Top 5 reasons hyphenated names are awesome

Comments on Top 5 reasons hyphenated names are awesome

1. a name is one of the first gifts you give your child and it stays with them their whole life, even if they change it later because it’s on their birth certificate. it’s worth taking time when making that decision. it’s equally important when choosing a name for yourself.

   • Actually if you change your name you’re supposed to get a new birth certificate, which from most states will have your new name and not your old one.

     • I thought you only changed your name on you SS card??? The birth certificate is a new one to me.

       • It’s not true for simply getting married. Your name remains the same on your birth certificate. You only get a new birth certificate if you are legally adopted and change your name for that reason. And, even then, not always, I’m thinking.

     • No, if you legally change your name it is still not changed on your birth certificate. I legally changed my name and was told in instances where a birth cert is required for ID I would also have to show the court document that legally changed my name.

     • I believe this varies by state as some make after-the-instant changes to birth certificates and some expressly forbid changes to birth certificates. I believe the same is true with assigned-at-birth gender and parents, some states allow changes and others do not.

2. I feel your pain. Try having an apostrophe in the name O’Sullivan. People think my middle name begins with O, my surname is Sullivan. Nobody seems to get that both letters should be capitalised. Worst of all, an apostrophe in javascript or something pertaining to online forms means the extremely long tedious form you just filled in errors because of your name. I’ve even had banks saying my name was invalid.

   But after the fight to take my step dads name, I wouldn’t get rid of it for the world. I’m going to make life harder for myself by making it a second middle name and then taking his double barreled, unusual spelling name. Oh the fun that lies ahead

   • Try being apostrophe’d and hyphenated.

3. If I change my name at all, I’m hyphenating purely because then my last initials will be “BS,” because I am emotionally a fourteen-year-old boy. But I told my partner that I’m not hyphenating unless he does, which he hates because then *his* initials will be BABS. Bwahaha.

   No, but seriously. I *love* my last name. A LOT. I am either hyphenating or doing nothing at all because I refuse to give up my awesome name. My only concern is that my current last name is short (5 letters) and my partner’s last name is, like, four thousand letters and very few vowels, so people always mangle it. We went on a cruise recently, and went through hell trying to get our documents together–they couldn’t find us in their databases after we’d booked the tickets, and it turned out it was because one of the data entry folks had mangled the spelling of his last name beyond recognition. Hmm, decisions, decisions 😛

   • shit, my initials will be BS too! All my initials will be RBS… Like the failed bank!

     • I was born with the initals BS, and I can tell you it’s been fun my entire adult life. I like to call people their initials if they are cool like MC or something like that and then have them call me by mine and then they get all giggly when they realize what they’ve just said. I just initial with my middle inital too, and it’s obvious when someone attempts to forge my initals too!

       • My fiance is JZ.
         Maybe I should be calling him my Beyoncé. =)

     • 44 RBS outlets are expected to close, I’m sure you can pick up some monogrammed coffee mugs and stationary for cheap!

       I’ll be CBS.

   • As a 14 year old boy who’s last name is hyphenated to the tune of B-S, I can guarantee that is a bunch of fun. For the entirety of middle school, I went by Leo B-S. My entire squad and I would torture teachers with it so often, they would just call me Leo BS without a fight. I am changing my name once I turn 18, but not just to get rid of the BS, as I have reasons that I don’t want the S associated with me. So in the future I will be Leo B with no middle name. It was fun while it lasted, and who knows, maybe I will just change the S to something else like J or something. xD

   • I can do one better…my initials will be BSBS…as I told my mom- Double the BS

4. My last name is French, it has letters that are not pronounced, and it sounds horrible if said without a French accent. That being said I do love it. It is my name after all. However, when I wed my FH I will be taking his MUCH easier to say and spell last name. I will be keeping my maiden name, and use it along with my middle name without a hyphen. The bonus is I get two middle names which I have always wanted.

   • i did the same thing. my husband’s last name was SUPER easy, while my maiden name was complicated and hard to spell. so now my middle name is my maiden name!

   • I plan to do the same, when my time comes. I already have two middle names, why not tack on a third? *;)

     • I never thought of doing things that way before! I have the same problem…my current last name is Italian and long and hard to spell and pronounce. My FH’s is only shorter by 2 letters, but is much easier to pronounce and spell. I have always been proud of my Italian heritage and name, but it’s killer when spelling it out for someone over the phone, or listening to someone butcher it. I have considered the hyphenating thing, but then my last name alone would be ridiculously long and my name doesn’t fit on most lines as it is. However, it would be interesting to keep my maiden name as a middle name. Thanks for the idea!
       Now the only question is, do I keep my original middle name or nix it? I kind of like the idea of having 4 names though.

       • I did exactly that, 4 names. I have always liked my name just the way it is and I wanted to keep the history attachment I have to my last name but it was super important to the husband that I have his name also. Dropping my middle name was a no go from the beginning, it is unique and familial and will be passed on to the generation I create. So when it was time to change my name it became Myfirst Mymiddle Mylast Hislast. A four part name. At the SS office they told my I could have my name read out however I wanted (the exact example I believe was Purple McStuffins Twinkletoes) so both my last name and his last name are my legal last name separated by a space because I don’t prefer hyphens and now I can use either last name. In short: I vote for having 4 names!

5. My fiancé and I have decided we’re both taking our names together, probably hyphenated. My name is so common it’s ridiculous, which brings it’s own set of challenges, such as the wonderful confusion throughout college regarding me vs. the other Sarah M***** who also had blue eyes, blonde curly hair, and a very similar major to mine.

   Also, a friend realized our kids could have the initials BAMF, which pretty much sealed the deal. Now it’s time to find good BA name combinations!

   • Barrett Augustus
     Bianca Aimee
     Bret Andrew

     … You just gave me good fun for the next few hours. 🙂

     • Those are great!

     • My husband is a BA.
       Bret Adam.
       His initials are BAD.

       • So is my cousin.
         Bradley Allen D*******
         I always loved his name.

6. I’m adopted by my father. I chose to have to last names with no hyphen and believe me, its crazy to try and make people understand. At my doctor’s office, its listed with a hyphen…when I went the DMV to update my license they hypenated it (but I had them correct that) I agree, I love being unique. I also love my maiden name, Walton (and for the record, my brother is John Boy!). I also loved the tradition of taking my husbands name so I just compromised.

   • My friend has that policy- and triplets. The two boys have the father’s last name and her daughter has her last name. My feminist mother had quite a mouthful to say when she heard about it- that separating by gender is no better than having all children take one last name- but I think it will give the littler girl (who is still a baby) a special bond with her mother growing up.

   • My fiance and I are considering doing two last names with no hyphen. I am wondering if sometimes people ignore your first last name, thinking it’s your middle name? Or any other issues you might have.

     Or, if you really like it, I’d love to hear about that as well.

     • My FH was born with two unhyphenated last names. It’s been horrible for him. All of his major forms of ID (birth certificate, SS card, passport) have different versions. All 1 word, hyphenated, space, 2nd one gone entirely, etc. Which makes it EXTREMELY difficult when trying to identify himself for things like boarding airplanes or getting PO boxes or ID cards.

       I guess if you’re suuper careful and always pay super close attention when getting your documents for the first time, it might prevent the headache. In FH’s case, his birth certificate, SS#, and passport were all created when he arrived in this country as a young child, and his parents obviously didn’t pay that much attention (or probably even realize how important it would be down the road).

7. My mother didn’t change her last name when she got married, but would often use her maiden name hypthenated with my dad’s last name when it pertained to my sister and myself (school forms, etc.), since we just have the same last name as our dad. The only problem with this is that she often forgets which name she has things listed under, her maiden name, my dad’s last name, or the hyphenated combo. Now that I’m all grown up, I realize how cool it is that she kept her own name, but never got all offended or condescending if someone called her by my dad’s last name. I intend to follow in her footsteps.

   • I like this idea, too and was hoping to just do that – keep my name everywhere official but won’t mind if people call me Mrs C. This is partly because I’ve gone through a name change twice (full name due to ridiculously religious Hindu family of the manipulative ex and again after divorce) and it is a great pain to do when you reside in UK but hold a Polish passport.
     The kids have my last name as their second middle name. Problem sorted

8. My last name is Jolly and I LOVE IT! As for changing it? He never even thought to ask. 🙂
   Instead of hyphenating for possible children (because Jolly-Paleos sounds wretched), boys get his last name, girls get mine, and they get the other parent’s name as a second middle name. *dusts off hands* Easy!

   • This is exactly what my husband and I have decided to do, minus the middle names thing.

   • Do you have a plan in place for what you’ll do if your kid is intersex or trans? I ask because I have a trans friend with a Jewish mother and a Christian father – the parents decided to raise the girls in their mother’s religion and the boys in their father’s religion. My friend has had some identity conflicts related to this choice, since he got raised in the “girl” religion. I can imagine something similar happening to a trans or intersex child (or any child really) who is given a last name based on their gender.

     • That is a great question that I had not thought about at all…if intersex, I think we would let them choose, and if trans then they can change their name to the appropriate one–or pick a new one entirely. I have a sister who has no attachment to the name I love so much, so she goes by our mother’s maiden name and plans on changing it legally. I love my name, but I have no illusions that anyone else does or should. 🙂

       (Also, I’m still holding out some hope that my husband will still change his name to mine. He’s not averse to it…)

   • cool last name! i’ve never heard of boys taking dad’s last name and girls taking mom’s..
     To each his own.. it just sounds so gendered to me.. like separate families. Different last names in a family is totally cool, but purposefully doing it based on their sex? Is this a tradition I’ve never heard of?

     • I don’t know of this being any specific tradition but I considered it the moment I realised that if my bf and I decide to get married, I might want to keep my last name.

       I love my last name. I’m an only child and no one else alive in my family, save for my parents, have it. I don’t really want to get rid of it.

       Mixing names wouldn’t work well. Hyphenating would be awkward, too. I already have two middle names, and our names don’t really flow well together and in the one order, it’d make me sound like a road. (My last name’s Lane. Also, I usually have to explain/spell about twice before people on the phone understand that it isn’t Lang.)

