Weddingbee Blog

They call me Stacy… okay, well no one actually calls me Stacy, but I don’t know what I want to be called after August 2009. After Miss Cheese’s name change post, I tried really hard to avoid thinking about our own situation. Since I haven’t made the decision yet (though I have reserved all possible email choices) I thought I’d share what other people in my life have done in regards to the name change situation.

• My friends Holly and Mike were recently married and went through the same debate as most couples have gone through. She wasn’t sure about changing her name, and he wanted them and their future children to share a last name. They both decided to hyphenate their last names to become Holly and Mike Jones-Smith

• Possibly the most original idea I’ve ever heard is to make up a last name. MOH MB’s friend’s last name is Posil. His mother’s last name is Polovvy and his father’s last name is Silverman. Get it, Po-sil? They each retained their pre-married names and their child received a combination of their names. I suppose you could always create a family name for the two of you, as well.

• My friend Stephanie married into a culture where you take your husband’s first and last name. Which would make her Stephanie Jay Kapadia. She really likes her middle name (her first name was chosen by her mother, her middle name was chosen by her father) and she didn’t want to get rid of it, nor did she want her husband’s name as her middle name. She ultimately decided to take on her husband’s last name and keep her own middle name. Since she was able to retain her middle name, she didn’t feel as though she needed her maiden name.

• My sister kept her maiden name because she felt it was such a hassle to go through all the paperwork required to change it. She says she’ll change it when they’re ready to have children so their whole family will have her husband’s last name.

As for us?

Every family member in my generation is a girl, so I really do worry about our family name dying out. I can remember, as clearly as yesterday, learning about someone with my last name in 4th grade. I ran home and made my mother find our genealogy to see if we were related. Like Miss Peep Toe, I enjoy being on that first page of Google results. Plus, according to this site (thanks mrstye!), there is only 1 person in the entire United States with my name. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but I think it’s pretty neat and I don’t want to lose the history or individuality that comes with my name.

Have you decided to go a non-traditional route in changing your name?