- Blog
- Bios
- Boards
- Classifieds
- DIY
- Gallery
- Vendor Reviews
- Shop Weddingbee
Weddingbee Blog
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 desperation, I did the only thing I could. I decided that my real name, my true identity, was my first name. Gone went multi-letter monograms. I’ll take just my first initial, the “M”, thankyouverymuch. My last name is evidently dynamic, but my first name won’t change.
Now I have the freedom to choose to take Mr. Cheese’s last name… or not. He’s pretty firmly on the name-change side of the fence, and I’m pretty firmly ON the fence. I would love for my future children and my current pets to share my last name; as a side benefit, his last initial is the same as my first initial, so the single letter monograms are still useful! On the other hand, I don’t want to change my name professionally again.
If I worked for a different company, I’d change my name personally but keep my name professionally. {Side note: which one becomes your legal name? If it’s the personal name, how do you handle your taxes at work? If it’s the professional name, how will you sign your kids’ permission slips?} Unfortunately, at my very large corporate employer, your identity is dictated by your tax records. If my name changes legally, so do my email address, IM name, corporate directory, and business cards.
I’m leaning toward changing my name once I have kids. We’ll call that the procrastinator’s solution. But then I wonder, when, exactly? When I find out I’m pregnant? When the child is actually born? And not to be too pragmatic, but what a mess to change my name while dealing with insurance and doctors and hormones! Ugg, I also dread bringing my personal life into my professional life again by changing my name. I deal with hundreds of people, and every one would have to be notified of my new name.
So, for now, I’m not deciding. The beauty of engagement is that it gives you (me) the opportunity to ponder these dilemmas while not forcing you (me) to decide immediately. I suspect that in the end, I’ll take Mr. Cheese’s last name, but I’m holding off on checking that one off the list.
What are your plans regarding your last name? Will you take your fiance’s name or keep your own? Will you hyphenate or have you come up with some other hybrid solution? Details, please! I’m a practical gal!
I tried to get my fiance to agree to change his last name to mine, but he was outraged. Funny how it’s perfectly okay to expect me to change my last name to his. I’m three weeks from my wedding and I’m STILL undecided. *shrugs*
I took my (now) husbands last name. We’ve been married just under a month now, and personally I go by his last name. Professionally and legally I am still K Maidenname. This is because in Ontario (Canada) where I live, you cannot file for your marriage certificate until 90 days after the wedding. You need your certificate to do any name changes. And you don’t even get your certificate right away when you file for it, so it’s looking like I will (legally) be K Maidenname until about February or March of 2009.
I made the decision to take his name for a few reasons - #1 - I just always figured I WOULD take his name. #2 - I want our family to have a unified last name. I will be honest though, I am sad to think that my maiden name will soon be mine no longer - I LOOOOVE my naiden name. I am lucky that it would also work as a first or middle name, and my husband has agreed that our first child (girl or boy) will have it as their middle name 
**Maiden** NOT naiden
I will be hyphenating my name, most likely or leave it the way I was born. His last name is too common for me. Plus my family tends to be a little vain when it comes to the family name. Also he really doen’t care one bit as long as his son is named after him (which is an issue).
Like you Cheese, I’ve been married and then divorced. Instead of taking my maiden name back after the divorce I kept my married last name. We didn’t have kids so that’s not the reason I kept it. I just felt like that’s who I was now instead of the me with my maiden last name. I know a lot of people thought is was strange and my ex was really upset I didn’t give it up. Just wondering if I’m the only one who has done this?
Cheese I feel for you. Name changing is not only a hassle (obviously at your job) but it seems to me that it takes away some of your identity too. Tough situation..
I LOVE my last name! It is so unique and holds strong family ties to our “motherland” (Italy) and I think it just sounds great with my first, which is equally unique.
I have decided to keep it as a second middle name. In the wonderful, yet corrupt state of Illinois, almost anything is possible! Heck you can legally change your name just by starting to go by it! (I looked into all this after reading Hydranges’a post).
So now when I get married, I will have 4 “first” names, since both of our last names can be first names too! That’s fun!
I will be taking his name. My middle name has been down 3 generations of girls, so my first girl will get that, and although the boy needs to start with a ‘B’ as is tradition in his family, I may make the middle name incorporate my maiden name somehow 
Another Canadian here… well, American living in Canada, married to a Canadian. For now, I’m socially Mrs. White, but professionally and for government purposes (both American and Canadian), Ms. Maiden-Name. I do eventually want to switch it fully to his, when I’m not in a province that makes you pay $300 to switch, but for now, this works.
I am glad you posted about this because I am VERY confused. This might be in part because I am in GA, but I am having a hard time finding/getting a straight answer when it comes to changing my name after marriage. I even posted the question on Yahoo answers just a second ago!
I applied for a marriage license, and in two weeks I am getting married. I would like to change my name. When and where do I list the new name? My marriage License has my ‘current’ name. There’s only room for the signature of the officiant.
When I get married I will send that off and a few weeks later I will receive the marriage Certificate. Is this where I print my new name? On the Certificate? I am confused as to WHEN/WHERE I am supposed to list my new name. I even read somewhere that you can change your name entirely when you marry.
I’m taking FI’s name. We never really talked about but I’m fairly traditional.