       Anyway, having all the prospective kids have his last name didn’t really seem fair. I still feel it wouldn’t be quite fair if mine went to just the girls since then the name still wouldn’t be carried on unless that child kept their name as well. Maybe we should mix it up.

9. Though hyphenated last names are awesome I chose to not hyphenate my last name when I got married for two important reasons. First my first name has a hyphen in it already. I thought it would just be too much of a good thing to have two hyphens. Second I was never given a middle name so I took the opportunity to have my old last name be moved to my middle name.

   • This is my reasoning too, I struggle for ages to come up with a solution that doesn’t mean discarding my name but equally doesn’t leave me with two hypenated names. (I’m not married yet.) Also, our last names are very similar – they’re next to each other in tartan souvenir shops, ha – so it’d be an unwieldy hyphenation.

     There’s also a tradition of having last names as middle names in my dad’s family, though it’s more generally that children are given the mother’s maiden name as a middle name. We almost did this for our daughter, and I’m starting to wish we had now!

     The other reason (aside from the fact that I *like* my surname) for including both names/not discarding my surname involves our children – I have a daughter from a previous relationship who has my surname, and for various reasons (including practical ones, like when dealing with officialdom, eg customs, or medical staff) it seems like a good idea to keep that surname as part of my name somehow.

     • in my head, you and your fh are Ms. McDougall and Mr. McDonnagall

10. I didn’t want to hyphenate but didn’t want to lose my maiden name either. My compromise was dropping my middle name (which didn’t have much significance) and replaced it with my maiden name. It made it more complicated with the whole legal name change business but I’m pretty happy with it. And if we have kids (TBD) they are all getting my maiden name as their middle name too.

    • oooh i totally hadn’t thought of that option… i hate my middle name (it is my mother’s first name) and replacing it with my surname might just work. Thanks for the idea!

11. I thought about hyphenating, but I just didn’t want to tack on the name Brown at all to mine. So we decided to make a new name by mixing our names together. We worked it out and got a new name! We call each other by said name all the time.

12. Thank you for this post! My fh and I are hyphenating our last names and it was a tough decision but I’m really happy with it. I’m so excited that the fh and I will have the same last name but that neither of us will be giving up our heritage. Both people gain and no one loses!

    But then there is the argument: what will your children do when they get married?! The horror! Well, they may have a tough decision, just like their parents did when they got married. They will figure it out and they may not get married at all.

    Thanks for giving me some ammo from a grown up hyphenated child to shoot at the naysayers.

13. Thank you for the post!!

    I will be hyphenating my last name in just a few short months *SQUEEEEE!*. I came to this decision very easily for the following reasons.

    1) our last names sound great together
    2) both of our last names are unique on their own so together I’m really going to have a one-of-a-kind name
    3) Getting married at *almost* 30 means I’ve had a long time to establish myself with my name. I want to keep the name recognition I’ve developed over the years but also want to align myself with him in our new family.
    4) I’ve always thought that hyphenated names were the shit

    The down side is (as my dad pointed out)… now I’ll have two names that no one can pronounce just by looking at it. =P But I’m already used to spelling my name all the time so I think it will be no big deal to add a hyphen and 5 more letters to the mix.

    As far as the kids question… We’ll probably just give his last name to our kids… but who knows! The children in question don’t even exist yet.

14. I have a slightly different perspective: When my spouse and I married in CA before Prop H8te, I took on a hyphenated name because:
    – After fifty years with my name, I really didn’t want to lose my original last name, so taking on just my spouse’s name wasn’t an option, but
    – We’re raising our grandkids and I have no relationship with them that’s immediately legally recognized without pulling out all the paperwork, but by sharing a last name with them all I now have to say to pretty much ANYone (doctors, teachers, etc.) is “I’m the grandmother” and it’s taken at face value where it wasn’t before my name change, and
    – honestly, I just love shoving my MARRIED name in some people’s faces, since I live in a county so conservative that 66% of the voters actually voted for Christine O’Donnell to be our Senator.

    I do find that more and more SOCIALLY I just use my family’s shared last name and not the full hyphenated version, and there are many things about having a hyphenated last name that are truly a pain in the tuchus. But overall, I’m very pleased with my new last name.

    FYI, Spouse did not hyphenate. Instead, as someone who was never given a middle name at birth, my last name is now my spouse’s legal middle name.

15. I think hyphenated names are great! My fiance and I are wondering what the hell we’re going to do. He’d really prefer I take his name. He’s more traditional. I for one love the name I was given. Being an academia, I want to keep my published name because it’s my birthname and so flippin’ great!

    I tried compromise by hyphenating our names. He’s not too keen. I’m still trying to win him over. :p

    • My parents were both academics and neither changed their name. They just hyphenated the children’s name.

    • In Quebec, where I live, the woman always legally keeps her maiden name, so it’s pretty standard practice that the kids get hyphenated names (at least, that’s what my man’s parents did. But they also gave him three first names.)

      But I’m excited to see what happens when my generation starts marrying and having babies. SOoo many names!!

    • My boyfriend and I had the name conversation. He wanted me to take his name (he’s more traditional like that and really loves his adopted family’s name) and I very firmly didn’t want to lose mine (I love my family name). It was a bit of a problem at first because he wants our family to have the same name and after the mama-dram from losing his middle name to be replaced by his original last name in his adoption, there’s no way he’s changing his.

      I brought up hyphenating it but he rightly pointed out how unwieldy that would be with our three-syllables-each names (Anderson and Solomon. It doesn’t help that they end so similarly). Also, we’re in the Army, so our last names are constantly on display. Hyphenating our names would give us sixteen characters to have squeezed onto nameplates. Arg.

      Fortunately, my Mutti’s family’s naming traditions came to the rescue. In her family, you get your own first name and then three middle names: your same-sex parent’s first name followed by your same-sex grandparents’ first names (can’t remember the order of those two). I decided to take a page out of her book and take my last name as a second middle name when we wed. But I’m keeping my last name as is for the army and answering to either elsewhere (just easier that way), though I’m not sure he knows about my plan yet.

16. Ugh, but what do I do if I want us both to have the same last name, as well as our kids if we have any, but his name is perfect for him and mine for me? And Fleury-Kinney just plain sounds weird. But I’m French and he’s Irish, and we both have emotional attachments to our names but love the idea of a family name… . This is going to be tough.

    I’m thinking I’ll keep my maiden name for professional things, like if I create art or ever get my own business, but socially and family-wise I’ll take on Kinney. Any thoughts?

    • Here’s a little secret: you can call yourself whatever the hell you want. The point at which it matters are things like birth certificates, passports, etc.

      I kind of like Fluery-Kinney actually, but I might be biased. 🙂 Or would you consider Kinney-Fluer or Fluer-Kinney? (Get rid of the two Ys).

17. Not that I have anything against people who have one, but I *LOATHE* hyphenated last names. I don’t know why. It’s an inexplicable rage. Not towards the person, just the name. Maybe a hyphan slighted me in a past life, who knows.

    This became a problem for me, since I also loathe my last name. I use to dream of the day I could change it when I got married, as a little girl. It’s only 5 letters, but only one person I’ve met, in my ENTIRE LIFE, could pronounce it correctly. One. So, of course, I’m going to marry him.

    Except he has a double-barreled last name. The irony! The horror!

    For a while, we flirted with just dropping half of it. I liked his father’s surname more than his mother’s, but imagining the drama fest that would result from her feeling slighted was not fun.

    So, we’re going to 3rd option route of picking something completely different! He’s cool with whatever I decide (it made no different to him if I took his name, he took mine, we only took half of his, we ditched the concept of last names altogether like Prince and Madonna, etc).

    The one we’re considering the most is my maternal grandmother’s father’s original last name, before he americanized it to avoid getting kitchen/janitorial duty in the navy. I’ve always loved the sound of it, and it goes particularly well with the names we’re considering for our future children.

18. Though I am not married/engaged/at a place in my life where these things are options, I am almost certainly taking my partner’s last name. My last name is one letter off of the word “fucks” and I’m tired of people pronouncing it as such, and hyphenating it would probably be even more horrible (think about it). Also, though I love my dad, I have a strained relationship with his side of the family and I hate being tied to them with my last name.
    I’m all for preserving one’s pre-married identity and all that but I’ve always hated my last name and changing it doesn’t change who I am.

    • Oooh, my grandfather had your surname. He ended up changing it to Fox because he was sick of it!

19. My last name begins with a G. My husband’s last name begins with an M. When we got engaged, I knew that I wanted to acknowledge the idea of two becoming one with including his name, but because I’m a journalist and I have strong connections to my ancestry on my dad’s side, I didn’t want to give up my name in the process. I decided to hyphenate.

    The big surprise, however, happened when we got married in the Czech Republic. Per law and custom there, the husband’s last name goes first when hyphenating. We didn’t realize this until they told us at the ceremony. And then had to explain to the city councilwoman marrying us what was so funny about my having the initials OMG. It’s my new moniker.

    (Sidebar: One of my favorite name changes is operatic soprano Measha Brueggergosman. She was born Measha Gosman but when she married a man whose last name is Bruegger, combined the two into one fluid and fantastic name.)

20. Like so many women on here, I love my last name. I identify with it. It’s very Italian and probably the last bit if Italian heritage I have. Plus it means Of Christmas in Italian…and my favorite holiday is Christmas…pretty nice bonus. Hubby didn’t care that I didn’t want to take his name. We’re not planning on kids but if we do, I wouldn’t mind if they had his name and not mine. I have yet to personally know anyone else who has kept their maiden name after marriage. I feel pretty alone in our little social network in that regard. At least I have the Tribe!

21. I also *LOVE* my last name! I didn’t even know it until I got married – I felt like a part of my identity had been taken away from me. I wasn’t “one of the Gross girls (there are six of us). When I got a divorce and got my name back I swore never again! Plus my Dad converted to my Mom’s faith, so I have a very Jewish name but wasn’t raised Jewish. I love how much history my last name is and I can’t imagine changing my name ever again.

22. I actually have a painful REVERSE decision. If I hyphenate, I will have FIVE names and well, they just don’t make enough space on paperwork for such names. So my choices are switch my last name (after I jumped through hoops in high school to get legally changed to my father’s birth surname which he illegally changed via white out on his birth certificate) to Petersen, or drop my third name. My third name happens to be my mom’s maiden name, and I am the last person in the US to have that family name. So it’s either cut out a name I really like, or deny my heritage to make room for a hyphen. So far out of all the things in my wedding, this choice is by far the hardest.

