As I said earlier, I did change my name. For our wedding gift, my maternal grandfather wrote the gift check to Mr and Mrs Hubby’s first name and my maiden name. He remembered his daughter’s kid’s last name - don’t ask him to remember the new last names of his 8 granddaughters 
@morrismm what a cool lineage!
Our wedding checks were occasionally made out to Mr & Mrs (Mr R). The checks were going into my account that he wasn’t even on yet. Luckily, there were no issues. Yay for e-deposit 
My cousin and his wife both changed their last names to something completely different when they got married. Also, I knew a man who was asked by his father-in-law to change to his wife’s name because he (fil)had no sons to “carry on his name.” So he (sil) did.
I was happy to change to H’s short, bland and never mispronounced name. I sort of like the anonymity of having a “Jane Doe” name. My unusual Slavic name (that sibs and I were often teased about as kids) is now my middle name. Fortunately my middle name and maiden name start with the same letter.
S was married this year and D-i-l did change her name, though no one cared/asked if she would or not. If I had to rank them, though, I’d say her maiden name was a bit more desirable. She moved way down the alphabet!
D will be getting engaged soon. I think she will change her name. Her bf has a good/memorable name, and I think it would help her professionally to have his name.
It is simpler for the whole family to have the same last name. I think there are positive connotations that go with that.
There are some names I wouldn’t change to, though, and, honestly, I don’t see why people keep certain surnames that are always laughed at.
@atomom That’s funny. The FIL who asked SIL to change to his wife’s name because he wanted sons to carry on the family name when his daughter is the one who carried it on and their girls could do the same.
Because it’s their name and for some, part of their identity 
To use a favored expression of my mother, “It builds character!”
My family’s surname is unique and I didn’t want to drop it completely. In my parents’ culture, the children’s name bears the mother’s name as the middle and the fathers name as the last. I made my last name my middle when I married. I now wish the kids had my former name, as well.
I used to do name changes at a court. Many of them were for reasons that have been listed here - names misspelled on some document along the way (birth certificate, DL), wrong middle name or initial, changed it after a marriage, change it after a divorce (both failed to have the court do it on marriage or divorce).
Quite often it was just a misspelling and the person applied for a passport and the name didn’t match so had to do a legal name change for one letter (Jenifer to Jennifer) or because the person had always used Gene and never Eugene, and all docs except the birth certificate say Gene. It is up to the person if he wants to change the legal name to Gene or change EVERYTHING else to Eugene.
I’ve known women who didn’t change their last names at marriage but wanted to once children were born. They have to go through the legal name change process if they don’t change it within a short period after the marriage (change DL, change SS card, etc.) There was a big to do here with whether they could change their middle names to the maiden name and finally the vital records people allowed it, but only to that. Judy Ann Smith could become Judy Smith Jones of Judy Ann Jones, but I’m not sure anything else is allowed.
When my daughter was born, the hospital used the mother’s last name for the baby, even if legally it was going to be the father’s last name. That was the policy because of so many issues with insurance and squabbling parents. Baby’s last name was mother’s last name. Period.
There’s an old family story on my dad’s side that, generations ago, my family was wealthy in what is now Ukraine. The patriarch had several daughters and no sons. He offered to set up a traveling salesman from Scandinavia in business if he agreed to marry one of the daughters, take his last name and convert to Judaism. He agreed. Supposedly, the patriarch got other young men to adopt his name by sheltering them from the Tsar’s army. I never really believed the story, but when I did my DNA testing, I came out 96% Ashkenazi Jewish and 4% Scandinavian, which is about what it would be diluted down to now after several generations. It also explains my extremely tiny and cute, totally not Jewish looking nose (which is my best feature).
I’m so often called by a different first name, (that starts with a similar sound,) that I’ll answer to it. Or at least, look up and see if they mean me. This has happened so often, in the past 30 years, different cities, coasts, environments. So I have the reflex.
I did not change my surname (DH thought it was my right to choose) and, ironically, the person most confused by that was my German immigrant HR lady. So in non-official communications, she called me any combo she wanted, a big joke (Jones-Smith or Smith-Jones.) But on a twist to Rosered and mathmom, when we moved to Germany, a few years later, I thought it would simplify to change at that point. I hadn’t considered how many academics we’d run into who did not make the change.
I like DH’s relatives very much and am happy to share their family surname.
As fast as she could, after she turned 18, my mother changed from her Slavic surname to a sweet, short English one. Lol, add to that, my maternal grandmother often went by my mother’s change, though not legally, just socially. We all got used to all of it. If we had to, we explained.
But, coincidentally, after college, my father changed his first and last names. (His UG diploma is one name, the professional degree the new one.) When they married, my mother took his new surname. Like, yeah, it’s confusing. But who cares.
I suggested to DH, at the time we married, that we make a new name from parts of our originals. But they didn’t meld well.
Hope this tale entertains. When I stop to think of all the changes, it’s weird.
Kept my name. Already in private practice. Dr. X and Dr. Y with different specialties but the same answering service made it easier (except for those ladies who asked for “the doctor” when they called, and even if I knew he was on call I would ask “which one”). Kept my individuality, so many documents to have changed what with licensure et al. I tell people it would be 20 letters plus the hyphen. Both of us have long difficult seeming names (although his is so phonetic, without my ethnic letter combinations, sigh).
H is from India. Custom there is for the married woman to not only change her last name but to change her middle name to her H’s first name, and all children get his name as their middle one. NO WAY was I doing that, enough loss of self identity with last name changes.
