Last name

We both hyphenated.

His last name is Redden-González and mine is Tamblyn. We are talking about either taking just his, just mine, or combining them to form Redden-Tamblyn. Currently we are leaning towards the new combined name...

I'm keeping my name. It's been mine for 43 years now. My FH knew my wishes before, but only expressed a more traditional side after we got engaged.

I kept mine. It's common for women in my family and social circle to keep their last names

With my last marriage I hyphenated my last name. I mainly did this because my daughter from a previous relationship carried my madien name. I loved it at 1st, but it became difficult when signing papers, putting my son in school, and any other major events in my life. With my coming up marriage, I will definitely drop my middle name and carry my maiden name as my middle name. Which leaves his last name as mines too.

I took his last name! We’ve been together for 11 years and married for 1 so I knew from the start I wanted to take his name ☺️

I’ll be taking his last name.

I'm changing mine to match his once I'm able to get a copy of the marriage license. I'm kind of sad that my maiden name is "dying out" (it's an uncommon spelling and I don't have any brothers), but I always pictured taking my husband's name. And for me it also means that my initials are going from MMC to MMM, which is kind of cool.

I will be changing mine to his. I think under other circumstances I would keep my name, but I truly dislike my last name. It is one letter off from being a vulgar word, and I was teased throughout school. Even as an adult, no one knows how to spell or pronounce it and their brains usually slip and substitute the vulgar word instead. It's really annoying. His name is blissfully common and impossible to misspell. I am really looking forward to never having to spell my last name out ever again. My first name and his last name together also have a great sound to them, and is more pleasing to the ear than my first name and maiden name.

Also I love my dad, but the rest of his family that carries his name are not people I have a fantastic relationship with. Particularly, I have an aunt with the same last name who works in the same industry and area as me and she has some *ahem* questionable beliefs and behavior, and I don't really want to be associated with her professionally. If I change my last name it will be unlikely people in our industry will associate us together. If I carried my mother's maiden name though (a beautiful Irish name), I think I'd be a lot more conflicted about it.

He is taking mine

I am taking his! He is the only man in his family, my last name has “cock” in it (I work with high schoolers 🤦‍♀️🐔), and I will always be AB (my initials) to everyone we know even if I will technically be AK 🙂

I'm taking his last name, I like his so much more than mine lol

View Quoted Comment

I totally agree that changing the tradition to be something a little more fair for both parties would be ideal! Either we both go through the hassle and emotional labor of molding our identities/family histories or neither of us should.

I would prefer that both my FH and I hyphenate together so our family and kids can be one unit. I'm not sure he wants to though, in which case I would keep my last name. That just gets hairy when we have kids as I don't want to be the odd one out in the family with a different last name, especially when I'm the one birthing them! I'm traditional in many ways when it comes to starting/raising a family, but assuming that the family will be under the man's name automatically is one I've never been able to wrap my head around entirely. I've always been very proud of my heritage and I am the last one with the name (LOTS of female aunts to my dad being the only male haha) so it's very important to me that I not drop it. Even if I wasn't the last one with it, I still feel pretty strongly that my FH and I should have to make the same amount of effort (legally and emotionally) when it comes to our new family unit. So that's either we both change or neither of us do IMO.

I changed mine to his. It was a great decision :-)