    • It could be worse. I have 11 names.

    • Try already having 5 names, and trying to figure out where to put the 6th! Recently engaged and the thoughts have just started flowing of what to do…. and like you all 5 of my names have meaning and history and I don’t plan on dropping any of them to make room….. decisions, decisions 🙂

23. (fake names for illustration) My mother is Ms. Blue and my father is Mr. Jones. My brother and I are Quincy and Francis Bluejones. Not Blue-Jones. Not Blue Jones. Bluejones.

    I love that my brother and I share something with each other separate from our parents. It makes me feel like we belong to a special club, especially since there are like 20 total Bluejoneses in the world. We’re also eminently google-able.

    I also like that my mother and father kept their own names. Sure it was hell on medical and school records, but it makes me feel unique and connected at the same time. And I can still hyphenate my last name without losing either of my parents!

    C’mon Francis Bluejones-Harrison! Can’t get better than that!

    • My cousins have names like this! They were both adopted back in the day WAY before gay marriage was even on the table. Their moms have very combine-able last names, and it worked out awesomely!

24. Well, it could be worse. Due to various clerical errors from before I was adopted, my name has become quite long. 11 names long. All are legal and all are used. You may think that this would make me dread adding one when I marry but I can’t wait. I’m so excited to take his name and add it. It makes my name even more unique.

    • Plus, 12 is a nice round number! You’ll have one name for each month of the year!

25. My last name is Roach. Like the bug, or the clip. But I love my last name! Aside from my mother (who took my father’s last name) I’m the only Roach left. It certainly built character and gave me a thick skin growing up. By the time I was seven my standard response to the bug jokes was, “WOW! That is so original! Did you just come up with that?!” I used to really struggle with whether to change my name when I got married, and then I met Himself and I just knew…I would take his name. It’s actually part of the reason why I knew our relationship is “The Real Deal”, because it made my struggle over whether to keep my maiden name when I got married completely disappear. That said, I’m going to keep my maiden name as a second middle name, because I love my middle name as well (and I’ve always wanted two middle names). Our kids will get HisLastname, and two middle names (after various grandparents and great grandparents) so they’ll have a ton of fun figuring this issue out when they get married. Mwahahaa!

26. when i tell people that we are both keeping our own last names EVERYONE always reccomends we hyphenate… the problem is that gives us to similar sounding/looking names together and it sounds terrible(both names are short and start with S and end with N)

    when we have children they will have my last name and his last name as a middle name. if they dont like it they can always choose to change it legally like i did

27. I love my fiance’s last name, although he hates it. He would never change it though – just a rogue branch of the family that causes issues occaionally.

    Changing to my name isn’t an option – it’s my ex-husband’s name, so THAT’S not going to happen LOL! I kept it because of my daughter – ease with schools and everything (although fiance gets “assigned” my daughter’s last name because the school system isn’t set up to recognize that he has a different name). Annoying!

    Anyway, I was talking to a friend of mine who convinced me to hyphenate. She said you can use whichever name you want, whenever you want. I love my middle name – my grandmothers were Anne & Anna, my mother’s middle name is Ann and so is mine. (Coincidentally, both my grandfathers were Frank, so is my dad, so guess what my brother’s middle name is?)

    I have a friend who has gone through 5 last names in the last 12 years – maiden, 1st marriage, 2nd marriage, new last name entirely, 3rd marriage (now ending). I told her after her new last name entirely that I was not changing her last name in my address list because I couldn’t find her! I also said I was sending her picture to the county clerk’s office with a warming that she was a fugitive and should not be allowed to change her name again 😉

28. My maiden name is very unique, but I think I’ll take his last name. It’s much shorter, and easier to spell. We do plan on having kids, and though I think it’s manageable to hyphenate, I just think it will be simpler. I’ve gotten a lot of “okay, but you know a last name doesn’t make a family right?” Yes – and changing my name doesn’t mean I have to stop being a feminist, either. And whatever we do with our names doesn’t really define our relationship – we do.
    I actually spoke to my ob/gyn today about it, and she kept her name. When she and her husband had kids, one kid got his name and one got hers – kind of cool!
    I may move my maiden name to my middle name and it would make a kick-ass middle name for a kid, too.

    • I knew kids in high school who did that — the boy got the father’s name (younger) and the girl got the mother’s name. Kind of cool. 🙂

29. …Horseman? What’s not awesome? I can hide my head and be the headless horseman! xD

30. I wish hyphenated names were an option for me and my partner…but…our names together are just borderline inappropriate (or awesome, depending on maturity level).

    I’m a Cox and he’s a Fors (With a Swedish accent it sounds a bit like force).. Cox-Fors…Fors-Cox (yess!)…. I can’t help but to laugh about what that would be like for our born unborn 12-18 year old child in school…

31. My dude and I are taking both last names without a hyphen. Where we live we can do that at various institutions without doing a whole legal name change. It means I can use my last name for academic stuff, and my dude can use his for art, but we will actually have both last names. We will be starting our own family. Neither of us is really tied to our last names, but a totally new one would be much more complicated.

32. And one of the problems with hyphenated names: Huyck-Aufdermaur

    I couldn’t spell it until I was eight.

33. I’m stoked to change my name because 1)I hate my last name. Everyone pronounces it “fat” which it isn’t. And because I’m a plus size gal, it’s annoying. I also teach high school, so you can see why I want to change it. 2)My guy created a brand new last name when he changed his name, and I want to be the originator of a last name.
    2 very good reasons in my mind.

34. Not married yet, my last name is hyphenated as are my siblings, my parents (still married 25ish years) do not have hyphenated names. I know my SO and i will be getting married and I’m dreading having to choose what name I’m going to take/keep. Its my name, it is my siblings names (we all have the same first initial so they’re going to have to be creative with their email address selection for work in the future muahaha) sometimes it is the only thing we have in common.

    I won’t be hyphenating all three… the two are already too long 🙂

35. (To avoid confusion, Mari Fee is a pen name)

    I’m fairly sure I’ll keep my own last name and not hyphenate (it doesn’t roll off the tongue hyphenated), but the fiance and I are debating combining our names – to Proton. He’d be Jonny Proton, and that’s just hilarious. 🙂

    • I could be Photon. ..or Bolips…Phibon..The random combination of our last names make me laugh. I will likely take his name, because I have no sentimental attachments to the surname I was born with.

36. I love this article. It helps to solidify how I’m going to address the whole “last name thing” next month when I get married. I was married once before and took his last name. As soon as we divorced I went back to my original last name and swore I would never change it again. My now soon-to-be-hubby is so fantastic and has agreed to let me do what I wish when it comes to my name. I would love to take his name because of what he means to me, but I still can’t let go of mine. So, I’ve decided to combine them by hyphenating them…but not your typical way. My last name is Novak and his is Mattson, so once we’ve said “I do” I will become Linda Mattson-Novak (instead of Novak-Mattson so my initials will be LMN!!!)! It makes me giggle everytime I think about it! 🙂 and this way I am embracing my new family but my family is still the anchor! 🙂

37. Thank you for sticking up for the hyphenated kids! My parents gave me and my brother hyphenated last names and kept their own. People always tell me that it was a nice gesture, but that my parents had no forethought – what did they think I was going to name my kids? I think they probably thought I could decide that for myself if I ever had kids! They made the decision that was right for them (not a “gesture”), and my soon to be wife and I will make the decision that’s right for us. They’ll probably get my name, which is both the most conventional (getting the father’s name) and the least (getting a hyphenated name, especially one that’s not Mother-Father). Then they’ll decide what to do if/when they have kids. What a crazy idea.

    • Power to us hyphenated-kids!! Glad to meet others who love their name!!

      Also – WTF. I know I’ve been getting it my whole life, but the whole ‘what to do with kids’ thing is just so baffling … but I digress.

    • My fiancé and I have decided to do what your parents did (keep our names, kids are hyphenated) and I’ve had so many people pull the “but what will your kids call their kids?!?” line. I would be super mad if someone told me what I had to do with my name, so why would I make that decision for my (currently theoretical) kids who may or may not even want children. Cart before horse much?

38. My dad taught me how to write my signature and as a result I write my “y’s” exactly like him. I didn’t want to give that up, and my husband and I both decided we didn’t want to hyphenate. We decided to combine names. As in, if he was Smith and I was Johnson, we would become Smohnson. We’ve had amazingly positive reactions to it, and I got to keep my “y”.

39. What are the legal ramifications to different name options? I think I want my mother’s name (von Dobeneck) or his mother’s name (Mullany). (I like them better than either of our father’s names)I like being the only Laraine Weschler in the whole wide internet, but I’d still be unique as Laraine von Dobeneck or Laraine Mullany.

    • I do have a secret. I was actually born Rebecca Miller Webster (Miller was my middle name). My mom didn’t change her name and got annoyed at being called Mrs. Webster, so they decided to hyphenate (long before I have any memories). A lawyer advised them that it is really difficult to change a child’s name and they could call me whatever they wanted. And they did – I was enrolled in school and got a driver’s license and a ss# with the hyphenated name. It was only when I went to get a passport that they put the name on my birth certificate, so when I was 18 I legally changed it to the only name I’ve ever known.

      Anyway, the process differs from state to state. Usually you have to file docs with the court (I did this all without a lawyer) and then put a notice in a local paper for X amount of time. Then I went in front of a judge and he was like “um why are you changing your name? uh ok.”

      Once you’ve legally changed your name — which is easier upon marriage — you go to the DMV and SS etc etc and apply for new docs. On certain things – loans, credit apps, etc – they’ll ask you if you’ve ever been know by a different name or your maiden name.

      In other words, I don’t think there’s much of a legal ramification. It’s a pain, but people do it all the time.

      Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

      • No way! You are exactly like me!

        I also have a hyphenated name, which I love love love. Like someone above said, thanks for speaking up for the happily hyphenated kids. And the whole “what about your kids” things really annoys me as well. I mean, most people choose one name out of 2 to name their kids, I’ll just have to choose 1 or 2 among 3! It’s not so different.

