very well) on my marriage when in fact my name changed because of the d-word. [...]
In relation to O’boysname, if taking the husband’s last name is important to tracing families, we are doing this ALL WRONG. Women can’t exactly lie about being the mothers of their biological children.
I’m glad you found a solution you can both agree on. My FI and I have been at each other for quite some time over who will take whose name, or not.
I’ll have to mention it later and see how quickly he dismisses it. 
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Mrs. Hydrangea, Dallas
Age and Occupation: 26, Administrative Assistant
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Network Analyst
Engagement Date: June 2007
Wedding Date: September 2008
Blogging Since: January 14, 2008
Venue: Catholic Church and Reception at The W Hotel
About Me: Mr. H and I come from very different cultures and backgrounds so I'm excited to plan our wedding with a balance of both traditions. My mom has always been a DIY queen, and I'm just now starting to get into it with a new house and a wedding to plan!
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