<p>This means that you will have one last name, your husband another last name, and your children another last name which will include a hyphen. It would be better for the children to have their father’s last name without a hyphen in it. Just my opinion. </p>
<p>I wish I had kept my maiden name. Love my hubby, but still… Not a fan of hyphenated names. Imagine your kids marrying into another dual name family! Love the idea of passing dad’s name to sons and mom’s to daughters.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So now the brothers have different names from the sister. That’s really contrary to the concept of a family and people will think the kids have different fathers.</p>
<p>I didn’t change my name. My kids have my last name as their middle name, but I don’t care for hyphenated names. It’s never been an issue for traveling, but it was an issue in Germany. Not a big, big issue, but they wanted to see a copy of the marriage certificate when I was on dh’s health insurance and they wanted to see it again when we had a baby there. (They also required a letter from the American Embassy saying that using my last name as our son’s middle name was acceptable practice in the United States, because it isn’t in Germany.) I’ve never regretted it.</p>
<p>I do agree that you probably should plan now not to get in a snit if some people (especially in schools) assume that you have your kids’ last names. I’m sorry your in-laws are upset about it. </p>
<p>Interestingly my Dad thought I should take dh’s name because it was Jewish and he thought I could be sending the Germans, (we moved to Munich a month after getting married), a message that I was ashamed of his name. In reality, I never met anyone who even realized it was a Jewish name, unlike in this country. And it really would have been a hassle to get new passports and visas in the little time we had between marriage and when his post-doc started.</p>
<p>I am very traditional when it comes to this topic and chose to change my last name, but i use my maiden name as my middle name now and ditched the hated Ruth my parents stuck me with. </p>
<p>That being said, I don’t care what other people decide to do and can’t imagine getting my knickers in a knot over this. People should do whatever makes them happy. </p>
<p>Honestly, razor, I don’t really care if people think <em>gasp</em> that my kids have different fathers. The horror, the horror! </p>
<p>My sister and I have different mothers but we’re no more or less sisters because of that. In fact, since she has just about zero contact with her bio mom, my mom IS her mom for all intents and purposes. Luckily, if anyone has ever thought that we’re “less of a family” because of that, they’ve rightfully kept it to themselves. </p>
<p>I can’t imagine caring what anyone thinks!</p>
<p>I have a friend who gave the dd the mom’s maiden name and the ds the dad’s. I always thought that was kind of cool, maybe because the last names rhymed. It seemed a little whimsical. </p>
<p>romani, forge ahead doing whatever the hell you want! :)</p>
<p>I changed my name and never regretted it. If you think about it, your “maiden” name is just your dad’s name. Why not change it so you and your husband have the same name? Or you can both change your name to something else entirely. But truthfully it’s a modern world, no one will care that you have different names. Your MIL will even get over it - or get used to it.</p>
<p>Not me but very close friends. Wife kept maiden name (and hyphenated variation) for professional reasons (and she just wanted to!) She’s independent. Hasn’t changed. And nobody ever challenged her on it that I know of.
Fast forward 30 plus years into marriage and three grown kids…Kids use dad’s last name almost exclusively. It makes their life easier. No hyphens. No disrespect to mom but not their thing.
