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Just Said Yes June 2019

Personalization with different last names?

Tori, on June 19, 2018 at 11:31 PM Posted in Etiquette and Advice 0 9

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I am not taking my fiance's last name because he is Icelandic, so they don't do family names, they do "sons" or "daughters" so it's not expected that you share a last name except with same sexed full siblings. It would be strange if I took his last name.

I always thought I would keep my own last name, but now that it's real and I'm joining my life with his and we're in America where family names are very much a thing I feel a little bit lost and wistful about not having a shared name.

Especially because I would love to register for personalized things like a doormat for the front door, or monogrammed towels, etc. But I don't know how to do that with two different last names.

Any advice from those of you who didn't change your last name? Is there a clever personalization/monogram hack I can use?

Thanks!
Tori

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9 Comments

Latest activity by caitlin, on June 20, 2018 at 1:59 PM

VIP September 2018
HowCo Industries · on June 19, 2018 at 11:43 PM
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If you want to be very traditional, a womans monogram uses her maiden initials. Towels and household items would usually be marked with the lady of the houses monogram. This is super old fashioned, though.
We use HowCo Industries for all sorts of things at our house! (It started as the name of our wifi.) It's a mashup of our names, HowCo, and we added Industries because it alteady sounded like a company name. We want to have a logo done up for stationary and thing. That might be too weird for most people, though.
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VIP May 2018
Red Queen · on June 19, 2018 at 11:54 PM
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You could always just use your first initials.
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VIP November 2018
starsinwaves · on June 19, 2018 at 11:59 PM
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For anything with a full name, you could do The Smith-Jones Family.
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Dedicated September 2018
M Juliette · on June 20, 2018 at 3:58 AM
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It’s definitely a possibility but with all the respect and tip to the hat by stars and anyone else with a hyphenated name, having to legally sign and spell out your two names for the rest of your life is so annoying to me personally lol idk about you gals and no offense if you’ve got it hyphenated but just a side note
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Savvy June 2019
ak2019 · on June 20, 2018 at 9:05 AM
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I think they were referring to the items only, not hyphenating OPs last name. If this household has Bride Smith and Groom Jones, they are still the Smith-Jones or Jones-Smith Household.
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Master January 2021
AshleyR · on June 20, 2018 at 9:23 AM
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My H and I have the same first initial, I’m not really into monogrammed or family name stuff but anytime I do something along those lines we just do an A, or A+A or A2 (A squared), because that’s what we called ourselves since we first started dating. For somethings I do “Smith/Jones” but that’s more for like our return address for mail, etc.
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Master July 2018
Mcskipper · on June 20, 2018 at 9:31 AM
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I combine the first halves of our last names
for stuff like that. Any cutesy combo can work there- first half of one, second half of the other, first half + first half, etc. Ours happens to be all
consonants and pronounceable to almost no one at all (but us!) but it still looks cool to me
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VIP January 2019
Daria · on June 20, 2018 at 12:01 PM
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I think if it makes you sad to not have the same name, you should change it! It might look strange to them over there, but you are here. My FH is from another country, and we are doing some things the way they do there, and other things the way that we do here.
I mean, don't do it just for the towels, obviously. But if you think you would want to have the same name, go for it.
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Super May 2017
caitlin · on June 20, 2018 at 1:59 PM
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We use our first initials on some stuff (J&C). H was already hyphenated, and I had always wanted to hyphenate like my mom did but knew that the triple-hyphen was way extra. but whenever i do a return address i triple-hyphenate our 3 names on the envelope.
i agree with Daria, if you really want to take his name, i would talk about it with him!
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