Yeah, I like my married name better–because it’s my married name. I realize how politically incorrect such a sentiment seems to be these days, but that’s the way I feel. I never had any doubts about taking my husband’s name, nor any regrets. And after 17 years of marriage, I’m still proud to be called Mrs.
Guess that puts me out of the running for president of NOW, huh? 
I have a fairly unique Czech name. It begins with Z, which is cool IMHO, and while I often have to spell it for people it’s not actually hard.
When I got married, I didn’t change it, even though my husband’s name is easier (it’s a common German surname). It was 50% laziness (I didn’t want to do the paperwork) and 50% sort of digging my own name and being used to it. I had published under it too (although admittedly not much).
I go by my husband’s last name sometimes, as I don’t feel real strongly about it. I use it in the Junior League, for example. But there are times when they go to alphabetize us and I can’t get used to being in the middle of the pack! I want to hang out with the W’s and Z’s like I always have.
Both my maiden name and married name are nice. No problems with either of them. Double barrelling our names sounded quite hokey, so I took his name, though he prefers my maiden name to his own.
I changed my name as soon as I got married.
I originally wasn’t planning to. My maiden name identified me as quite the waspy Protestant. And my married name is Irish, as was my husband’s family at some time or another. I didn’t want to be identified as Irish. But then I said what the heck, and took my husband’s name.
I also took the equally difficult plunge of pooling all our money & bank accounts.
Oh, and when I am called *Mrs. Arndt *, I always say:
"Mrs. Arndt is my mother in law. You may call me Mr. Arndt. " 
( Thanks to Drew Carey.)
Thanks for all these interesting responses.
vanilla Hunter
Just got married this past May, and I definitely changed my name. My first name with my old last name was so common around here (Hispanic), it might as well have been “Jennifer Smith” - common first name, common last name. (No offense to any Jennifer Smiths!) I changed my last name to a, errr… Scottish, I think, name. The only difficulty is that it’s pronounced the same but spelled differently as a girl’s first name, so I have to correct the spelling of it pretty often. On the other hand, even that is an improvement over the name I had before the common/common name - my stepfather’s last name was a 10 letter Polish name. Nobody could spell it, nobody could pronounce it, and I often had to spell/promounce it multiple times for people to get it.
I changed my name legally after I got married this summer. I seem to be the only one in this crowd that wanted to change my last name for emotional reasons - I have nothing to do with my father, and I had no interest in continuing to carry the name of someone I don’t respect. I might have kept my former name as my middle name since it was kind of a cool Olde English name, but it was a pain in the ass to spell out all the time anyway.
I do like the idea of husband and wife picking out a new name together, though, or combining the original two. A fresh start with a new family unit, and all that.
Yes! I LOVE my married name, even though people still screw it up almost as much as they did my maiden name (don’t ask me why… I think they’re both perfectly easy names). My first name (Welsh) goes much better with my married name (Scottish) than it did with my maiden name (Italian). Although now I have the same name as a famous actress who recently passed away, so people are constantly looking at my name badge at work and doing double-takes. But anyway, yes, there was never any hesitation in changing my name.
My married name is unusual, easy to pronounce, but it looks weird in print. But it’s sooooo much better than my maiden name which is one syllable that sounds like 2 body functions combined.
I couldn’t wait to unload my maiden name. When I was little my only requirement for a future husband was that he have more than one syllable in his last name.