        But, like you, I have a secret. My Mom’s name is actually my middle name, but I use both names is my day to day life, hyphenated. (That’s how much I love hyphens!) It’s a problem because I never remember what name I’m under for different things. I’m jealous you got your social insurence number and driver’s licence in your hyphenated name, mine isn’t and it makes me sad. I’m also thinking of legally changing it, but it seems like a lot of money/hassle to simply turn my middle into half my last name…

        • Honestly, legally changing it really wasn’t that bad and it makes me SO HAPPY that my name is my legal name. It’s probably worth looking into what’s required — I’m sure it’s on a website somewhere.

40. I went through a long process of legally changing my name (including birth certificate, high school diploma, etc…) from my abusive father’s to my momma’s last name quite recently. After waiting so long to actually get the last name that I now have, I really don’t want to just throw it away when I get married. Plus, after getting my degree and my (new) last name on that…

    So, I’ve decided I’m either keeping my name or we can both hyphenate (even though both of our names are pretty long to begin with)… plus, both of our last names our really Celtic so it’s kinda funny..

41. I decided pretty quickly that I am going to hyphenate (even though it’ll result in a really long surname). The thing that surprised me, though, was that my fiancé was actually considering doing the same thing. The only problem is if he wanted to change his name he’d have to pay an insane amount of money and tackle the byzantine court system due to Minnesota not having equal name change laws for both sexes. I find that kind of sucky, but until the pressure is applied to allow greater flexibility, I don’t think it will change in my lifetime. That said, I already think of myself with the hyphenated name. We’re not having kids, so it doesn’t really matter what either one of us do. (That said, I’m kind of tickled that my fiancé is at least somewhat open to taking on the same last name I’ll have.)

42. I’m signing myself up for a lifetime of headache. For whatever reason, I just don’t like the look of hyphenated surnames. I also love my middle name and would never replace it. So if I want a double barreled last name (and I do), it has to be sans hyphen. But hey, if it works for Helena Bonham Carter it can work for me, right?

43. My parent’s never married, so the girls in the family got the mother’s name, and boys got the father’s.

    I always wanted a hyphenated name, only my beau has a very similar sounding name to mine. Lily McCarthy-McDowall would just sound stupid 🙁

44. Interested to read that nobody forgets your surname when it’s a hyphenated (double barrel) surname. People always remember my surname being “Snowball”. I have to grit my teeth and smile each Christmas as every shop assistant reels out the jokes I have heard a hundred times! However it is good for business contacts, they remember you.

    If my wife and I had double up we would have been Snowball-Reeves or Reeves-Snowball…

    Mmm not sure 🙂

45. My google doppelganger is a porn star. I definitely need to hyphenate.

    • Haha! My husband’s a sex offender – a teacher who slept with a student. Hilarious! 🙂

46. My first name starts with a K, so does my surname and so does his surname…..which would make my initials KKK
    Hyphenating is out of the question!

47. Not sure if people would consider my husband’s and I respective surnames ethnic, but they’re certainly unusual. Which means we’ve had to endure a life of mispronounced surnames.

    Going into our marriage, I had no professional career or brand built around my maiden name. Yet, it was a huge part of my identity and I felt that despite a lack of career, my choice to keep my maiden shouldn’t be marginalized or belittled.

    My husband would have preferred I take on his last name, but in the end supported any decision I made. I ultimately decided to hyphenate our names, my mom thought it was weird and I’m not sure his family understands. Either way, I’m fine with my new 13 letter new last name (even though its a pain now to fill out paperwork).

    If we ever do have kids, we’ve discussed continuing the Hispanic/Filipino tradition of adding the mother’s surname to our future kids name.

48. I’ve been having a bit of a struggle as to changing/keeping/hyphenating my last name when I marry my h2b. My last name has always caused me a bit of grief, especially at school as although it is spelt Hawe it is pronounced wh**re!! I do love my name and I’m very attatched to it, it can be an awesome conversation starter.
    As the youngest of three girls with no brothers I feel a bit inclined to carry on the family name. Hyphenating both our names would be ok if it wasn’t for the fact that it would be Forder-Hawe (afford-a-wh**re!) I deffinatly want us to both have the same surname but I don’t really know how to do it without sacrificing my name or us both sounding a bit silly :S

49. I think for me, it’s a few things. I’m changing my last name when I get married and just taking my husband’s.

    For one, I’ll admit, I like simplicity. I also am still keeping my first and middle name, so really, even if I considered my name an intrigal part of my personality, I still have 2/3 of it.

    Besides – I’ve had my last name since I was born…I’d like to try a new one on. 😉

    I’d say the only way I would keep my last name after marriage is if I had already built a name for myself as an Illustrator. But I am not yet world famous, so I will become such with my new lsat name! =)

50. I’m from Spain, so that’s not a problem here. When a couple gets married, each spouse keeps his/her name, with consist in a name and two surnames, as the kids always get their father’s first, then their mother’s first.

    So, Jane Smith Jones marries John Watson Miller, and that makes their kid Penny Watson Smith. The family is also adressed as “The Watson-Smith Family”. Pretty cool if you ask me, and it takes away a lot of the complications… x)

    • I actually had a bit about naming traditions in Spain originally in the post! We cut it for length and flow, but I always bust out Spain as an example when people tell me it’s SO WEIRD.

      Since I’m a tid-bit Spanish, I like to think that it’s my tradition too – even though I know it had nothing to do with it. 🙂

51. I must say, I sympathize with this and didn’t even know it. I was given a French name when I was born – Élise. Growing up in the US, the government and schools don’t recognize the correct spelling of my name. My whole life I’ve had to correct teachers and people. It’s surprising how many people cannot even pronounce my name – I always got called Elsie. Not to mention my French last name – Du Bois. It’s hard to get people to add the space between the two words (yes, my last name is two words, no hyphen. It’s epic).

    The thing is, I am absolutely in love with my name. AS IT IS. Élise Du Bois. It’s so French! So when I immigrated to Canada, needless to say I felt a little bit more at home. People in Ontario hardly speak any more French than I do (which is pretty much none), however the government still recognizes the spellings of both my names, so perhaps I’ve finally found peace with my title.

    But of course I just got married, and haven’t even decided then what to do with my last name. I kept it for now, and I want to keep it, but my husband feels a bit hurt and wants me to unite with him one step further, adding his last name to mine. Élise Du Bois-Pettey…does that even fit? As that means I’d have to go to both countries and change my legal name and all bank information in both countries, and I’m just not ready to deal with that mess yet, I’ve put that on hold. I do have some time (till my husband leaves the military) till I have to decide. It’s still a very hard decision. Ugh.

52. My husband and I both decided to hyphenate. I think this has something to do with the fact that we’ve always been super big readers (preferred genre of fantasy too) so long names have never ever scared us. Plus I’m a singer, so while Lisa Valdez was already pretty decent, Lisa Valdez-Carpentier seems lovely, mysterious, and represents a racial ambiguity that I love and want to build a career on. That being said, we’ve been married eight months and haven’t gotten around to the paperwork, so maybe in the end it’s just too much of a pain in the ass to change our names at all. It’s pretty clear to each individual what feels right to them.

53. Not gonna lie, I’m a little confused. Surname = maiden name?

    My FH’s last name is short (Gram) and mine is really long (Soderquest) so I can’t see it working hyphenated. I also really can’t see my last name replacing my middle name, for as much as I hate it. (Nicole)

    For what it’s worth, I don’t want kids, and my mom wants grandkids, so I’ve gone to convincing my brother he has to have them. “The line ends with me, kid! I take FH’s last name! You’re the dude, you carry on the line!”
    Mom’s amused, the brother is not 😀

54. My parent’s culture norm is to give your child the mother’s maiden name as a second middle name, rather than a hyphenated last name. Because it’s my legal name, it’s on my driver’s license, passport, W9, etc. I’m always amused at the amount of people that get confused and don’t know whether it’s a middle name, a last name, MY maiden name, or an incorrect addition to my full name. When I was younger, all the questioning was a little annoying, but I’ve really come to embrace it!

55. Awesome list I have to say! I like my last name, and I’m comfortable with it. I do, however, think about changing it to my boyfriend’s last name when we get married. It’s my sense of feeling our unity.

    I’m American and grew up in the states but my dad is Egyptian. I grew up with just a first, middle and last name: Mona Mohab Ezzat. What’s kinda cool about that is in Middle Eastern Culture children take their dad’s name as their second name. Although I wouldn’t do that to my daughters (lol) I think it’s different. Now in Egypt my name is SIX names long: Mona Mohab Salah Ezzat Abu Mostafa.
    Salah is my grandfather’s name (and my dad’s middle name). Ezzat is the family name…and to this day I still am not sure what Abu Mostafa is! I’ve been living in Egypt now for six years and I’m still confused about a lot of the culture here. Haha But that’s what I know about my name. since this is a post about unique names and all…:)

56. I like the idea of hyphenated last names. But, in my case I dont think I would do it. I have a 10 letter last name and so does the FH. So it would be Angel Miskiewicz-Van Blargan.. lol. Sounds strange together as well. But, great blog!

    • Wow, if you hyphenated that name would be a mouthful! Imagine teaching a child to write that name in school (if you had them!)

57. I intend to do what my mother did: keep my last name, but use his when it’s more convenient (i.e., when I’m dealing with schools, banks, etc.). Plus, I’m as Aryan-looking as they come, and I don’t relish being told repeatedly on introductions that “You don’t look like an ‘Alvarez.'” Yeeaah, that’s ’cause I’m not.

    I want to hyphenate our kids’ last names for several reasons. First, mine is distinctly Irish and a little unusual, but easy to spell, easy to say, easy to remember; his is Alvarez, which is easy, but also pretty forgettable and common in the south Bronx. Seriously, he has half a dozen friends with the same full name as him. I’d rather our younglings have a more memorable last name. If we didn’t live in New York, and lived somewhere with a less significant Latino population, maybe I’d be more comfortable with them just being Alvarezes, but as it is, they won’t stand out unless their first names are Ptolemy or Assumpta.

    Second, I like the cultural blend. I’m proud our littl’uns will be mixed race, why not shout it to the world? It’s symbolically appropriate, since he and I come from wildly different backgrounds; it’s a coming together of two very different people and their very different ancestries.

