I’m getting married in January, and despite all the planning, scheduling, and anything else that could go wrong, I’m not super nervous about that (I’m sure it will come though… especially after our first blizzard). For some reason, though, when I think about changing my name, I get really nervous. I don’t know if it’s good nervous, or scary nervous, but I’m knot-in-the-stomach nervous anyway. (BTW, his last name isn’t something unfortunate like Glasscock or Stiffy or something. It’s a fine name and sounds good with my first name.)
Were any other brides out there nervous about taking their husband’s name? Is this a good thing? (Perhaps that everything else is going so well that my mind dwells on the stupid things?) Or is it a bad thing? (Focusing on the insignificant so I don’t think about the major?) Is this normal?
My wife stressed about it and in the end kept her maiden name. We were in our 40’s when we got married though and she felt she had a fair amount of time invested in her maiden name. Not a big deal to me, but I left it up to her and in the end she kept her maiden name. So I think it is fairly common to stress about it and maybe the younger you are the bigger it seems. Is your future husband opposed to you keeping your maiden name?
Pluses of that decision though is if someone calls up asking for Mr.<her last name> or Mrs.<my last name> then we know it isn’t anyone we know and can blow them off.
Negatives are that I have a daughter from a previous marriage with my last name and when we register her for school or with a doctor my wife always has to explain her relationship. But it isn’t a huge deal, but it is an issue.
Shakespeare’s love-struck teenagers aside, in what way is changing your name insignificant? It’s been with you your entire life (I assume), in your signature, on your tests and papers, in your diary, on your business cards. Do you think your fiancé would be torn about taking your name?
Having several gay friends marry, legally or otherwise, has really brought the name issue to the forefront for me. They’ve made different choices – hyphens, blending, keeping their own – but there was never a default because there is no historical (and geographical – women don’t change their names all over upon marriage) precedent.
But if it’s a choice you’ve thought about, discussed with your partner and are comfortable with, perhaps it is just a side-effect of nerves and other life changes you’ll be making and things you’ll be giving up upon getting married.
I think you’re plenty nervous about everything, but trying to ignore it. Still, it leaks out and you are fixating on the name change. Make sense? And yes, it’s normal behavior! ( Myself - I had a really embarrassing last name I suffered with all my life and married a man with a lovely last name - not the main reason I married him! but it was a relief.
I kind of stressed a little over the name change. I’ve always kind of liked my maiden last name. It’s fairly unusual (unless you live in Louisiana or thereabouts) and it suited me well enough. My husband has a very common Hispanic last name, which just makes me one of the masses, especially here in California.
I ended up taking his last name. I didn’t change it at work or in professional circles until about 6 months after the wedding, and I didn’t change it at Social Security or DMV or anything like that until 2 years after the wedding. When I did, I added my maiden name as a middle name. So now I have 2 middle names. It’s not my last name, my last name is not hyphenated, I never use it, but it’s still there. I like that.
You’re probably nervous because every man and his dog are going to have an opinion on whether or not you should change your name, and what/how you should do it (hyphenate, move birth surname to middle, etc)
Stop and relax. The wedding is just one day. Picture yourself in 10 years time. Which name feels more comfortable? If you still can’t decide - don’t. You can always change your surname after 5 years of marriage if that’s when you feel like it would be right!
I have to admit, I never understood the whole “taking his name” thing. It makes sense in a historical context, but I don’t understand why anyone would want to do it today.
When I was younger, I was adamant about “never taking a man’s name over mine” and all that claptrap. Now, well, I dunno. I would love to be Mrs. “Jones” … and the hyphen in our names sounds bulky. I mean, I could see myself at parent-teacher conferences ten years from now and being addressed as Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and I’m okay with it. But it still freaks me out now.
As far as Psycat90’s suggestion with the two middle names, I already have two middle names… adding my maiden name to my middle names would make me sound like some sort of pompous British Royalty. (Which also adds to the bulkiness of a hyphenated name.)
I’ll probably end up going with Tradition (GASP!) and take his last name. I’m just a bit freaked out by the whole thing.
Nervousness is completely normal. After all, this has been your name your whole life, and it’s hardly an insignificant change. You don’t have to decide immediately.
Whenever I thought about changing my last name it wasn’t so much nervousness that I felt, but actual PANIC. That’s how I knew that keeping my last name was the right decision for me.
You’re nervous because names are emotionally and psychologically important things with a lot of symbolic power. That’s why we put so much thought and planning into picking a name for a baby, why some cultures with high infant mortality didn’t name babies until they’d survived a while, why certain rituals place such emphasis on calling something or someone by name…and why people have such strong opinions about someone changing or not changing their surname upon marriage. Changing your name is a sort of symbolic death/rebirth thing, and that’s enough to scare the snot out of anybody.