Hyphens are awkward. It is funny because the Smith-Jones kids would use her name as the start of their last name and be alphabetized with the Smith crowd, assuming they listed them with his as the “last” name. Our son would not have appreciated 20 letters plus that hyphen either. We could have gone with first syllables of each of our names and come up with a politically incorrect phrase (use your imagination about things, too revealing to state here). I was definite about an American first name coupled with the obviously Indian name and would have been fine using Indian tradition for the middle one. But- H’s parents had broken with that custom and he did as well.
If my H had a four or less letter last name I would have changed just to get rid of my lengthy, hard to pronounce last name.
Son’s friends addressed me as Mrs. H… Did not try to correct them, pleased they were being polite. School et al learned to deal with it. One thing I resented was the use of H’s “Dr.” title and not mine in the same setting. It never should be Dr. and Mrs. H- if he gets recognition I also deserve it! Especially within the medical community- one of his partner’s wives would do that on cards, sigh.
I’m fine with the H family for envelope addresses and invitations- much easier than writing out two long names. We know so many Dr.'s of varying types (MD, PhD…) that we don’t bother with titles on envelopes- we all know what we are and it is cumbersome to be correct with some etiquette ideas. I go with the informal short/nickname version in most cases. easier.
Yes, it is easier when the whole nuclear family has the same unhyphenated last name. But it was so much easier to not go through all of the paperwork and for others to know which physician they were referring to.
Anyone also have it easy looking up old male classmates but trouble with the girls from HS (women) from college…?
Then there are the off the boat name changes or later making things less ethnic/difficult…
Many of us who didn’t change have said that it has been simple for us.
What positive connotations? Please be specific.
I know at least three families where one child had the father’s last name and the next had the mother’s last name. In all of those cases, they used the other parent’s name as their middle name. I know several other families where one child has one mother’s last name and the next has the other mother’s last name.
I pretty much dislike my/my father’s last name. Very pedestrian, not beautiful, invites stereotyping. Even my partners have trouble remembering how to spell it and pronounce it. On the day we figured out my parents had been married longer than they hadn’t been married, I asked my mother if it had ever bothered her that she was going to spend the rest of her life with my father’s last name. She said, “It bothered me so much I almost didn’t go through with the wedding!” Of course, we knew that her maiden name had been chosen by her grandfather when he was on the lam as a deserter from the Russian army. Her “real” family name was even less beautiful that my father’s. No one ever wanted to go back to that.
I have a friend who changed his name when he was in his mid-30s. His name was, frankly, awful, and it shortened into a convenient nickname that referred to a venereal disease. He was leaving a government job, moving to a different city, and going into private practice as a lawyer, and his children were approaching school age. Fifteen years later, he was offered a lateral partnership at a very prestigious national firm. They were having the formal vote to admit him. But the most senior person in the firm in his area of expertise stood up and said, “This person is a fraud! He claims that he held a position in the government he never held! I would have known him if he did, and I have never heard of him!” There was all sorts of consternation in the room; the executive committee was feeling horribly embarrassed, etc. After 6 or 7 really difficult minutes, a partner who had known him for years said, “Hey. I just remembered. I think he changed his name when he moved to the city where he now practices. It used to be something like [Venereal Disease]. Oh yeah, [says name].” The senior partner said, “[Name]? Really? That’s him? He was great! I’m glad to have him join us.”
My daughter gave up her hyphenated last name when she married 9 1/2 years ago. He wanted her to take his name, so she did. He is a doctor and she is a priest. The proper way to address them is Dr. Jerk Name and Reverend Daughter Name. It rarely happened that way. Now they are divorcing (note the Jerk designation for him) and he and his lawyer demanded that she change her name. Why would he even care? Well, she is known professionally by his stupid name (not an easy or pleasing one- she regrets taking it) and just published a book with that name. They can’t make her change it, of course, so she is keeping it for now.
Connecticut, 1985, if anyone’s keeping track.
I hyphenated at marriage, because I’m the last in my father’s line so I wanted to keep the name going. I also too the chance to get rid of an annoying double first name that I never used (think Mary Angelica but being called Ann).
The hyphen has come and gone over the years, and creates lots of interesting debate depending on who’s doing the filing.
Friends of ours combined their last names to make a truly unique last name that they both shared. I thought it was kind of weird until I saw it on their license plate (vanity plate) and then I thought, well, it was kind of cool. They are now divorced and I think reverted to their “maiden” pre-marriage names.
My wife and I never even discussed her changing her name. She just kept it. 1980. Some of her friends call me Mr Hername.
A coworker got married and changed her name but decided to keep it the same at work. This was fine except with airlines! She was booking her travel under her (work) maiden name but had an issue when she traveled for first her honeymoon and then for business travel. They would not let her have two names. HR really had no problem but the frequent flier miles couldn’t be earned under two names.
She gave up and changed her ‘work name’. This meant she had to change all her credit cards, her bar association membership, DL, etc.
JHS, your story reminds me of when I went to get my pre-marital check up and blood test. The medical folks really razzed me about the name of the test!
The Clapp family was prominent in Portland, Maine history. I never thought of it in terms of a venereal disease. 
It has become increasingly meaningful to me that I’m able to carry on my paternal grandmother’s name. She died when I was 10 and at that time, I mostly thought of her as the slightly scary grandparent without a TV. (She was deeply religious. My immediate family was and is not.) But over the years, I’ve realized how resilient she was. Among the more impressive things for me is that she was willing to maintain a relationship with my dad despite his decision to break away from his parents’ and siblings’ religion. I’m sure that wasn’t easy for either of them, but the fact they did both signifies tolerance and means that I feel connected to a lot of relatives who otherwise might also have spurned my dad. In addition, she endured the deaths of three sisters and a niece at relatively young ages (including one by suicide), helped care for the children affected by these deaths, and lived independently as a widow for the final 25 years of her life.