    Third, it’s kind of patriarchal bullshit that kids only get their father’s last name anyway.

    Finally, I LOVE my name. I don’t want it to stop with me! The more of us in the world, the better!

    • No one will tell you that you don’t look like an “Alvarez”! My double barreled English name does not match my brown Hispanic self, and I have never had anyone comment on it.

58. Am very recently engaged and this has now come to be a fairly major issue.

    Out of many, MANY aunts, cousins, uncles… I’m the absolute only one who carries my paternal grandfather’s last name, which has a lot of history here. On the anniversary of my brother’s death, my parents let slip that they expect me to carry our particular line on… I’m not really planning on having kids, but thanks for the relative guilt trip, mom & dad!

    Anyway, said last name (as well as my first and middle names) are short and common English names, and the combination of these three meant that while I was doing my undergrad degree and working at the university, there were four others at my university with all three of the same names. I’m a professional writer and I’ve already come across other writers with the same first and last names. I need to be distinguishable from these people on paper.

    AND, while I have a common name, he has a long and difficult Ukranian last name. We considered blending the two but somehow the English and Ukranian just don’t flow, whether they’re halved and then combined, or simply hyphenated.

    He offered to take my last name but to mix his first name and my last name sounds like another phrase. I think it was even a rather amusing clue in the game Mad Gab.

    I’m sure we’ll find an awesome option for our own lives, and if we have kids, we’ll just have to make for damn sure they know where they came from.

59. We’re Rachel and Cameron and we just wanted to say thanks for the post! We definitely agree with you. We just got engaged, and had been discussing the name game. Personally, we decided to go for a combination last name, mostly because we think it’s marvelously funny. =) Rachel’s family is very Irish, the Flanagan’s…and Cameron’s family has no idea what heritage they are but are very proud nonetheless: the Sanders’s.
    So to ease the tension of deciding on whose name, we chose a combo…Mr. & Mrs. Flanders! Fantastic right?

60. Not to hate on the hyphens, but as a person who works in the banking industry it is rather difficult to look up correct account information for you hyphies. But I’m not about to detract from last name bliss so I can save a few minutes in my work day. 🙂

    • Yea. I’ve never understood why that is. Is it the software? Is it that people input it wrong? I just doesn’t seem like it should be so complicated … 🙂

      And, again, I suspect you have the same problem with people with spaces or other special characters in their name.

      • I don’t know about banks, but I used to work for a major car rental company, and it was the software we used that made hyphens an issue.
        Regular bookings were no problem, we could just put a space or run the names into one, the complications arose from frequent renter profiles, because our website allowed profiles to be created with a hyphen. Once a hyphenate had thier profile, the system red flagged the name prompt and wouldn’t allow them to book or change the name on file without assistance, causing alot of frustration.

        Not as much frustration as “Sunshine”, who had no last name, and was quite irate that he needed a first and last name to rent a car, and was, after extensive discussion with a supervisor, convinced to book under first name “Sun” last name “Shine”

        • My fiance is a computer programmer who writes web applications. I joke with him, that the reason we met is so he can fix all the computer systems to accept my hyphenated name.

          He said it really is so easy, he doesn’t understand why other programmers who have caused these issues for us hyphens. All they have to do is make it so that line accepts any character. What does Ke$ha do? (giggle)

          Other hyphen fun, using a ticket kiosk at the airport. It cannot find my name from the credit card I swipe. Probably because every card I have has screwed up my name in a different way.

        • I have a friend named Sunshine and yeah, that’s his whole legal name. I wonder if it’s the same Sunshine?

61. I’d just like to point out that the hyphen isn’t necessary. My sister and her husband both legally kept their names, but socially they are known as the Snyder Belouseks. No Hyphen.

    • I think that depends on your state or county. My county told me I could not do that, that I would have to put a hyphen there.

62. Hyphenated names are awesome. I have a hyphentated first name instead, and I love that its different and me.

    And the funny thing is my best friend has the same first name the first part of my name, and then her middle names is also the second part of my hypenatated name.

    example (names changed)
    I am Mary-Anne Rebecca Smith
    and she is Mary Anne Jones
    Life likes to play tricks osmetimes 🙂

63. I Love my family and I love my last name. But I love my guy and I love his family. So I decided to drop my middle name and turn my now last name into my middle name. So The Ashley Victoria Allegro of today will be the Ashley Allegro Hastie in 6 months. Whats fun about it too is that Allegro means upbeat or pick up the pace and Hastie, well, Don’t be hasty! So I will have a very very fast name. As for kids, a son will be a Hastie and a daughter an Allegro. I com from a gaggle of Allegro girls so how great will it be that my future daughter gets to be one too. Great article! I love reading the comments!

    • Thats such a great idea. My last name is Kelley so I could totally do that as well. I don’t plan on changing my name at all, but it would work well for someone who has a last name that would work as a middle name. I couldn’t really see it working for someone who’s last name was something like McDougal or Van Wormer or something like that though.

64. Off topic but my Google doppleganger is a judge in PA! 😀

65. I teach, this year I got my first ever (in 10 years) TRIPLE BARRELED SURNAME! It is brilliant, it has two hyphens!

    • That’s awesome!!!

      • It was the only thing that could ever have out-awesomed the student I taught who didn’t actually have a surname, just one single name, like Madonna (but cooler).

66. My birth name is a double-barreled name with no hyphen. I really like it (despite the confusion it gives people and computers); it adds weight to my name. If it weren’t for that, I would hyphenate with my fiance… but I like the name I’ve always had!

67. I LOVE my name. Although it isn’t hyphenated (god how I wanted it to be when I was little!) it consists of first name 1, first name 2, mother’s surname and father’s surname. 30 characters in all… And to top it all off, it’s Scandianavian so when people read it, they can’t pronounce it and when they hear it, they can’t spell it. It is brilliant! I know for a fact that out of 6 billion people on the planet, I am the only one with my name. It is so staying!

68. I’m all for hyphenation… but I’m marrying someone who already has a hyphenated last name. My initials are already CC – if I add his, I’d be CCCC. I also have a longish first name and two middles already, so to add an additional double last name would leave me with a 38-character-long name. None of that is so appealing, so perhaps it’s lucky I live in Quebec and can’t actually change my name when we get married…

69. I also grew up with a hyphenated last name. Your story rang very true to my experiences to. I have been asked so many times what I will name my children.

    I actually found someone with the name hyphenated last name by vanity Google-ing once. It was crazy, I sent him and e-mail. He too thought he was the only one with my crazy hyphenated combo.

    Thank you again for sharing.

70. My future husband’s last name is hyphenated, with a total of THIRTEEN letters (hyphen not included). My situation is tricky, though. I take a ridiculous amount of pride in my names. First middle and last are each seven letters long, and seven has always been my lucky number. If I were to marry someone without a seven-lettered last name, I’d keep mine. Luckily, my man has accepted that I will only take the first of his hyphenated names, which is Justice. Our children will take Justice, too, because he’s had so many troubles with his hyphenated name (though he loves both names equally). It’s an agreement that works for everyone involved. I can take his name proudly, with my lucky number still intact. 🙂

    • Mine has thirteen letters too! Justice is a really great name though. 🙂

71. I decided as a teenager goshdarnit, I like my relatively uncommon German last name. I grew up with my dad telling me “Remember you’re a S——” as his way of saying to keep out of trouble. And as much drama as there may be in my extended family, I like identifying as part of that group. So I decided that I’d either just keep my name or hyphenate when I got married, with the decision being based solely on how good the names sounded together.

    Hubby’s name is also German, apparently, but it’s the name of a country so when I’m giving out my last name, I spell mine, then say “hyphen hisname, like the country.” It’s been working well for me.

    Though, admittedly, even after changing my middle name at the same time (from 9 letters to 5), my name barely fits on my driver’s license. My last name is 15 letters with the hyphen, and seriously, the last letter is RIGHT ON THE EDGE. =) It’s amusing to me, but IDK how the state would cope with anything longer.

    • Ha! I usually say “Miller DASH Webster” then spell it out using the word hyphen: “M-I-L-L-E-R HYPEHN W-E-B-S-T-E-R” and then if they still seem confused I say “Miller like the beer and Webster like the dictionary.” 🙂

72. I considered hypenating with my SO, but we both have short surnames; 4 letters, 1 syllable each and I’m not sure that works hyphenated….everyone elses awesome hyphens seem longer…?

    • I think it could sounds really cool depending on the names themselves. I can’t think of any 1 syllable hyphenates off the top of my head though. May also be a good candidate for a combo name!

73. I’m wrestling with this. My last name is the ridiculously common “Smith,” which I don’t mind ditching at all, but I do go by my initials quite a lot and it will be weird to change that. I like the idea of hyphenating, but his name — St. Bride — has two words, which is hard enough for people to deal with (because, inevitably, they either pronounce it Street-Bride or Stub-Ride). I don’t know how I feel about having a hyphen AND a space AND the initials SS, which make me think of Nazis. I’m troubling over this one.

    • “Saint Bride” yes???

74. ok, so I have *heard* that in venezuela people hyperentiate by gender. So, for example, my maiden name would be Brown-Pink (Pink being my mother’s name, Brown my father). When I marry Mr Blue-Orange I (a woman) keep my mother’s name and become Mrs Pink-Blue and so does my husband (as in he, a man, keeps his father’s name and takes my mother’s). Our children are Pink-Blues until they marry. The girls will then be Pink-Purples and the boys Blue-Mango or whatever. Dunno if that is actually true, or how on earth it would work with more flexible gender identities, but it sounds cool as a general thing.

    • I had never heard of the whole hyperentiate by gender thing (although kind of cool), but I do know that in Spain and many Hispanic countries, almost everyone is given two last names: the first people the father’s father’s and the second being the mother’s father (I think?). More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs

      Anyway, cool idea/custom!

75. I hyphenated when my husband and I got married and I LOVE it!! My name is beautiful and romantic and only sounds good with my (beautiful and romantic) last name, so I get the best of both worlds! I’m the last in my line, so my parents were very honored that I kept their last name. And when we have kids we have decided to hyphenate because they belong to both of us!

