Q: I keep going back and forth on the issue of changing my name after I get married? It’s such a huge decision… what are your thoughts?
In the last year or so name changing has become increasingly controversial and a major topic of discussion among couples… even before they get engaged.
I’ll back up a little to give my honest opinion… I got married to my high school sweetheart almost 10 years ago. One day after getting engaged a good friend from high school stopped in to my work and was appalled by the fact that I was going to change my name when I got married. I suppose appalled is pretty strong… but you could tell that she definitely did not agree with my decision. Oddly I remember thinking how strange it was that she felt so strongly about my decision. I married and went through the whole rig-a-ma-roll of changing my name and really never looked back.
Occasionally I use my former last name when I know the person I’m speaking to would know my parents. Other than that… I just wish my husband could have had a cooler name that DAAB. Sometimes when people ask about the name I laugh it off and say… I married into that one.
For me, I never thought about changing my name as controversial or as if I was loosing a certain identity.. frankly, I didn’t really think I had a choice… this was just what you did. I will say, I came from a conservative home where my parents and my husbands parent had been married for years, no divorces, no step kids, no spouse deaths, pretty much your all American pastor’s kid. I always knew one day I would change my name… cause that was the way I would show my future husband that I wanted to make a family with him.
The friend I spoke about before was raised primarily by her awesome single mom and her darling grandparents. She never felt connected to her birth name either and halfway through high school changed it to reflect her grandfather (who was the dominate male figure in her life). She had already experienced choosing a name that reflected her. That reflected the ties she felt to her family. She recently married as well… and she kept her grandfathers name.
So what am I getting at here?
Wait for it… it’s a total shocker…. EVERY PERSON IS DIFFERENT!
Every single person in the world experiences a different type of upbringing, a different level of sentimentalism, a heightened feeling of ownership, liberal or conservative parents, a fiancé with a strong opinion, career paths and choices, etc. etc. etc.
It would be nearly impossible for the same solution to be the best solution for everyone. I chose to change my name because I loved my husband and wanted us to start our own family with him as the lead of the home. That was my reason.
When making a decision about changing your name, really sit down and decide why or why not you would make this decision. What is your reason behind changing or not changing. Communicate this clearly with your future spouse and make a decision that feels right for you.
In the end this is what’s going to make you happy and feel like you fit in your name.
Au Revoir for now!
I was the friend!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post, and now, married myself, I can tell you it was no easy decision what I would do. Like Kellie, I realized that I wanted to build a "baby family" (a term one of my fave wedding bloggers* uses) with the man I loved, and though I believe you don't need to share a name to be a family, well ... if I really felt that way, I guess I would not have felt so strongly about changing my name to my grandfather's name, would I?
It turned out to be a heart-wrenching decision, one that I didn't take nearly as lightly as 21-year-old me did that day Kellie told me she was married.
So, part of me wanted to share his name, and part of me didn't want to admit I had been a lot more hardheaded and naive about the whole decision to begin with. :) Stubborness is not a good reason to NOT make the right decision for you, of course, but ... well, I LIKED my name. I chose it. It made up a very real part of my identity in a way that is very difficult to describe (though Kellie did an excellent job of summing it up). I was very torn.
In the end, I actually hyphenated my name legally, but socially and professionally use my chosen name (maiden name and given name don't really fit this mold, I guess). My name is very ethnically Irish and his is very ethnically German, so the combo is extremely cumbersome and unwieldy. The price I pay for being indecisive, I suppose. :)
Occasionally I'll go by my husband's name (I generally won't correct people, though it's interesting that, if I did, it would be my family who I would need to correct more frequently than his), and I figure that may possibly increase or decrease over the years. I always have the option of dropping one or the other at some point in time, if I choose to. I can't imagine that I would choose to drop either, though. I'm kind of attached to both names, now, unwieldy though it may be. :)
*Meg has written EXTENSIVELY on the subject, which really helped me come to terms with the fact that it was completely, 100 percent OK to have the conflicted, heart-wrenching feelings that I did about the whole process.