MIL was big on proper name etiquette and always addressed cards to me as Mrs. Husband’s Name. I hated it. I also go by a nickname, not my given name, but when she bought us engraved notecards, the names on them were Husband’s First Name & My Given Name. I hardly ever used them & finally threw them out when we downsized.
I never changed my maiden name because I liked my common ethnic name and all of my degrees and state med licenses were in my maiden name, which my parents were extremely proud of.
My husband became very popular at work because the HR ladies “let it be known” that a junior engineer was “allowing” his wife to keep her name on all of the medical, dental, vision and life insurances. At lunch, they asked him about how we dealt with SS, banks, mortgage listing, etc. It wasn’t common 30+ years ago, so the unmarried women “secretaries” were very interested in how we were handling legal issues.
I remember going to deposit wedding gifts, and my husband’s account rep said I had to change my name to have an account there. I proudly watched my husband ask for a cashiers check to close his account. We were on “bank row”, walked into a newly established bank, spoke to the new accounts rep who recommended that our joint checking look like this:
“Andy Taylor, Aunt Bea Smith AKA Bea Taylor”. Our checks still show that.
As the kids were growing up, it was hard for them to explain to others that Mom had one name and Dad had the other name, so I informally introduced myself as Mrs. (husband’s) last name. It wasn’t a big deal.
I recently changed my name on the Real ID because my “acceptable” documents didn’t have my maiden name but my old drivers’ license did, and the “huns” administrators at the DMV said it wasn’t acceptable given my passport vs. our house mail. I didn’t want to go home and dig out old paperwork, so I now legally have the family last name.
Count me among those who went from a hard to spell correctly/pronounce last name to what I thought would be easier but has also proven to be a hard to spell correctly / pronounce last name after marriage with an added “are you related to [well known company with similar sounding name]”?
Someone mentioned Real ID and my state requires it next year, I wonder if I will “pay for my sins” since I did not change my name years ago. I have no bills come in my own last name, my car registries are all under my husband’s (again I did not want to go to the dealership when we bought the cars) Whatever state-based paperwork I have, they butcher my ethnic last names so not sure if they are acceptable to DOL. This will only apply to establish state residency since my passport is OK.
I don’t know about emilybee’s nephew… but my friends with the combined name are now divorced. Checking facebook, she still uses the combined name because they gave it to their kids!
I am in that cohort (mid 40s) where most of us did change our names. I changed to my husband’s name, and sometimes regret it. I understand the “it’s only my father’s name” and “it’s harder to pronounce/spell” and “it’s closer to the end of the alphabet” (all true for me) - but I still feel like a kind of feminist cop-out.
When my family-of-origin patriarch died a few years back, all of us in my [new] nuclear family went and got my maiden name put back in as a middle name. It’s been on my kids’ diplomas as a 2nd middle name.
I also understand the “cleaving to the man who loves you” and “being in the new pack” but I kind of think those are like when you let a high school crush draw a heart on your arm with his name in it. Sort of ewww even though I understand the romantic part.
I also can’t stand when the mother of the family makes an email “SmithFamily@provider” for them, but mostly her, to use. I feel that email addresses, like toothbrushes, should be shared only under great duress.
ETA - when we went to do the name re-insertion, my then-four-year-old asked the judge, “can we change our names to Chocolate Cake MaidenName FatherName?” I put the kibosh on that one.
A few comments about how the wife taking the husband’s name is old-fashioned, and possibly sexist:
- "Maiden Name" comes from "maiden", a girl or young women unmarried, while their really isn't a boy equivalent, maybe "bachelor" as in "eligible Bachelor".
- No one says "Bachelor Name" to identify the last name of an unmarried boy, man.
- Sometimes we as a society use the phrase "birth name" or "surname", it's getting some traction.
- I have never seen a wedding invitation, B'nai Mitzvah invitation, etc that says "Mrs & Mr. Sally Jones"; its' always Mr. & Mrs. John Smith with the wife's name never even listed
- As someone mentioned, even progressive women who want to keep their birth name, it almost always that the name is coming from the father's surname, not the mother's.
- Recent studies show that only 20% of U.S. married women keep their birth last name
- Generations of men can be senior, junior, the II, III, etc. Is there any real equivalent for women other than royalty (e.g Queen Elizabeth II)? You never hear Sally Jones III.
It’s interesting that Aunt Bea and others have had problems with keeping their birth name re: documents, banks, etc.
I have a real ID. No problems at all.
I’ve been married over 30 years and have never had an issue with it and I’ve lived in a few different regions of the country.
I write tons of thank you notes, the majority for donations to several groups with which I am involved. I’ve taken to addressing them to Wife’s Name & Husband’s name instead of the conventional husband first format. My own little push back on the patriarchy. 
edited to change my use of maiden name to birth name as suggested above. I like that point, @socaldad2002, and I’m going to embrace it.
This, totally this. I went from a hard to spell/correctly pronounce unique name (only a handful of us in the US with the name) to a fairly common married name. However, it has multiple spellings, though I hadn’t really thought about that prior to marrying and using the name. It is the same name (different spelling) as a formerly popular TV personality, such that even now people ask if I am related to him. No, dh’s family is not related, it’s spelled differently but people don’t notice I guess. Funny thing is, my father actually went to grammar school with that TV personality. And I still have to spell my married last name.