It’s okay with mom of course, she made her decisions and they’ve made theirs. But gosh darn it–a family name is still a family name. I might be wrong but I think she “rethinks” her decision occasionally.</p>
<p>Even living in Texas where probably most women still take their husband’s name, keeping one’s own name is still not unheard of and I’ve never been present when anyone was ever given a hard time about it. Sorry you experiencing that. Your MIL’s comment was really mean, imo.</p>
<p>D1 has said she will keep her maiden name professionally and legally, but may go by her husband’s name in social life. Nothing is set in stone yet, except that she will keep her name professionally because she’s already been published and doesn’t want to lose that.</p>
<p>I didn’t change my name because:
(a) I was a bride in the late '70s and not changing one’s name was hip
(b) I had already “established myself” in a profession and didn’t want to change my name
© DH’s name is hard to pronounce and hard to spell
(d) When I tried to say my first name and DH’s last name together, I kept tripping up. One name starts with “Z” and one with “J,” and they are very hard to say together.</p>
<p>Both sons have their father’s last name. The only time this was a problem was when one son was having his tonsils out, and the older nurse asked us which parent had custody. I realized later she must have assumed we were divorced.</p>
<p>As long as you don’t get your undies in a bundle if someone [perfectly reasonably] calls you Mrs. DHLastName, everything is fine.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why should I? I like my name. I have a very Irish O’Irish name and honestly, my Irish first name and his German last name just do not go well together. Besides, it’s been my name for the past 23 years and I really don’t see why I should have to change it just so we match. And who cares if it’s my dad’s name? I’m not not changing it as a rally against the patriarchy or anything. I’m not changing it because it’s mine and I don’t see the reason in changing it. </p>
<p>Congrats on your upcoming marriage! I never even considered changing my name – have never regretted it or had difficulty due to having a different last name (other than MIL continues, some 30 years later, to misspell it. Sigh.). DD has hyphenated name and has announced (only partially in jest) that she will be giving extra consideration to any marriage proposals from guys with short, easy last names. Sigh. She would have preferred to have my last name as a middle name. She’s now an adult; since she hasn’t taken steps to change her name, it must not be too onerous.</p>
<p>I solemnly swear to not get my knickers in a twist when people call me Mrs. MrRomani. Half of his older family already thinks we’re married because we live together and I’ve been referred to as Romani MrRomani. I don’t correct them because 1- they’re elderly and likely not going to remember anyway (huge family and constantly growing) and 2- I only see them once a year or less. </p>
<p>When we go on vacation, I always make the travel arrangements and put everything under my name. He always gets called Mr. MyLastName by the hotel staff and I think it’s hilarious. I keep saying the world is trying to tell him something. He disagrees 
</p>
<p>Thank you, yaupon 
</p>
<p>razorsharp-post #20. The situation you describe is exactly what we have in our family. My kids are all young adults now with a hyphenated last name. They appear to be the only ones in the country with that last name and they love it! If they ever found it to be too burdensome, I told them long ago that I would support whatever decision they made to drop one of the last names. They told me they’d drop DH’s last name because they like mine better! Needless to say, we didn’t tell DH. </p>
<p>You are, of course, entitled to your opinion. Fortunately, I don’t know anyone is my extended circle of family or friends who shares that opinion.</p>
<p>That’s going to be our philosophy, mo3s. They can change their names if they’d like and we’ll completely support it. I honestly think that if we have a D, she’d want to keep my last name and if we have a S, he’d want to keep my fiance’s. I could be totally wrong, of course, but it’s just a gut feeling. Then again, they might want to drop mine to avoid fighting with that darn apostrophe forever </p>
<p>The other idea that we played around with was changing to my mother’s maiden name. We both like it and it’s honestly not completely out of the question yet. One of my cousins did this but they changed to the husband’s mom’s maiden name. </p>
<p>I did not change my name in this marriage (30 years) and it hasn’t been a problem at all. We hyphenated the kids’ names (my name first so they had a lower letter of the alphabet and we liked how it sounded). Daughter ditched the hyphenated name when she married, but her married name is really longer than the hyphenated name! When daughter was born 29 plus years ago the hospital balked a little at the name, but we insisted. 2 years later it was not even questioned when son was born. I see a lot of couples with different names even here in the South.<br>
I did change my name in my first (young) marriage and I never got used to it. It wasn’t the guy’s fault- it just wasn’t “me”. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>When we were negotiating on a house, I wanted to look it up on the tax rolls. I put the owner’s name in, and it kept saying there was no such person. I finally took the apostrophe out of the “Irish O’Irish name” 
and it finally came up. </p>
<p>I didn’t change my birth name either. It’s my name, it’s been my name since I was born, and I didn’t want to change it. Fang Jr has his dad’s name, but if he’d been a girl he’d have had mine. He’s an only child, but if we’d had more than one they would all have had the same surname as the eldest.</p>
<p>It hasn’t been a problem. My mother insists on calling me Mrs. Husbandname, but everyone else has gotten the message.</p>