Name change ?

No. im a hairstylist and my first name/last name combo has a pretty catchy ring to it. people remember it easily because of it, people ask for me by name when booking, and changing it would just be a headache, professionally. my fiance was a little sad about it at first, but he got over it. im not gonna get my panties in a bunch if people call me mrs, but im not going to the trouble of legally changing it.

I changed mine competely, even though it was a total pain in the ass professionally and legally. I've actually had coworkers complain that I changed it because they have to change paperwork - get over it. I hated my maiden name with a burning passion and dropped it like it was hot the first time I got married, and I was more than ready to drop my XH's name (even though I went from a common, easy to spell name to a name that is very difficult to spell or pronounce).

Don't waste time/money with name changing services. I cannot see how they'd be of any assistance because in my experience, the change was either so easy it was NBD or it was so difficult that they wanted my right arm, a DNA sample, and the first born child that I'm never having. Surprisingly I found the super legal stuff (SSN, DL, passport) to be extremely easy to do. Investments and bank accounts were a flipping nightmare and some of them still aren't right months later.

I'm taking my last name and combing it with my middle.

So going from Shelly Lee Pabis

to Shelly Lee-Pabis Monsrud.

I love my last name and don't want to lose it completely.

FW and I are both salty about women not being free to make this decision with no pressure either way. Smash the patriarchy, et cetera.

FW is the last member of her family with her last name, most of them died in the Holocaust a few generations back and the only other branch changed her name when she got married decades ago. Needless to say she'll be keeping it.

I'm on the fence about whether to take hers or not. On the one hand, my family of origin kind of sucks and I'm not sure I want to keep their name. On the other, I'm not sure my first goes well with her last, and if I stay on T long enough that people start reading me as a man in social settings with FW, and we have the same last name, they'd probably assume she took my name, so it wouldn't have the political effect I'd be hoping for anyway. I'll probably wind up keeping mine unless the way I feel about it changes -- why go to all that effort for something you're ambivalent about? Especially given that you generally have plenty of time to decide.

If its ur business maybe just keep name as is on paper for advertising purposes. But change it everywhere else