While I never really considered not taking dh’s surname when we married, I did fret about losing my maiden name. As mentioned, we are a very small family here in the US (grandfather was only one who emigrated from his small mountain village), and the name dies out with my generation since there are no males to carry it on. I decided to drop my middle name and take my maiden name as my middle name. My first born also has it as a middle name.
I always like the Spanish tradition of the kids having both mother’s and father’s surnames even tho the mother’s surname is informally dropped and typically only used legally. My SIL took her husband’s Portuguese surname and now has a name like this - Jane de Pacheco e Silva. She did not keep her maiden name tho that would have been much easier!
Another funny is that dh’s sister and his brother’s wife have the same first and middle names. Dh’s sister never married and his brother’s wife took his surname and dropped her own. As a result, both of my SIL’s have the exact same name i.e. Mary Jane Smith, they live a few blocks from each other and their kids go to the same school. I don’t think I’d like that - I think I would have kept my own surname in that situation!
My MIL went to medical school in the late '40s - that’s where she met my FIL. FIL thought MIL was a candy striper. A nurse informed him that not only was she a year ahead of him in med school, but she was also smarter than him! 
She kept her maiden name. So I addressed mail to them as Dr. Jane Doe and Dr. John Smith.
She just passed away in March at the age of 94. I sure miss her.
I only used my Married last name for 30+ years. Yes, that was the tradition. I preferred that we were a family unit, and everyone had the same last name. Some women hyphenated their names; others chose a new last name. A few male spouses switched. All fine, although so many different choices may make future genealogy research even more complicated.
I liked my spouse’s last name. I liked my last name. I kept both on my SS card (no hyphens). I considered my Maiden name as another middle name. However, as outlined in the other thread on Real ID’s, different agencies placed them in different slots. I really didn’t care. I knew who I was!
It has only become an issue for the last 5-10 years, and due to TSA and the new Real ID. The first time I went to a medical specialist under Medicare insurance, they couldn’t find my appointment. It was under Maiden last name since my Medicare card used the combination last name.
In reality, most use my SS #, which was never intended to be used for a form of ID.
my now current spouse went the opposite approach of what almost all Asian women do, which is to not change their name - when we got married she not only changed her last name, she changed her first name also. If you say her full name now, it sounds so French lol…
Lots of Asian people changed their first name, actually, married or not. Either they changed it to american name, or shorten it to one/two syllables, or changed the pronunciation to accommodate others. You wife probably had just found a perfect reason to do what she wanted to do all along 
JK. Was her name difficult to pronounce?
Our wedding invitations in 1983 used first and last names for each person, no Mr. & Mrs. Husband’s First & Last. Our sons’ Bar Mitzvah invites also went to first and last names. I don’t even think I used Mr. and Mrs.
DH’s last name is ethnic, and since I had converted to Judaism, I wanted my name to reflect that as well, while still keeping my family name. Found out in my genealogy research not long ago that DH’s GGF changed the spelling of his last name once he arrived in the US – good thing, because the Podolian version threw in some really twisted and unpronounceable letter combinations! I still can’t say it correctly.
@Nhatrang - you are right with the usual Asian first name changing…except in this case, it was a change of a plain ol’ English first name with another plain ol’ English first name. To this day, I’m still not sure why. All her HS friends and brothers still call her by her old name, and her co-workers call her by her new name. So confusing…
I have found a strong correlation between strong educated women who keep their names. I have also known great women who have taken their husbands names. There does seem to be a more common trend to keeping one’s name if one marries later. In the most expensive town I ever lived in, there were many women 30-40% who kept their names. In normal areas, I think it’s much less.
It’s certainly easier for the woman to change her name in terms of family life. And certainly harder for the women to reestablish if they do change their name and are in business, medicine etc. Social media makes it easier. But names are something and do have meaning.
Count me in as one of those who changed my last name when I got married for convenience’s sake. My maideen name is 18 letter long and hard to pronounce. My husbands last name is 4 letter long. I often joke that married him because he was the man with the shortest last name I dated.
At our wedding party, I told the announcer ahead of time to announce us as Mr. Thomas View and Mrs. Mary View. I do not like to be called Mrs.Thomas View at all. I feel that it is a total loss of my identity. Whenever people call me that, I ask them to please call me Mrs. Mary View.
I am a strong believer in calling people what they want to be called. This goes for first and last names. It does bother me that I only changed my name because I knew I would get so much flak. A friend who is my age (62) kept her name and her in laws never stopped giving her a hard time about it, even though her H and S have always been Ok with it.
I never use Mr. and Mrs. John Doe for an address. It’s always Mr. and Mrs. John and Jane Doe…unless they have different names and then they both get a their full names after the Mr. and Mrs.
My H’s aunt still address personal mail to me as Mrs. John Doe, even for a mother’s day or b-day card, and it irks me, but I give her a pass because she’s old.
I recently joined a volunteer group that specifically asked how we wanted to be addressed. I appreciated that.
I haven’t encountered a lot of sexism as a female engineer, but here is what thing I’ve always noticed - when DH and I meet someone new at a party or whatever, almost always they ask HIM what he does for work and not me! DH will say he’s an engineer and the conversation moves on. If I interject, “I’m an engineer, too!” it feels weird. I asked DH to say, “MLH and I are both engineers and we run our company together” or something similar. He’s getting better at remembering, ha.