Pros and cons of changing your last name to his?

View Quoted Comment I have the same feeling about my name change.


Although now you have me pondering what our combined name would be. FH is very common (Davis) mine is unique.

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Haha, I LOVE the name combinations. And I like to think how wild they'd get, after a few generations of names being squished together, haha! Our combined last name is actually our wedding hashtag and I think it's really cute. I'd have been happy to change our name to it, to be honest!

I was looking for a conversation like this a few months ago when I was having anxiety about finally changing my last name. Mind you, I planned to hyphenate all along! Smh. I always said I would take my husband's last name without question. That felt like a part of the partnership to me. When I got married almost 2 years ago ( we eloped in 2020 and had a large wedding in 2021) it never played a part in how I saw my self, my individuality until he asked me if I was ready to change it. Changing my name on an email is one thing but documents, cards, etc. It felt like I was losing the person that helped me get through the good and bad times for a last name that had no guarantee. I was open and honest about it with him. The process was not as bad as I thought and I'm embracing this change of what this new last name will bring.

I have the most common last name in the United States, but he has a very unique one, so you bet I’m changing mine! 😂 There’s FIVE other women at my company that share my exact first & last name combination!
If I had a more unique maiden name or a profession in academia, law, or health, I would have kept it.

View Quoted Comment LOL marriages, romantic relationships are not about "sacrifices", they are about "compromises". Do you get the difference?
Even if changing the last name was actually a sacrifice: why the hell the woman is expected to do it but not the dude? The wife taking the hubby's last name was the norm untill the 90's. Nowadays, even though many brides still want to take the husband's name, (probably the majority) more and more couples hyphenate them and others create a new name altogether. Believe it or not: wives who don't take the guy's last name don't get arrested! 🙂.

Plus: the decision is up to the bride/wife, not anyone else, not even the parents of the bride , nor the groom himself (unless of course, the bride asks him for his opinion).

View Quoted Comment I was considering this, but I really like my middle name. Did you have a middle name?

I do. I actually really like it, and it sounds great with my fiancé’s last name. I’ll likely still use it socially, not that many people even ask what my given middle name is now. When I was contemplating all the options, I asked my parents if my middle name had any special meaning behind it, but, as it doesn’t, I asked them what they thought. My mom surprisingly mentioned that she wishes she would’ve been able to change her maiden name to her middle name (she married my dad in 1983), especially as her maiden name was not carried on by others in the family. I think having that conversation really made me realize that I wanted to go with this option. I’ll still be tied to my identity, but will also be tied to my fiancé.

View Quoted Comment Thank you for sharing - this is 💯 how I feel and I’ll probably change my name when my son is older. It’s nice to hear your family did the same!

I just got married for the second time. My first was when I was 19 and didn’t know any different and it was still expected to change. My second marriage was completely different and I actually felt honored and proud to change my name to his. I have 2 kids from previous marriage and they have had no issues with me changing my name as they love their step father and understood why I was changing my name. I was already considering changing my name back to my maiden name after divorce but never got around to it so my kids and I would have had different last names anyways. I do not look at changing my last name as an ownership thing, I look at it as is becoming one unit or a whole. I have had no problems changing my name with medical, professional, financial or anything else. I think you just have to be very thorough and patient as it does take time.


By the way, I am not against people not changing their names either. To each their own. You do what makes you and you FH happy in the end.

I'm changing my name

My maiden name has been a nightmare for 28 years (and to be honest, it's not even that hard - like it's 5 letters, yet SO MANY ISSUES with pronunciation and spelling!). I also don't really have ties to the name anymore, family-wise ... J is my family, and I'd be proud to take on his surname. So yeah, keeping my first and middle, dropping my maiden and taking on my fiancé's surname.

It is a personal choice, and I don't think anyone's right for changing or wrong for keeping. I know this is right for me and my path.

This is a topic I've switched back and forth on quite a lot through life. When I was a child, I grew up expecting to change my name, even excited to. I would doodle my name with crushes' last names (as many small girls often do.). It was also a name that was associated with an abusive father, something I longed to bury for good. However, as an adult, I don't want to. My name is part of me - the woman I've created. It used to be associated with all the bad. But now it's associated with me. I've fought to make it something worth while.

I've decided that I want to keep it. Hilariously, this must've been something I was outspoken about beforehand, because I thought I was going to have a whole conversation with him about it, but apparently, he already knew. lol If it was important to him, I'd consider hyphenating, but only if we both did it. To me, it feels wrong for me to make a change without him making that same change. If the goal is to have the same name, then let's make a name together. But we tossed ideas around, and decided the paperwork is too much to bother with. So let's just be ourselves. But married.

As background, I'm not super young and have a career, which I do think makes me more attached to my identity. If I was a younger me, I may have had a different opinion. And I know a common argument is "what if you have kids?!" And to that, my thoughts are that they can have a hyphenated last name. I've seen it before and it's not weird. OR alternatively, we can have this discussion again at that time.

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How did this work out for you? I'm considering doing the same thing--changing my middle name to my maiden name and taking his last name. Did you ever have any paperwork problems or legal issues with this kind of change?