76. I wrote an entire blog post on name changes on the wedding blog. It boils down to this:

    I was married before and I took the guys last name one day after being married about a month. I always said I never would. To me, that girl wasn’t me. The marriage didn’t work. Changing my name to his was easy. Getting my other name back, that I had for 23 years, was a PAIN.IN.THE.ASS!! Paypal wound’t even change it for me after I gave them documentation (for example). I had to close the account and reopen it using the same email address.

    The fact of the matter is, I just was someone else when I had a different last name. Also, if I took DH’s last name (we’re already “eloped” before our wedding), then my initials would be JJ. Bleck!

77. I took my wife’s last name when we got our domestic partnership. I had a mixed relationship with my maiden name – my father kinda abandoned us when my parents’ breakups were getting nasty. And I didn’t like the name anyway.

    Plus she and I are in a D/s (dominant/submissive) relationship. The symbolism of becoming -hers- was really touching.

    She, naturally, didn’t really want me to take it…but didn’t say anything until afterward. Go figure?

78. Not hyphenating my name when I get married was an incredibly difficult decision. My mom hyphenated hers and I always admired that (us kids were given my Dad’s last name).

    My parents were pretty nontraditional growing up; I didn’t know what a wedding ring was until I was about 11, and being ~traditional~ and taking the man’s last name was too common to me.

    The guy I decided to marry, though, his name is 8 letters, and mine is six, and – well – that’s just too damn long for me. I like his last name so I’ll take it.

79. I adore my last name due to many things: it’s frikkin’ ancient, and I know exactly where it comes from; My family is dysfunctional but it is a dysfunction that I can trace and understand and feel affection for; when my ultimate ancestor was given a baronetcy, it was written into the charter that women could inherit the title and land. All this is great, *except* that my name makes no sense at all in English/American. It is spelled Dalzell and pronounced D-L. I promise! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalziel)

    For this reason, I changed it to my husband’s when I got married because his name is really easy…which lasted for 2-3 years. I missed my name too much, it was too huge a part of my identity, and I was/am way proud of my heritage, so I went to the county courthouse and got it back! I kinda like that I gave convention a try, even if it wasn’t for me.

    Like others have said, my husband and I have tentatively decided that when we have kids, daughters will get my name and sons will get his, although if we move to Scotland as we hope, I might get him to change his name yet!

    • Isn’t it strange how names are pronounced differently in countries that speak the same language. I’m a New Zealander, and here we pronounce ‘Dalziel’ as Dal-zeal. There is a former MP with your surname and I have family friends with the same name and they all pronounce it Dalzeal. Interesting!

80. I chose to take my husbands last name and make my maiden my middle name. I really wanted to keep my maiden but being an opera singer found a happy compromise. In opera it seems like the longer your name the better so i go by the whooooooooooole thing, which sometimes confuses people in the real world who think its hyphenated but no its not I just use the whole thing and its awesome. I like having the same name as my hubs because I feel like it makes us a family, but I’m proud of where I come from and wanted to honor that, I found the perfect half and half for me/us.

81. I was given a hyphenated name at birth, and I always thought I’d never change it, but I ended up taking my husband’s name because a) it was really important to him (he wanted one family name, plus he’s pretty traditional in some ways), and b) I figured I could trade my dad’s super common but often misspelled name and my mom’s obscure Norwegian name that nobody can quite pronounce right, for my husband’s quite uncommon but nicely English name. Unfortunately, part B backfired, because even though it’s a very English name that follows all the usual rules of English phonics, people usually actually mangle the pronunciation worse than I ever dealt with before. Oh well.

82. THANK YOU! I did an addition without a hyphen, but this post completely resonates. My thoughts on the name change game: http://thebluestmuse.blogspot.com/2010/08/because-i-need-longest-name-ever-aka.html

83. Gracious. When my husband and I got engaged one of the first things that his father said (after getting over the shock and finally believing that no, I wasn’t pregnant) was “oh no! Your last name! We’ll give you money if you want to change it.” Because in both of his marriages my father-in-law (and my mother-in-law as well) maintained separate last names with his spouse. Which meant that my husband has a hyphenated last name. Worse, his siblings have hyphenated last names that don’t match his because they have a different father. It’s a bit of crazy town when you marry into a family with not one, not two but 6 different last names in the immediate family. My husband had hated his last name growing up. It sort of sounds an awful lot like a well known 90s rapper’s stage name. And that’s if you go the PG route. The name discussion we had regarding our pending nuptials went something like this:

    Him: You should keep your last name.
    Me: I don’t want to keep my last name I want to have the same last name as you. I’m a traditionalist that way.
    Him: You shouldn’t take my last name. I’d be oppressing you by making you take your husband’s last name.
    Me: You’re oppressing me by denying me my choice to take your last name.
    Him: Maybe I’ll take your last name.
    Me: Absolutely not, my family would never accept it and that’s just weird to me.
    Him: We could always go with a triple hyphen..add yours to the end.
    Me: AbsoBEEPINGlutely not. Just no.
    Him: Why can’t I take your last name?
    Me: Why is it so hard for you to understand I just want to have your last name? This is the easy route. There’s no charge for me changing my name..there is for you changing yours.
    Him: Okay.
    …
    Me: You know this means we have to have lots of kids to carry on this name into infinity.
    …
    Him: You’re weird.

    Honestly I love our last name. The only thing I don’t like about it is that people insist on calling me Mrs. Last Half. As though I was one and he was the other and that’s the only way a hyphen could be made. It’s annoying. Also, I’m trying to create an ivy league name that will one day generate respect and awe here. The new Kennedy’s or something. Just kidding. We’re totally too disruptive to be in the ivy league. Maybe just the rhododendron league, then.

84. I considered hyphenating my name because everyone was making a stink about me keeping my last name, but I decided having an 18 letter last name was cumbersome. As for any future possible children, that’s our business and I would tell them to mind their own : D

85. I have a hyphenated last name from birth (as you can see), and it is an enormous pain in my ass, partially because half of it is French (but we pronounce it LehSayge, not LuhSahhge). People usually think the whole thing is French. I think, in general, people like to make things more complicated than they actually need to be.

    When I get married, I’m changing my last name and getting my maiden name tattooed on myself somewhere, because as much as I hate it, it’s still part of my identity.

    • Oh, and to clarify, my parents are still married, and my mom has one last name, my dad has another, my sister has my dad’s name, and no one else on the entire planet has my last name. I don’t like that! I want to be part of a clan, and there *is* no Lanyon-LeSage clan.

    • I had that idea too! Because I like my name and it kicks ass (Benavides – the good life) but my fiancé thinks that’s worse than hyphenating.

86. I have a hyphenated last name and I LOVE IT!!! I didn’t want to give up my last name, my husband didn’t want to give up his, but we also wanted to take each other’s names. So we settled with hyphenating. It’s fantastic too because our daughter now has our hyphenated last name and I just love it. Could I mention any more that I really love my last names? lol

87. My surname is Scotland. There is ACTUALLY a country named after me. FH’s surname is pretty common, and with all the male cousins/brothers he has, it’s very likely to get passed on. I’m the only Scotland (from my family) left. And he STILL wants me to change it. Soooo NOT happening.

    • I like your last name, and I think he should change his last name to yours. I think its ridiculous that women are expected to change their names and men get to keep theirs. It would be awesome if he turned the tables on society and took your last name.

88. Like lots of people, I’ve always hated the fussiness of hyphen names. However my fiancee and I want to share a name, her family would be upset if she changed hers, and on principle I don’t want to to change to theirs and drop my own.
    We compromised… I am legally taking on my mother’s maiden name (which I use as a middle name for non-legal purposes) and joining it to my partner’s… Kinnersly-King. It goes with King better than my current surname, I’m not dropping my heritage all together, and it appeals to some feminist ideal somewhere in me etc. I am really, really close with my father so I’m a bit sad not to share the name, but really it won’t change anything at the end of the day!!
    Kudos on the OB who pointed out the trans/intersex issue with gendering surnames… something not many people think of!
    x

89. The reason I’m not hyphenating my name (even though I though about it) is because it’s too long. My birth name is Catherine Elizabeth C******. add on my fiancés last name and it’s Catherine Elizabeth C******-B****** That’s 34 letters, and definitely won’t fit in most form spaces.
    Plus, if I take his last name, I’ll be Catherine B. and his mom is Kathryn B. (since his dad was a Jr. and he’s a III it makes it even better)

90. I am most definitely hyphenating! Bell-Nauman. Firstly, I think it sounds cool and secondly, my dad past way two years ago and I want to honor him by keeping my name attached. I feel hyphenating shows respect from where you came and where you are headed with your future husband.

    QUICK QUESTION: So, if my last name will officially be Bell-Nauman, legally, will our children be FirstName Bell-Nauman? Or would their last name just be Nauman?

    • Your children will have whatever last name you put on their birth certificate!

91. I’ve recently gotten engaged (that feels so weird/ exciting to say) and as a result, have been pondering the whole last name thing.

    In any other situation I would either hyphenate my name or just make my current last name part of my middle name. But… My parents gave me two middle names that are hyphenated. So my current name is already formatted: Firstname Jewel-Marie Lastname.

    I don’t want to completely get rid of my current middle or my current last name because professionally I go by “AJ lastname”.

    Would it be too cumbersome to attach another name? Would “name name-name name-name” be just ridiculous? LOL.

92. This is an issue my FH and I have been trouble compromising on! But thankfully we’ve sorted it now. i wanted to hyphenate because I like my last name and its such a part of who I am and wanted to keep it, but he was pretty offended at the idea of hyphenating and our kids and us not having the same last name. So we decided on making my last name part of my middle name as well 🙂 and then taking his last name. So all in all happy compromise!

93. (All with fake names.) My partner’s last name is like ‘Laddock’ and mine is a bit like ‘Smith-Holmes’. I like mine because it makes me unique, whereas there are quite a few Hare Laddocks in the world. Also, I think I just prefer Hare Smith-Holmes. It’s not a choice between my parents’ names; it was a name from generations back on my father’s side.

    But then again, I’d like to have a shared name because I think it is nice to share a name as a family. Conversely, it’ll be strange to have a different surname from my siblings and cousins.

    I’m going to have to think about it a lot more.