I am going to use my last name as my middle name at work (so my signature on e-mail and documents will be name maiden FI’s last without hyphens. We have a small company so my old e-mail can point to my new e-mail (we use first and last initials) so that I won’t loose contact with people.
One of the plusses with changing my name is that FI’s name is much easier to spell and say for people instead of my tounge twisting Italian name.
My maiden name will become my middle name and I will take my future husbands name as my new last name. That way regardless of what I do professionally, each name is still valid.
Besides, I’m not nearly as attached to my middle name as I am to my maiden name. It just makes sense and I don’t have to hyphenate, I can just choose to use one or both names as it seems appropriate.
I’m dropping my maiden name and taking his personally and professionally. I’m sure I’ll experience a slight identity crisis, but I think it will all work out in the end. I agree with you about the first name. That’s a great point of view!
The more I think about it the sadder it makes me. My sister and I are the last to have our names. So it ends with us, my dad only had a sister and my grandpa’s brother died in WWII. Also one of my uncles has a nickname for me because of my initials JAS (so he calls me Jazz). I even jokingly, semi serious, asked fiance if he would change his name since he has a brother but he didn’t like that idea. I never thought I would have an issue with it but the family name ending is sad.
Pumpkin, Cheese, I am divorced too. I kept the married name because I had used it for TEN YEARS and everyone in my current city knows me by that name. It was my identity and it felt traumatic to change my name back to Maiden after a traumatic divorce. My ex’s family is mad about it and my ex is mad about it. oh well.
I can’t wait to get remarried and change it to a happy name! *In my case,* my name change shows the world I am happily joining my husband and we’re creating a new family.
Oh I thought long and hard about this one…but when it comes down to it, I wanted our kids to have the same last name as both of us.
Ugh, I went through that too when I changed from my first married name back to my maiden name where people who didn’t know me that well congratulated me on getting married and I was put in the awkward position of explaining that I got a divorce. (Man, that was a long run-on sentence.)
The first time I did First Maiden Last, and that’s what I’ll be doing again this time. I was never fond of my middle name, so it gives me an excuse to drop it, while still keeping my maiden name in there. I’ve always wanted my family to have the same last name, so there was really no question in my mind.
Plus I get to confuse my coworkers some more! (Although they all know I’m getting married now, so hopefully no one will be too confused this time.) 
@Pumpkin: I thought about keeping it, but it always felt on loan anyway, so I needed to give it back.@Jessy: the name change process is typically an additional step over and above getting married. You take your marriage cert (which has your maiden name, who you are legally at the time you marry) and take it to the SS office to change your last name. Somewhere I have a link to a state-by-state listing of what you have to do. I’ll hunt it down tonight and post it here.
I do not plan to take my fiance’s name. I love the anonymity of my last name, and more importantly, I love that it’s my name. I have an established career with my name. It is MY name. My fiance is completely fine with this, and we plan to give any children we may have my last name.
It is always so strange to me to read or hear about men who feel so passionately and strongly about having their wives take their names. These men loved these women when they had their maiden names, why should they care whether the women choose to keep or change their names post-marriage? I just don’t get it. You are not any less married - or any less in love - if you have different names. I could never be with someone who felt so strongly about me wanting to take his name. That would not jive with my feminist beliefs.
I do not “look” like my new last name, at all. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I’ve tried it on a few times at the valet or at the host station waiting for a table, and I get a double take every time. It’s very Chinese and my maiden name is very German (read: white girl). However, it’s sort of fun….like a secret spy game or something. That was dorky. Sorry.
I am EXTREMELY attached to my last name.
I’ve gone by last name only since high school, since a bunch of my friends and I all have similar first names, so it was easier to differentiate by using my last name, and it STUCK. To the point that there are people who have known me for years and are always confused if someone refers to me by my first name, any version of it.
If FI can’t get my attention in a crowded place by using a pet name or my first name, all he has to say is my last name and I’ll jerk my head around immediately.
We’re going on a Mediterranean cruise in June 09, so the tickets are booked with my maiden name on them, and I don’t have to think about it until then.
As a perfomer, your name is kind of a big deal, especially when registering with a union. I think professionally, I may combine last names (I’ve considered just dropping my first name entirely, but that’s just a little too strange). Personally though, I think I’ll be Mrs. Hislastname, I really like both of our last names, so it’s a win-win I suppose.
People (my friends) are never going to stop calling me by my last name anyway.
| Visit our sister sites | eHarmony Online Dating |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
Mrs. Cheese, Knoxville Age and Occupation: 29, Engineering Manager Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, CAD Designer Engagement Date: July 31, 2008 Wedding Date: May, 2009 Blogging Since: October 16, 2008 Venue: Our home and the two acres it sits on About Me: I’m an emotional girl who loves sentimental things, parenthetical asides, and trying to do things herself. I can cook, sew, am a whiz at planning, terrible at delegating, and totally in love with my fiancé (who will be my second husband but first love of the rest of my life). For our home/ garden/ DIY wedding, we’ll be moonlighting as interior designers, home improvers, and gardeners with the help of our fabulous friends and neighbors. We can’t wait to be married, and are learning how fun getting married can be.
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 | 30 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
Latest Gallery Pics