Wife's New Name After Marriage

[MissStacey 1]

I am keeping my maiden name. At this point it would such a pain to have everything changed.

I might consider changing my name if we have a child- but right now that is not something I am thinking too much about.

[His Glory 25]

I am keeping my maiden name. At this point it would such a pain to have everything changed.

I might consider changing my name if we have a child- but right now that is not something I am thinking too much about.

We are traditioinal. I dropped my maiden name (like a bad habit) and was proud to take his. Im his wife. I can see both yourpoints of view though. But I am a romantic. We became a family when we said I do. Maybe he reacted the way he did because he feels that you are his wife and he should come first in your heart and life and the name is symbolic of you and him as one. ::shrugs::: I dont know, thats my two cents.

[reach449 2]

Where is the choice...."drop maiden name and assume spouse's last name"? One choice is close, but not quite.....my wife has no middle name.

reach449

[SWA2 1]

I guess this is a duplicate poll. I wound up voting in this poll and added my reply to the other. Reach449 is correct. There is no option for a person with no middle name who changes her surname to her husbands. My wife has no middle name, but I didn't catch the problem because she kept her name when she married. She's Chinese and traditionally Chinese women don't change their name when they marry. I applied for our marriage license 17 days before she came to this country so the name change was something we had to discuss before she arrived. She had assumed that she was required to change her name to mine when she married but decided to keep her own name when she discovered she was allowed to keep it. My wife's first name is only 3 letters and her family name is only 2 letters. It's pronounced exactly the way it's spelled and easier to pronounce than my family name. I think many immigrants change their name because American's have a difficult problem pronouncing their given name. No so in my wife's case so it made sense for her to keep it.

Edited November 12, 2007 by SWA2

[sparkofcreation 0]

So I'll just have a sentence for a name and I haven't decided how I will sign documents. Essentially, I have the ability to sign anyway I want because I have divorce papers to prove that I'm allowed to use my maiden name and I'll have a marraige certificate that says I can use my new husbands name. Maybe I'll sign everything with a different name and give those identity theives a run for their money!

I figured out how to sign so that you can't tell if I wrote "Bethany [hubby's surname]" or "B. [double-barreled surname]." I like it.

Anyway I think that if a tie needs to be broken, the person whose name it is gets to break the tie (that would be the wife). Hubby was actually surprised I was going to change it, most of his female friends didn't especially when they already had careers (which I do). But I don't like my maiden name, it's too hard to spell (well, it's only 4 letters, so more like too easy to misspell) and his is nice. Plus I like the idea of everyone in the family having the same last name.

I hyphenated mine so that my name would still appear in the same place in professional directories. Hubby offered to change his to the hyphenated version also, but I told him that I didn't like my maiden name and didn't really want to impose it on anyone else. So legally mine is hyphenated, but I usually just go by his, and if we have kids, we'll just give them his.

ETA In both my parents' families, all the girls (my mom and her sister, and my dad's 5 sisters) were given no middle name so that when they married, their maiden names would become a middle name. I didn't realize that was a controversial practice?

Edited November 13, 2007 by sparkofcreation