94. I’m stuck. My fiance’ really wants me to take his name, and I’m all for that. I see the whole respect thing. BUT… here’s my issue: I have a daughter. She has MY middle name and last name (how cute! I made us match!), and my fiance’ is not her father. SOOO… once we get married, and I change my last name… my daughter will no longer have the same last name as me.

    I’d LOVE to hyphenate my last name, but I don’t necessarily want to write it all out on EVERY thing.

    Are you legally able to have a hyphenated last name but when signing and writing for papers put just one last name?

    Lets say I’m Jane Doe Smith, and once I get married I’ll be Jane Doe Smith Deer. Am I able to Just sign Jane Doe Smith sometimes while other times sign Jane Doe Deer?

    With things regarding my daughter, I want to use OUR last name (Jane Doe Smith). And with things (bank accounts, bills, etc) regarding my fiance’ and I I want to be able to use Jane Doe Deer.

    Ooooohhhh I hope my rambling wasn’t confusing.

    • Basically, you can call yourself whatever you want. You may not have noticed, but on a lot of legal/finance documents it will ask you if you go by any other names, so even on legal bank documents you can use which ever one.

      Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I’m just going with what I’ve heard and experienced.

95. I’m totally hyphenating my last name. After 27 years I’ve become very comfortable with my last name and I don’t want to lose that part of me. My fiancee is from Bosnia and as such has a long hard to say foreign name that I do love and love to tease him about (seriously, I’ve been trying for years to make him adopt the phrase “back in old country!”). So with that, and adding in the fact that I have two middle names, I absolutely don’t mind having two last names.

    Plus when that happens my initials will be TJAWZ! How can you not love that?

96. So I have a hyphenated last name, my parents were married but mom never took dads last name and my brother and i are moms last name-dads last name. And it is unique Ill give you that, but we kinda feel its far from awesome. My brother and I constantly have to explain our last name, have problems with banking, online forms and anything not set up to deal with the hyphen (which is still most things from government documents to standardized tests). He got married and now his wife (and their three kids) have the hyphenated last name because he didn’t want to loose Dads last name (only male with the name) and Mom raised us after they were divorced. I am reaching an age where people, because of the hyphenated name think I’m married and I have to explain that. I love both of my parents to death but this is something I would never wish for and I hope whoever I marry has a good last name I can take.

    I like what one of the other posters said about like smooshing last names together rather than hyphenating. I keeps each name but makes it easier.

    If that’s what you choose to do for yourself and your children go for it, just know that it can present some challenges in systems that still can’t handle the offbeat!

97. My future children, I was touting just giving them three names, first and Mom’s last-dad’s last (we are hyphenating), but now I am deciding to saddle them with a lovely five names (after all I will have five upon marriage…I have First, Middle, Mom’s maiden as second middle, and Dad’s last…Then I will be First Middle Middle Dad’s-Husbands. Nobody who knows me knows my father (at least non-relative wise), as my Father was never really in the picture. The name I got was from my mother (her “married name” but she kept it upon divorce by her choice);and I feel its Matrilineal, Spanish, and mine. My soon to be hubby had a bit of a freak out moment (which caused me to freak out), last night about it, but everything is fine right now.

    As for the Five names, my children will be First, Mymomsmaiden-hismom’smaden (hyphenated middle), and Mylastname-hislastname (hyphenated last)…his mom’s maiden is the shortest of all the names. only 4 letters long.

98. My last name and my fiance’s goes together well with the hyphenation.

    It is something like Corrent-Bruckman ( similar spelling variation of our names). And I like it. Its very Unique.

99. We are hyphenating and I believe its pretty awesome to have a unique name. I personally have 4 names already, so adding one more, isn’t a problem. The most I believe a person could have would be like 7. Of course I believe it will change in the future. This is also the more reason to me to have lots of kids. One is bound to love the name, keep it, and find somebody who loves it as much as they do.

    I do foresee problems with it, then again, I also foresee a business opportunity of selling a program that can list really long names. (AKA no character limit, and if there is such a program already out there, get marketing). To me, all the hassle is worth it. I get to simply expand my identity. And that is so worth it to me in the end. And I sincerely hope that my fiance will come to love his new hyphenated name as much as I do. He’s been nervous about it.

100. I hyphenated with the idea that marriage was the joining of two people, not the elimination of one. My name had been my identity for as long as I could remember, and I just didn’t recognize the person who was my first name and my husband’s last name. So I hyphenated.

     I wouldn’t do it again. American society and computer systems have a really hard time with the whole hyphenation concept. To make it worse, my last name can also be a first name and the hyphen remains silent when I say my full last name.

     When I use my full last name, here’s how I usually do it: “My last name is ‘Lindsey-Locke.” That’s a hyphenated last name, ‘Lindsey hyphen Locke’. L-i-n-d-s-E-y, HYPHEN, L-o-c-k-e. ‘Lindsey-Locke’.”

     I’m exhausted and fed up by the time I’m done, and oftentimes I have to spell it out even further: “No, it’s not ‘Locke.’ That’s the second part of my last name. The first part is ‘Lindsey.’ I should be filed under ‘Lindsey,’ with ‘Locke’ coming after the hyphen. You see, the hyphen connects the two parts of my last name. That’s its function, to keep the two parts together so the ‘Lindsey’ never gets left off (like you’ve just done).”

     So I usually just go with my own last name and avoid using my hyphenated one. Then I only have to deal with people thinking I’m saying my first name when I’m really giving them my last, but that’s been a lifelong problem so I’m used to it.

101. I decided that there was no way in hell that I was going to hyphenate or just add my FH’s last name when we get married. I do want to take his name but it would be crazy to hyphenate because mine is 9 letters long and his is 8. It’s already hard to sign on some things I couldn’t imagine my name being any longer.

102. I am having a serious issue with all of this right now. My first marriage I wanted nothing to do with my maiden name so I just took on my husbands, which was fine except when we got divorced he wanted to have a fight with me about the last name, and I just didnt want to deal with all the paperwork invovled in changing it back; it took my family a bit getting used to but now I am Amber Lynne Johnston. Flash forward to now that I am getting married again; and now stuff is all complicated. He doesnt want his last name, (neither do i honestly; Amber Lynne Berry sounds like a fruit and I hate it) I want my maiden name back, but were not sure how all that legally works…or who to ask. If its easier (and cheaper) to just hyphenate his last name or something So:
     Amber Lynne Jentink-Berry
     Amber Jentink Berry
     Tyrell Kurtis Jentink-Berry
     Tyrell Jentink Berry

     I think I like the latter: Changing our middle names to my maiden name and taking on his last name.. even if we dislike it… I dunno… any ideas?

     Also Does He have to go through the process of changing his name if he does it like that?

     • When my wife and I applied for our marriage certificate in New York City last month, we were given the option of changing our last names. They said we could choose either one of our last names (hers or mine), either of our previous last names (for instances of divorce or previous name changes), or any combination of our last names (hyphenating or creating a new name out of our last names ie: Smith and Johnson could be combined into Smithson or Josmith, etc.)
       We didn’t have to pay for a name change then, but we are waiting for our marriage certificate to be mailed back to us and then have to change our driver’s licenses, s.s. cards, etc. and I’m sure there are fees involved in that. I wouldn’t worry about the cost, if you have to pay a hundred dollars or so to change your name to something you like instead of saving money and ending up with a name you don’t like, I would always opt for spending the money to have something you like (if you can afford it.)
       I am not sure about any of the rules when it comes to a male changing their name, but from previous posts it seems like it is a more difficult process than if it is a female changing their name.
       Not to promote any websites, but there is one that will help you along in the name changing process and make sure you have all the paperwork filled out properly for the state you live in. Additionally, a quick internet search for name changing procedures in your state will give you an idea of the process you and your FI will undergo.

     • Also, I think its freakin’ awesome that your guy is going to (or at least considered) taking on your last name with his! Most guys wouldn’t do that, but your guys did and he rocks!

       My wife and I debated what we would do for a while. She has an awesome last name (which no one can pronounce, but offers a cool nickname), so she didn’t want to loose her last name and take mine, and I love my initials (H.E.R.) too much to get rid of my last name either. We decided to hyphenate, but we also didn’t want to each have different last names; we are a legal family and we wanted everyone to see us as such. So we both added each other’s last names into our own names, I added her last name to the end of mine and she added my last name before her last name. We are both FirstName MiddleName MyLastName-HerLastName.
       The only thing is, she already had 3 first names, a middle name and her last name (not including her confirmation name!) Now she has 6 names and 35 characters (not including the hyphen).

     • I believe it varies by state. My county has an online marriage application with a link to the rules for name changes. I for one, can’t have two separate last names, there has to be a hyphen. And a recent equality act means that both spouses have equal rights to name changes.

103. My partner and I are both the ‘end of the line’ in our families and we both want our kids to carry on our names, hyphenating however will lead to a 17 letter long last name. The idea of one child getting one name and the other getting the other name is interesting, however I hesitate to this creating a ‘my kid your kid’ situation especaily because one of us will be giving birth to one child and vice versa. Maybe name them opposite of who carried them? too confusing?

104. what happens if the man you’re marrying already HAS a hyphenated last name?!

105. I know this is last year’s news but check out this year’s news on the subject. P.S. Just decided to hyphenate my name (for work) but going to go by hubby’s last name as far as the rest of world is concerned. I’m kind of excited to finally have patients stop facebook friend requesting me! 🙂

106. Hi, Becca. Was just wondering and I’ve been going crazy searching online. What are the middle names of people with hyphenated names? Is it their mom’s for straight couples? Like, FIRST NAME / MIDDLE NAME / MOM’S LAST NAME / MOM & DAD’S LAST NAMES HYPHENATED or is it like — FN / MN / MOM’S LAST NAME / HYPHEN / DAD’S NAME? I am just ever so curious! I’m going ballistic. Haha! Can parents give out random last names? Hmm. Please please answer. I am begging for an answer. Haha. Thank you. 🙂

     • I mean, random “middle names”, btw.

