Name Change

I guess it would depend on how visible you want your maiden name to be? If you want to have it listed all the time, I would just put it with your husband's last name and keep your current middle name. If you don't care about having it visible and if you weren't really attached to your middle, I'd change your middle name to your maiden.

I would keep your middle name since it's still part of you. Can you use your maiden name professionally and his last name socially and on legal documents? Best of both worlds and very common to do it that way.

View Quoted Comment I thought about this but I’m a licensed healthcare professional so I think once my license changes the rest follows I have to look a little more

My post got weirdly formatted - to clarify I’ll either be Erin Lxxx Cxxxx OR Erin Lxxx-Dxxx Cxxxx

If you're in healthcare, wouldn't you be able to still work under your maiden name while your legal docs have your married name? I know all of your certificates & degrees have your maiden name.

I know for me, I think I want to hyphenate mine since I'm also very attached to my last name.

If I correctly understand the two options you're between, I guess it depends how attached you are to your middle name! I would drop it completely and replace it with your maiden name since hyphenated names seem like such a hassle. Plus, then someone could call you by your first two names (Erin Maiden) and still be correct. If you plan to have children, you can honor your "displaced" middle name by including it in their names.

I've gone this route myself, and my husband has also taken my maiden name as his middle name. Made it a little easier to give up my middle name knowing that he's giving up his as well!

View Quoted Comment In California you can’t completely drop your middle name without doing a formal name change via court.
The good need though is that if you want to keep both names you don’t have to hyphenate the names. You can just have both with just a space. That goes for middle or last names.
So, what I did for my license application is just add his name after mine. So I kept my middle name and my last name is now both my maiden and married. I was going to hyphenate but was worried about any agencies that can’t process hyphens in a world where IDs matching exactly (even when it’s obvious it’s the same person) is essential. I (in non covid times) travel a fair bit and don’t want to risk getting stuck anywhere. I’m irritated as it is with all the Real ID crap.

I’m in the same boat. Planning to add his last name after my maiden name for licensure purposes. I considered hyphenating but my patients know me by my maiden name, so I like the flexibility.