Marriage: The Adult Name Change Game!

Now I am saying your name in my head with a heavy Scottish Brogue. Or maybe it's pirate, hard to tell.

 

Jeez. This is the 21st Century.

I have my women bar-coded. It makes life much easier when it comes to stock-taking.

As far as the name is concerned, I don't mind either way. Joniemack took mine when we married earlier this year, but that's just because my name is awesome.

 

Hell, I wish I had changed my name, most of the time. I would have opted for a different one than my wife's family name though. Jaxxon Aloisius Badman sounds good.

 

My name was changed from honey to dumbass.

It happens.

 

I took his... It's easier to pronounce and spell. But I added my maiden name to my middle name. So I have to option of using it professionally to match my degrees and presentations, or to not when it isn't important. School uses both, just because they can't figure out who the hell I am. Half of the faculty don't pay attention, but I wanted my most recent degree to be under both names. I really didn't care about the whole legally married thing, but it is fun to say, "goodnight, husband"] and hear" goodnight, wife". And he's actually looking forward to the day we are Dr. and Mr. It did take awhile to remember my new name and to sign it... Like 3 months, ha ha.

I did listen to the man at the SS office, who told me that the name on my SS card did not have to match exactly to my driver's license. I kept the middle name my parents gave me any my maiden name as middle. Now my stupid DL has my entire made it name on the first line. All 20 stupid letters of it, and my married name on the second line all by its 5 letter lonesome. It kinda sucks a lot. Especially when you're getting a plane ticket.

 

When I got married, once upon a time, I took his name. I didn't think much about it, at the time, it was just something one did. He was military, so having the same last name was probably a lot easier. *shrug*

We were separated for four years before we were officially divorced, though, and I kind of hated that I still had to go by his last name. I eventually started using my maiden name on things that weren't government-related: library cards, personal correspondence, my cell phone account, that kind of thing. I started changing everything back once the divorce was official, and it WAS kind of a pain in the ass, but I felt so relieved, I didn't care.

I don't plan on ever getting married again, but if, for some reason, I do, I want to keep my maiden name. I just like it better that way.


I did consider, if I have kids, giving them my stepdad's last name. He doesn't have biological kids, and his brother has one daughter, so there isn't someone to "carry on the name," as it were. I'm not sure exactly how I'd go about that, though, and it might be more trouble for the kids than just taking their father's name.

 

i read this article a few weeks ago about couples meshing their surnames. i think its interesting, and i think it could work for some, but geez itd be hard to lose your name. bastarddiation of my surname would probably be worse than giving it up completely.

Meshing Surnames; Hot New Trend For Young Couples (BridesMagazine.co.uk)

 

My wife kept her own name. That was cool with me .. and I couldn't see any reason for her changing it.

Something I didn't think about at the time, but which occured to me later: I'm a bit posessive about my name. My name is MINE ... and her name is HERS.

 

My name already exceeds the character limits of most poorly designed forms since my mother decided to just cram my father's on the end with a hyphen. It's posed a bit of a mental puzzle to me since there's a reasonable chance any woman I want to marry will be stubborn enough to want to keep hers or do the same as well. I'm imagining after a few generations this ending up sort of like Pratchett's Vampires who fill up entire books with their last names.

 

I am not married, nor am I doing anything to be married. Some days I think it sounds interesting, but mostly I just want the party that comes along with a wedding, not the marriage itself.

If I do decide to get married (most likely to a gay man in a state that doesn't condone same sex marriage and thus obtaining some awesome tax benefits) I don't think I'd change my last name. If his last name was famous or super cool, I may change it for the novelty of it all.

I do want minions, AKA offspring. I suppose I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. They will probably have my last name as I'm not planning on getting married and will adopt on my own.

When my friend from college got married, her husband took her name. Her last name is very common and just happened to be the last name of his stepdad who basically raised him. He thought he should have always had that last name anyway.

I know another friend who when he got married he and his wife hyphenated both of their last names.

Whatever works for the couple is fine.

I know I'll find the person of my dreams when he agrees to both change our last names to Stark and our first born will be named Tony.

 

I didn't want my wife to take my last name and she didn't want to take it. It worked out perfectly. We batted around the idea of creating an entirely new last name but thought it was way too pretentious. The kids have her last name as well.

This has never been an issue with proving custody or anything like that. I occasionally get called by her last name and vice versa.

 

which makes Charles just about the most awesome Charles ever.
but then we knew that.

 

It's funny, whenever I get a call asking for Mr. (insert my wife's last name here), I generally know that it's either a cold call or coming from school. For some reason the school has me in their system under her name (she works at the same school). The kids get a kick out of it so I haven't bothered to change it.

 

I get the same thing (other than the school). If I suspect it's a cold call, depending on my mood, they may get a snippy "There is no Mr. Wife's Last Name", or just a curt "No", with absolutely no explanation. If they then ask if they may speak to her, I will say no, and still not hang up. People seem flustered when you refuse to allow them to talk to someone on the phone.

My favourite is when the phone company calls to make sure we have the "best" deal. They will ask for my wife. The phone is in her name; by choice, I wasn't even in the phone book until she got worried the kids' friends couldn't find them. I will ask why they want to talk to her, and I'll tell them that *I* make those decisions. So they will ask who I am. And I won't tell them. And they will say they need to know if I am authorised to make changes to the contract. And I will say I am. And they will say they need to know who I am. And I will say it's none of their business, that THEY called me, that the phone is for MY convenience, not theirs, and so on. My record for keeping them on the line is over 5 minutes without letting them talk to my wife or telling them my name.

Basically, I'm a bastard at times, but I amuse myself. I'm simple that way.

 

My wife still carries her last husbands name...and I do not really care.

 

I'm in Quebec so I don't have a choice as far as all my legal documentation here is concerned. But unofficially, I did try on my husband's last name on Facebook in a couple of forms.

I first tried double-barrelling it, and I liked how it looked so ended up changing my name at my job back in the UK. This was all good until I realised I would have to give my email address out to clients over the phone. My place of work already had a hyphenated name and hyphenated domain name so reading it out was a bit of a verbal car crash.

firstname dot mylastname hyphen hislastname at firstword hyphen secondword dot com

And since my first name (slight variation in spelling of a normal English name) and his surname (French) always needed to be spelled out, this really wasn't working out. I stuck with it since I knew I was only under contract for a year but it was murder.

I then had a period, on Facebook only, of having his last name only but I didn't like not having my own name and so eventually switched back to just my own name.

If I had the choice here in Quebec I think I would still keep my own name, for sentimental reasons but also for practical reasons. As an immigrant it would be double the messing around to get everything consistent in two countries.

 

I took my husband's name when we married. I was raised in a very traditional area and women simply took their husband's name when they got married. I didn't give it a whole lot of thought at the time, I suppose the change was assumed, and I wasn't (and still am not) attached to my maiden name. The SS card wasn't a pain in the ass but the driver's license was, and it was a bit time consuming to get all the utilities and other assorted bills switched. None of them required documentation, I just had to call all of them as they wouldn't let me fill in the little "change your address" bit with my new name and send it in with my check.

Should my husband and I ever divorce, I doubt I'd change back. I've become rather attached to my married name.

 

Seamaiden changed her previously married name to mine when we got married. It was no big deal to me, but she wanted to be rid of his (1st husband's name, on account of his being a 'large-type asshole') last name. Those of you who know me IRL may think of this as an "out of the frying pan, into the fire" kind of a name change, but she said she was happy to do it.