Thursday, October 7, 2010

Relationship Post: What's in a Name?

 


For any of you ladies out there who are married, engaged, or plan on being so at some point or another...what are you going to do about your last name?? Do you plan on taking your spouse's last name? Will you keep your own? What about hyphenating it? Or taking it on as a middle name? So many choices and so many different feelings about your family name come into play for this decision.


Here are some points for each option, very subjective to my own feelings and involved a small survey of just myself.


1. Change your name to his
- This makes it easy to tell that you're a family, think of dealing with insurance or your children's schools
- It's nice to have the same last name as your children
- It's old fashioned, traditional, and a bit romantic (all your name doodling will pay off: Mrs. K. Timberlake, Mr and Mrs Efron)
- Changing all of your information everywhere- banks, insurance, Social Security, tax forms, emails, etc. can definitely be a pain in the tushie
- If you don't like your last name, here's your chance to change it
- Makes monogramming much easier (remember I'm a monogram freak)
- If there's only girls in your family, your family name will die off
- Your name may be better than his or flows better with your first name




2. Keeping your own name
- Woohoo! That was easy, no changes needed
- May hurt your man's feelings or insult his family
- Will be annoyed with questions as to why you chose to keep your family name
- You pay tribute and loyalty to your own family name by carrying it on
- It's part of your identity and you want to keep it
- Career concerns depending on what field you're in and how successful you are
- Is more commonplace now than years past


3. Hyphenating your name
- Best of both worlds, a little compromise on both parts
- Will be a pain to write it all out when signing your name
- Will suck if your name and his name are both long i.e. VanValkenburg-Anderson, but if that's the case, you probably wouldn't hyphenate


4. Taking on your last name as a middle name
- This is best scenario if you like your last name and don't have a middle name
- What are you going to do with your middle name if you have one? Keep it or throw it away?


For myself, I plan on taking the Fiance's last name. I'm a traditionalist and think it's romantic. It's also nice to be a family unit, our own little tribe and take on the family pride of my Fiance's heritage. I do LOVE my last name though and there's only girls in my family so I plan on naming my children with my last name, be it a first or middle name. When my parents divorced, my Mother kept our name because she wanted us all to have the same name and it really meant a lot to me that she did that. I kind of lucked out too that my Fiance's sister has the same first name and middle initial as I do, so hearing my first name paired with their last sounds familiar and isn't completely alien to me. Now if I can only talk her into giving up her email account to me....


So, what's your opinon? There's no right or wrong answer, just what best suits you and your spouse. Maybe you're a feminist and identify yourself with your last name and want to keep it or maybe your last name is hard to pronounce and you can't wait to shed it? What did you do or what do you plan on doing?

10 comments :

Ashley J said...

I dropped my middle name and took my husbands!

http://www.afashionfixation.blogspot.com

Frances @ It's Sew My Style said...

hmm I don't think I plan to take my husband's last name. My boyfriend doesn't care one way or another. I grew up my whole life with my mom having a completely different last name than me so it's not that foreign in my little world. Also, I like my middle name and wouldn't want to give it up.
I think it's a personal preference though and whatever you want to do is 100% a-OK.

Nado Queenie said...

My Husband was so upset with the fact that I even brought up keeping my last name. But I'm a traditionalist as well & changed it to his, how could I not...it translates to "Crowned Queen" in spanish lol!

Caroline said...

New follower. Love your blog. I took my hubby's last name and my old last name is my middle name. Changing your name is hard and gets some taking used to, but, 2 1/2 years of marriage later, it's nothing!

Jen Madigan Photography said...

I decided to take my husband's last name, and dropped my maiden name.

Anonymous said...

I am definitely taking fiances last name. I'm excited about it but it also makes me sad because I've been Kristin______ my whole life! I feel like I'll have an identity crisis when it comes time to change. But, I'm with you, it's romantic and is wonderful to be a family tied together.

REBrown said...

I took my husband's last name and made my maiden name my middle name. I've gotten now where my signature and all of my documents are with my full name (middle included). So it's sort of like keeping both names, but not quite as intense.

REBrown
rekdbrown.blogspot.com

Newlyweds on a Budget said...

i took my husband's last name for a variety of reasons--1) I'm a traditionalist 2) i liked the sense of family 3) i HATED my last name (also for a variety of reasons) ...

I actually don't mind when women keep their last names, but there was a blog on how archaic it was that women take their husband's names and it was a bash fest. Needless to say, I don't read that blog anymore : )

love yours though!

Whitney @ EHFAR said...

I'm a new follower...

I'm not married yet, but when my boyfriend and I get married, I'm taking his name. There's only one other girl in my family, so our last name will die off. However, I don't look forward to notifying everyone, but I won't mind. I like his last name :)

Rebecca S. said...

I will probably take FI's last name, but I have expressed wanting to hyphenate it. I LOVE my last name and the heritage that comes along with it, so we will probably talk about it again when it gets closer. I have 8 months to get it figured out. I would really like to keep my last name partly, but I don't want to offend the new in-laws. So, time will tell I guess. Have you figured out what you are going to do yet? You should let us know : )