The other thing is that the prospect of changing their name is the trigger for a lot of women that really makes the enormity of what they’re embarking on hit home. It’s what sets off that “ohmyGAWD, what the hell am I getting myself into?!” reaction that you get with any huge life-changing decision. That reaction is perfectly normal, no matter how much you want the change, how happy you are about it, how prepared you are for it. But for some reason, we’ve lost sight of how normal that is, so everyone who has that reaction thinks it’s a bad and scary thing that means there’s something wrong. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong. It means you’re taking it seriously enough, is all.
I consider myself terribly lucky that my mother had told me years ago that OMG moment was standard and didn’t really mean anything–when it hit me a few weeks after getting engaged, I was able to just roll with it and not freak out about freaking out. I’d just put a pizza in the oven, and I remember sort of sliding down the cabinet like an egg that missed the bowl and just sitting there in the floor hyperventilating for about 20 minutes. And then I got up and ate my pizza and was fine.
Because it’s a pain in the ass to have a different last name than your husband. I don’t have kids, but I can imagine it’d be even MORE of a pain in the ass in that situation. Same last name, people understand you’re a couple, you’re married. Not that people don’t understand when you don’t change your name, but it simplifies things when it’s the same. No more explaining to the pharmacist/doctor/utility company/whatever that Mr. X on the bill is really, truly your husband.
I didn’t change my name in my first marriage. Second time around, I did. It’s just easier that way, at least once you get through the torture that is registering your name change in a gazillion different places.
I think this was really true for me. I’ve never had an OMG moment about being married to my husband, but I’ve certainly had them over just plain being married. Heck, we’ve been married for two and a half years, and on Monday it suddenly hit me that I’m a midwestern suburban housewife. That’s just something that completely does not fit with my own perception of myself - and that was also the issue I had with changing my name. I was only 21 when we got married (now I’m a much more ancient 24 ), and I had no idea how I was suddenly supposed to shift from the person I’d always been, Susie Lastname, into the new person Suzie Husbandname. What I eventually decided was just to lump his last name on at the end, so now I have two last names: Suzie Lastname Husbandname. It occasionally throws people off when filling out a form or something like that, but I find that these days I’m not terribly picky about which name people use. It feels good to me that they’re both there, kind of my weird security blanket.
It’s a big change and is something concrete to fixate on, if you’re nervous about it in general.
I didn’t change mine, but that’s because when I thought about it I was annoyed, not nervous. If you want to change it, do; there’s nothing wrong with changing your name! Just don’t feel like you have to.
Heh, that would have worked, too, except for the fact that I live in a small town and I’m named after my mother. Another benefit of changing my name was that I didn’t have to explain that I was not my mother when making appointments for haircuts & doctors visits and applying for mortgages.
I changed my name the first time…changed it back after the divorce. Didn’t change it the second time. Had kids.
I don’t find it a pain in the ass at all, but I’m not a picky name person. If people call me Mrs. Hislastname (or Mrs. Kidslastname - same thing) I’m fine in most situations. It isn’t even worth correcting, unless its going on some legal form or something.
However, the torture of registering your name a million different places - now THAT is a pain in the ass. Which is why I didn’t change it the second time around. I’d already been through that pain in the ass twice - and my college records still have my first married name on them 20 years post divorce…
You don’t have to take his name if you don’t want to. I’m getting married in October and I’m keeping my own name. My mom’s annoyed but my fiance doesn’t care a bit. He doesn’t understand why you’d feel you have to change your name just because it’s tradition.
I like my name. It’s mine, I’ve had it for 27 years and it’s unique (I like having a name that starts with a Z! :)). Why should I have to change it just 'cause I’m getting hitched?
I mean if you want to change it, go ahead (and I can see being nervous since it is a change to how you’ll be called for the rest of your life). I’d see it as a pain in the kiester, though.
My wife changed her name, and I think she still has some regrets, more than 30 years later. My daughter didn’t, however, when she married a couple of years ago. These days, I think it’s completely normal for a woman to keep her name – and I even know of one man who took his wife’s name when they married.
), and I had no idea how I was suddenly supposed to shift from the person I’d always been, Susie Lastname, into the new person Suzie Husbandname. What I eventually decided was just to lump his last name on at the end, so now I have two last names: Suzie Lastname Husbandname. It occasionally throws people off when filling out a form or something like that, but I find that these days I’m not terribly picky about which name people use. It feels good to me that they’re both there, kind of my weird security blanket.