Changing name after wedding
 

Hello All,

I am getting married in a little under two weeks and plan to change my name. During this time, I am also looking for a new job and hope to be hired soon after my wedding. The license will be from Colorado.

I am wondering two things. One, if I do change my name at the time I get the license, how should I fill out new employee paperwork-new name or old name? Secondly, is there any way to hold out a couple of months and then go about changing it?

I have googled this but I haven't found these specific questions answered.

Thanks for your help.

As far as I know, it depends on which state you live in. I was married in PA, and there I didn't have to write my "new" name on the marriage license... so I only started using my "new" name after I went to Social Security and had it officially changed there (I brought in the marriage certificate to do that). I could have changed my name at any time that I wanted, even up to years later, I'm sure--but that's only in PA. Some places require that you sign the marriage license with your new name, right away.

From a human resources point of view, for payroll and tax purposes, your name on your check should match the name on your social security card. We run reports on a regular basis to make sure it all matches.

I can't honestly remember if I had to sign my new name on the license here in NY. But I do know some people that never changed their name when they got married, at least not right away. A girl I work with didn't change her name legally until after the tax season. But then she had to make sure it changed on her social security card and everything else. She just needed to show the marriage certificate with the new name on it.

My understanding is that your legal name is that on your Social Security Card and it does not change until you go to the SS office to do it. To do that, you have to have your marriage licence and get a new driver's license and then take that to the SS office for a new name change. Only once you get your new card in the mail can you change your name with your employer for payment purposes. That's how it went for me. Lots of long lines...

I went for a job interview shortly before I got married, by the time I was offered the job, I was married but had not officially changed my name yet. At the time of hire, I asked the manager which name I should use, and seeing as my name was going to be officially changed in a short while, she said to use my married name... I had applied with my maiden name though.

I'm not too about the time limits though... I am in Canada so I'm sure our laws are different

You don't have to change your name at all, so I don't imagine waiting a couple of months should be a problem. (Check with your local courthouse.) When you are hired, they do check id's now. Whatever name is on your social security card (and I think that gets changed last) is the name to use when hired. You can inform employer of name change when you have your new card.

I would use the current name that you have. You can change it easily enough with human resources anyway. It is not a huge deal and I know this has happened in the organization that I work at many, many times. If you get the job, you can inform them then that it will be changing shortly.

I like having my husband's last name; it's a cool name. When couples have children, whose name do they usually carry when the parents names are different? His, hers, hyphenated?

Wait a second...how did you wander into the girls' room?

Alright, one of the male TFP'ers offers his opinion here:

Did it occur to this gentleman that perhaps women choose to take on their partner's name? Sure, we don't need to have their name, but maybe we would like to. My partner could care less if I take his name or not when we marry, but I will likely do so because it acknowledges our partnership. I'm sure he would take on my name hypenated with his to really make the point, but that would be an incredible mouthful.

I don't see it as a shackle, I see it as a choice to be considered and made. He certainly doesn't see me as a piece of property--I wouldn't be with him if he did.

Well Snowy, that's exactly the case with me and ktsp. There was no tradition in his family/culture of the woman changing her name to match the man's, and he didn't expect me to change mine. But for several reasons (which I laid out in another, older thread on this topic--from before we got married), I decided to change mine to his. He would have supported me 100% either way, and I'm very glad for that. As you said, if he had had more expectation of me changing my name, then I would have been more concerned about other issues between us.

I took a lot of flak for changing my name, though (being in grad school, surrounding by women with PhDs who have published and would never dream of changing their name)--but I had my reasons, and I stood by them.

The only time that I have felt a twinge of regret is when I was Facebook-friended by a whole bunch of people from my Christian college, all of whom are stay-at-home moms who waited to have sex until their wedding night, none of whom are working or pursuing advanced degrees, all of whom changed their names and have the requisite 2.3 kids by the age of 30. Not that anything is wrong with them deciding to do that, but I find it just so damn normative and... well, boring.

So yes, it bothers me somewhat that I conformed to that group, in that way. I don't like to blindly conform to what other people expect from me, in general. So in some ways, I wish I had bucked that tradition, just to stand out more from that group and not "fit in" to their expectations, even in this small way.

But, oh well. My marriage to an atheist Arab (and including a Buddhist ceremony) gave them all enough of a heart attack, I'm sure. :D

This is also the issue I wrestle with, but on the flipside, in the town I live in and among the people I work for, keeping the last name is the norm. So which choice is conformity at that point?

Well, right. That was the weird thing about changing my name while being in academia--there, everyone expected me to keep my name, whereas the vast majority of the rest of American women expected me to change it.

The thing is, conformity to the vast majority is still a lot more conforming to a small minority (and yes, it is still a VERY small minority of women who keep their names after marriage, in the US). I know that in essence, I was still pretty much conforming to the dominant tradition. It was a really difficult decision for me.

Hyphenated names can get confusing, because women (usually) don't use them consistently. One of my family members owns a business that does rentals and sure enough, a woman will fill out the contract as "Beverly Hayakawa-Rostropovich" and when she comes back later she'll say "I'm Beverly Rostropovich, returning the clarinet." Of course, there's no paperwork under Rostropovich, because it is filed under "H" Their business is in a university town, and there are a lot of "hyphenated academics."
They hyphenate their name to make a statement, but find out that it is so awkward and cumbersome to use in practice, that they quit using it. Sometimes even the kids get the hyphenated name.
Think of the possibilities for the next generation. What happens when Meagan Hayakawa-Rostropovich (her legal name) marries Brandon MacDougal-Hugewitz?? Does she become Meagan Hayakawa-Rostropovich-MacDougal-Hugewitz?

Lindy