Decision Time: Hypenated? Two Last Names? or Maiden Name?

I’m keeping my last name for several reasons. I’m the only person (that I can find) with my name, it reflects my Haitian heritage, I’ve built my career with my name, and it’s a pain to go through the paperwork of changing. My father also passed so it’s important to me that I keep that part of him with me. I won’t mind people calling me by my FH’s last name, but legally I’m keeping mine. I’m fine with our kids having his last name and not mine - if celebs can live with it so can I 🤷🏾‍♀️

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I mean, questions will be asked but you can handle that with a simple "Cause i wanted to" or something more polite lol. But in the end i honestly believe it is way more convenient than changing your last name. Besides why not?!

View Quoted Comment I’ve seen some non famous people and celebrities who have their children the mom’s last name, which is an option as well. Liam Nesson and his late wife have two sons. The oldest, they gave him the mom’s last name. The youngest, they gave him the last name of Nesson.

View Quoted Comment I’ve also seen that! My old boss gave his kids his wife’s last name because she came from a prominent southern family and his last name was one of those that no one could spell or pronounce haha. My fiancé is the last one in his family that could pass on his last name (his sister went the traditional route), so I’m okay with letting our kids take his. I have 2 brothers so my last name will live on whether I keep it or not.

I love my FH’s last name and if it were simpler to have his last name, I might consider it but, I’m keeping my last name.

I don’t want to change my name on my professional licenses. As a previous poster mentioned, you accomplish something to bring greatness to the name your family gave you and you want to see it through.

I have two kids from a previous relationship who have double last names (their father is from Mexico) so my surname was passed to my kids.

FH is from Guatemala and we have one child together who carries both of our surnames.

Being that I’m marrying someone from Latin America, I’m not expected to change my last name. Its not common practice in his culture. If I hyphenated it to the end of my name it would be in reversed order of our sons name so thats confusing. If I added his last name before my own, culturally they would assume his last name is my fathers and my last name is my mothers. So we would confuse his family that way.

Easiest thing to do is to just leave our names alone. Socially I don't mind being call Mrs. his last name. I’ll probably take his surname on social media.

I’m keeping my name!
Pros:
- I’m established personally & professionally & changing my name would wipe out my history including degrees, patents, publications & online presence.
- I’m not supporting sexist tradition of women being expected to change their name & leave behind their history & identity, as if it’s nothing, while men are never expected to do the same. While I never judge women who change their name, as this is 100% personal choice, I don’t like the societal expectation of doing it by default.
- I won’t go through a time consuming nightmare of name change paperwork, especially if you own property, business, trademarks, etc.
- If we have children, they will get to carry both of our names & hence, both of our ancestries, which are unique, since we come from different & not very common cultures.

Cons:
- I have none! 😃 If con is people who are still stuck in 18th century, judging my choice lol, I personally don’t care about opinions of narrow-minded people, they have no bearing on my life 🤷🏻‍♀️ And if con is my FH being offended or disappointed, well that’s not the case, he’s completely supportive of my choice. It’s highly unlikely I would have been engaged to a man who was not supportive of my personal choices!

We did consider making up a new name from our combined last names, since it actually sounds good! But we decided against it, because we are both very established professionally & we just don’t feel like going through paperwork nightmare lol

View Quoted Comment You can also give your kids both of your last names (many celebs do that too lol). I find this meaningful, because children get to carry both of your ancestry with them. Here in NY I know a lot of families whose kids have two last names.

I will hyphenate mine because I have a 5 year old son that has my maiden name

View Quoted Comment Name decision is 100% woman’s personal choice, there is no right or wrong way of doing it & there should be no judgement whatever the woman decides to do. I just want to give a very friendly & respectful advice 🙂 that you should do what makes you happy & not just what’s important to FH, especially if you identify with your current name a lot, as it sounds. This is your choice & nobody else’s. And why is this so important to some men anyway? It certainly doesn’t prove you love him or respect him more 🤷🏻‍♀️

Im hyphentating. My career and awards are under my maiden name as well as ownership on investments, BUT i do want his last name involved when we have kids and in general ill go by Short only.

My only last decision is order of names. Maiden-married or married-maiden

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Definitely, it's something we've discussed for sure. I think we'll make that decision when the time comes. It's just not as much a priority for me in the present as keeping my own last name haha.

We're still deciding. We know that we aren't going to take either person's name alone, because we both find identity in our names. Our number 1 option is to hyphenate, but we both have medium-longish names to begin with, so our hyphenated last name would be 17 letters, which would be obnoxious for me because I have to sign my name a lot for work. But we also want to have the same name down the road if we decide to start a family. So I think for now we are just keeping our own names, and will decide later what to do as far as hyphenating.

I have had a hyphenated last name all my life (have both my parents last names) and I have hated it my whole life 😄 so many issues of which last name am I under for things sorted by such. I am definitely not attached to either and i was careful not to have anything be permanently attached to either (i.e. wanna be an author but didn’t want to try to get published with those last names) So I am super excited about taking my FH last name 😊 also moving up in the alphabet lol

View Quoted Comment Great decision to keep last name bond with your child! I love that ❤️
In case you & FH have children, do you know what last name(s) will you give them? We are going kind of other way around lol: we each are keeping our last name & if we have children they will get both of our names hyphenated.

I'm taking my FH's last name. I am very partial to my maiden name, and I'm pretty much the last in our family to have to. So while I'm sad to leave it, I'm also pretty traditional and will be taking his.

I wanted to move my last name to a second middle name. But people seem really confused by that.
So I may just hyphenate.
I think socially, I have no issue taking his name, but I'm also the last person in my family line. So changing my name completely just sounds wrong.

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So My Husband wants to adopt my son. So my son will be hyphenated like me to carry my maiden name with me because my dad did not have any sons. My children with my Husband will have my married name. I hope that makes sense lol

I'm probably keeping my name for at least the foreseeable future. When it's time for kids I will consider changing it - but I don't like his last name ( it's a badly Americanized version of a Serbian last name) and I love mine.

View Quoted Comment Yes totally agree! One step at a time 😃 I just thought it would be great in your case especially, because you said your name is super unique & reflects your heritage. My name is also very unique (not the only one, as yours though lol), which I really like 😊

View Quoted Comment Aw... that’s very special that FH will be adopting him!