I don’t like that solution. It just seems awkward and inconvenient for everyone involved. Especially when two long names are involved. I think this is the worst option of any of them.
I really can’t see that I would have changed my name to my wife’s maiden name, or to a new name we both use, or to a hyphenated mess. If it had been something she really wanted, I wouldn’t have objected to her keeping her maiden name.
I have to say I agree with those who have suggested you at the very least postpone the wedding, if not cancel it. I married a man who made almost exactly this kind of change at the nearly last minute. I just couldn’t believe he really meant what he was saying so I married him anyhow. It lasted less than two years and cost me a lot of money to get out of it. Don’t marry him!
There was a well-known case of this in California: Former mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa.
Born Antonio Villar, married Corina Raigosa, they made a new name for themselves as Villaraigosa.
I am by no means saying they shouldn’t do it. I’m all for people doing whatever they like. I just like thinking it out - it’s interesting.
Also, long unwieldy names - so much work to update. Larger fields in the data base for the four-hyphens names isn’t that much of issue for us, but trying to work with older, never updated formats that don’t accommodate the longer field but will not die (seriously, we’ve been trying to get one replaced for several years) sounds like a nightmare. At least we’re not still using the old flat file where they’d only send us a 6 character last name (we could take longer, but they said they couldn’t send it) anymore. So glad that’s gone.
I did as well.
Because marriage brings certain legal rights and employment benefits. Its often necessary if you want to adopt kids.
I kept my maiden and have had zero issues. I’ve been happily married with two kids for 22 years.
I took a common last name with my first husband - who thought it was so gosh darn important. The marriage lasted eighteen months and I went back to my maiden name.
Sorry, but our last names are not hyphenated. We have our given names followed by our paternal last name which is followed by the maternal.
Cristóbal - given name
Díaz - father’s paternal
Corona - last (paternal) name of mother
Cristóbal Díaz Corona.
No hyphen.
I suppose I really meant “double barrelled” - keeping names from both parents, or two words, or whatever.
My wife did that, too. But if she had wanted to keep her surname, I would have been happy with it.* It’s her decision.
We would have had to have a discussion about any children’s names, but we would have come to an agreement.
*Especially since her maiden name – an extremely unusual one – shows up in my family tree.
If I were a woman this day and age, it would be a deal-breaker. If you yield on this, he will expect you to yield on everything, I suspect.
My daughter kept her name, but their son has his name. Both my daughters-in-law did change their name, though. The first because she was fairly traditional and the second because she didn’t want to be associated to her father for divorcing her mother. But neither of my sons would have insisted on it.
Quebec has an interesting law. You get married, you can choose to keep your names or either party can change to the other or you can go hyphenated. Same with the kids’ names. But if hyphenated kids marry, the couples (and their kids) can keep only at most two of the three or four names.
Personally, I’m strongly of the opinion that a married couple should share the same last name. Which is why I think it’s not unlikely that, when I eventually marry, I’ll end up taking her name. It’s important to me that we have the same name, but it’s not important to me what that name is.
EDIT: Yeah, we have some neighbors who did the portmanteau-name thing, too. That would also be acceptable to me.
Mine did, too. So we both changed our names. He took my last name as a second middle name. He doesn’t use it much, but it’s on his passport.
This looks like a red flag. I’m chiming in with the folks who say “don’t marry him until you resolve this, in a way other than your rolling over and acquiescing.”
When Mrs. Intergalactic Gladiator and I got married she kept her last name. Her joke about it was that she didn’t want to go from the 1 syllable last name that she has to a 3 syllable last name that I have. She also argued that she’s known by her last name – we were both over 30 when we got married so I didn’t argue and ultimately, it doesn’t bother me. I would have liked if she could have kept hers, added mine, and then not actually use mine beyond tax returns and whatnot but she didn’t want to do that either and I really didn’t care to push for it anyway. I do admit that using her last name when ordering pizzas or getting tables at restaurants is way more convenient.
I changed my name for my first marriage because I liked the new last name. I kept that name for my second marriage because I liked the old last name. I plan to die with this name!
I grew up with a dachshund with a hyphenated last name. He was a pedigreed member (I learned years later) of the illustrious Heying-Teckel family — quite possibly a distant (or not-so-distant?) cousin of the champion Falcon of Heying-Teckel!
I named him Doxie, after a Saturday morning kid-vid dachshund. If I had known then, I’d have named him Event Horizon of Heying-Teckel.
Is his concern children? Maybe you need to have that discussion as to what your children’s last name will be. Do you plan on hyphenating them? I really understand why you’d want to keep your own name and especially when you say it’s for professional reasons. After four years, it seems to me he would understand where you are coming from. That’s why I ask if it’s about kids. Maybe he’s not crazy about the kids not having his name. Honestly, idk.
In 30 years of marriage I haven’t had any issues, either.
Did the OP ever come back, or are we just jerking-off?
I don’t know about where you live, but where I live living as a “common law couple” does NOT give you “the same legal protections” as several people I’ve known have discovered to their very great dismay.
It’s a real problem in society when people just can not fathom why a woman would want to keep her original name. It’s her name. Suggest a man change his name and it’s a big uproar. Suggest a woman not change her name it’s a big uproar.
A married couple is NOT obligated to show an “outward symbol to the community at large”, it’s not of the “community at large”'s business. Not to mention the issue of what form that commitment should take. In the US, wedding rings are not a universal. Either partner taking the other’s name is not a universal. Basically, being married is proven by a legal document and nothing more or less - when I’ve been asked to prove my marriage for legal purposes that was the ONLY document or “symbol” accepted - the marriage document. Not rings. Not legal names. Only the document.