107. I really like the idea of both taking on a hyphenated last name — it’s a union, a joining of two people, etc. Unfortunately, my first name is hyphenated! So I feel like a double-barrelled last name might be a little much… although FH and I are joking that I should hyphenate, then make my legal middle name ‘Hyphen’, so when I read my name out on the phone it’s “Maria hyphen Jane Hyphen Brodie hyphen Franklin”. Maybe a bit offbeat even for me! 😛

108. Update of life with a hyphenated name: After 1 year and 1/2 of a hyphenated name we where going to give it up and do the conventional/traditional thing to do. I decided now I don’t care what other people think, that for Airlines: I will just do the whole First Middle Initial Last last on the ticket (and that is his name), and then for everything else I will just do the Hyphenated name.

     About technologies issues: Some sites do allow hyphens, some don’t, others have character limits, while others don’t- its not uniform, so this really isn’t an issue with technology, its a issue with human laziness
     About Airlines: I just use my First name and Last last, simple for the airlines, its on my license anyway.

     Maybe one day we will just move to drop the hyphen…or not. I don’t think I will any time soon. I don’t want to, and the kids will have it.

     As for kids: Hyphenated last name period. Maybe just three names: First Mine-his
     That is it. That is what I’m happy with. He wants them to have a middle name. We will see about that, I just want them to have a good unique first name, and the hyphenated name that should really be a symbol of our compromise and commitment to each other.

     That is the most important thing, that the name you choose really reflects both of you, and your kids will just have to deal with it their way.

     • Also – I feel that this needs to be its own statement.

       It seems most men (not all but most), have a hard time (my husband included) with change, they have a hard time accepting its not going to be easy, but that it may just be worth it. He still hasn’t gotten used to it, but I realize I have. I realize people love the hyphenated name once they know that we aren’t weirdoes, and they usually respect it after that. Once both of us stand up for it that is.

109. I’ve been tossing around the idea of hyphenating my last name after marriage with my FH, but I have a pros and cons list going. The key reason I would WANT to hyphenate my last name would be to keep my last name of Fischer in the family so that it wouldn’t die out with my generation; I have 3 younger sisters, and my dad only has one brother, who also has all daughters- the name would die out with our eventual marriages.

     The reason I wouldn’t want to hyphenate my last name is because it would be pretty long and doesn’t flow well together (it would be Fischer-Christensen). It would sound a little better if I reversed it to Christensen-Fischer, with my maiden name as the second half, and Christensen would be a pretty awesome-sounding middle name! Plus, it’s the combining of two very commonly misspelled names (mine is often spelled without the ‘c’, and there are so many different spellings of Christensen).

     Is there any real ‘correct’ way to hyphenate your name? Like, does it HAVE to be ‘maiden name- new name’, or could it be ‘new name-maiden name’? I’m not quite familiar with the etiquette that comes along with hyphenating. Any comments and thoughts are welcome! 🙂

     • I believe you can do whatever you please. When you change your name, you can technically change it to what you wish. Like people who go in to change first names, or switch up first and middle names. That’s what the paperwork is for. As long as you like it, and your husband is fine with it! I don’t think there’s really a ‘rule’ for that. (:

110. My future husband’s name is “Lang”. We’re German and in our mother tongue “Lang” means “long” or “tall”. Whereas he is quite a tall guy, I’m more on the smaller side and I don’t like the idea of being ‘the short Mrs. Lang’.
     So I have decided to keep my maiden name (which is a beautiful name btw and goes really well with my first name), but I’m really considering a hyphenated name to simply show my love for him and his family. I also think that it would be a good compromise in dealing with our families’ Catholic traditions. (Apparently I would be the first bride in both our families to keep her maiden name. Scandalous!)

111. As someone who has had a hyphenated last name since I was four, I am one of those who is over it. It’s hyphenated and NO ONE can pronounce it correctly…. I am SO excited & ready to have ONE last name. I dug my hyphenated name for a while. My dad passed away when I was one & when my mom remarried, she didn’t want us to forget him. I respect her immensely for that. But, for me, that name has run it’s course. I mean no offense to those who dig their hyphens forever! I do see the other side. I could see how awesome hyphenating can be. However, me? Personally? I’m just over it. Hopefully, I’m not the only one. 🙂

112. but if I hyphenate our names I’ll be Mrs Marsh-Turner……being nicknamed Bog most of my childhood (or Marshmallow) I’m not sure I want to be a Bog-Turner…… 😉

     But that said, there are some AWESOME hyphenated names….my issue is with MY last name being hyphenated 🙂

113. I was going to hyphenate my last name when I got married, but my husband and I both had 2-syllable last names ending in “er” so it didn’t quite roll off the tongue so I just took his last name. 🙂

114. Thank you thank you THANK YOU for this. Seriously. It was odd to me at first that I was considering anything but just taking a new name, but I have made the decision to hyphenate my name when I get married. For a multitude of reasons, but the biggest one being that I feel like my last name is a huge part of myself. When I get married, I’m adding a person to my life, not taking away a part of me. So it makes sense to me that I should add to my name as well, not take away from it. Most reactions I get are “Why? You don’t have a profession as a reason to hyphenate, so why do it?” I’m so glad somebody gets it! This fall I will be Kennedy-Wilson, and I will love being able to share my new husband’s last name while keeping my own. And I’m totally going to share this list with people who don’t get my decision.

     • From the male point of view, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a woman hyphenating her name at marriage. My wife elected to hyphenate and I honestly wanted her to for a couple of reasons. One because her kids actually have her maiden name after their biological father chos to no longer be a part of their lives. When he did that, the kids no longer wanted his name. She wanted to maintain that link. Also, because her last name is fairly well known where we live and her maiden name has some pride with it. And lastly, I’ve always thought that hyphenated names rocked. Hers(Barton-Smith) flows quite nicely. My wife is a strong woman and we need more strong women in our society today to be positive role models for our daughters.

115. My fiance and I had quite a long discussion about this. In my first marriage, I couldn’t wait to get rid of my last name because I didn’t, at all feel associated with my Father’s side of the family. By the time the marriage was over 4 years later, I couldn’t wait to get it back! I lost a part of myself by changing my name. My fiance doesn’t want that to happen again, but I want to feel like I have a part of him too, so I wanted to hyphenate. He is very much against this (he has two middle names and doesn’t want the frustration of that to be passed to my last name). So we compromised and I will also have 2 middles names, moving my maiden name to a middle name. We will probably do this for our children as well (add my maiden name as a second middle name).
     Thanks for the article! It’s helped me solidify my decision.

116. I like my last names, not so much my name… pople just dont get it… is hard even in spanish and english speakers cant say it right… 🙁 went with an easy name for my son (Diego) and his father lastname is easy too (Romero)

117. I hyphenated my name because 1. I liked my last name, and 2. It’s been with me my entire life, I wasn’t just going to give it up! Sure, it can be annoying sometimes when I have to remind people that it starts with an A not a W (just as Becca mentioned) but I wouldn’t change it. In fact, I get rather annoyed when people just use my husbands name and completely ignore the obvious hyphen.

     • I agree……if a woman hyphenates her name, then she should be referred by her hyphenated name, including legal documents & email correspondence.

118. I *love* my last name. It’s perfect for me, as I’m pretty much that “cat lady”. Also, it holds some importance to me, as my grandfather’s entire family died in the holocaust. So I’m the only one who can well, carry that name. (perhaps as silly as that sounds) But, it is part of my identity and I’m proud of it.

     but? I love my fiancè and his family. And I feel super awesome to have his name.

     After much talk, we actually both decided to hyphenate our names to Gallagher-Kats. So that’s pretty awesome.

119. We’re hyphenating our names. It’s a colour + a bird, ie Black Goose. My friends snicker when they hear it but at least we have our own mascot? Makes us feel like a team. I had a stamp made for our wedding correspondence.

120. I have changed my name entirely from the name I was given at birth and it had nothing to do with marriage. I gave myself a first and last name but no middle. When I get married, provided his or her last name isn’t awful, I’ll move my last name “Ryan” into my middle name spot and be “Druscilla Ryan Depp” or whatever.

121. Trying to decide on this. I’ve done the whole name change thing before, and its a pain in the butt! My fiancé wants me to take his name but I’m not willing to lose mine (I offered to take his name if I could get mine tattooed on but he wasn’t too fond of that idea either). So I think I’m going to hyphenate… my name will be Benavides-Quesada, which I love, and already accept that most non-Spanish people will neither know how to pronounce nor spell it. I think I will keep my maiden name for work and military duty… mostly because I don’t want to change all my uniforms and when all you go by is your last name it really confuses people.

122. I never changed my last name when I was married the first time, I always had a feeling it wouldn’t work out. So my fiancee and I have decided I would change my last to his…I’d hyphenate, but it so happens that his last name is half of mine, (Kerr, Tucker) so that would sound too funny to be serious. Tucker-Kerr, Kerrtucker. Hahaha.

123. I believe it’s all down to personal choice. I’m getting married in September and my new surname is hyphenated, Sturman-Panter. I like it , I’m not bothered about changing my name as my current name is my ex-husbands. I didn’t change that when I divorced him as I’m in the UK it’s a whole big expensive drama to do. It’s also my children’s (all girls) surname. I also was not fond of my maiden name as I got teased for it a
     lot. Whatever name I have doesn’t change who I am, or define my identity 🙂

124. I wanted to hyphenate my last name when I got married, but unfortunately my first name is technically hyphenated since when I was born there wasn’t space for two middle names. So if I were to hyphenate my last name after marriage my name would be:

     Kelsey-Leigh Adler S*******-S****

     Which honestly is getting a little absurd. I could always drop the Adler, but as it’s my mother’s maiden name I’d feel bad. Any input is appreciated here 🙂

125. I’ve had a hyphenated name all my life, Nila Colon-Street, and I love that it’s so different although I do have my share of annoying problems. ex: “No, we need your name not your address!” yes I am aware of that, that IS my name. Seriously, I get that ALL THE time. Lol. And trying to merge names with my FH is proving to be a challenge. Nila Street-Cosgrove? Nila Cosgrove-Street? I don’t know it just sounds wrong either way, but thankfully FH is a good sport about it and will accept whatever I decide to do… Naming kids may be an issue though, if we ever have them.

126. I just got married and thought about hyphenation since I love my maiden name. Sadly Steele-Grubb sounded a little funny so I chose to just take Grubb. I think my future children will thank me!

127. I chose to hyphenate my last name because I felt I am gaining/adding to who I am and my lineage not losing or disconnecting wit who I am.

     • Absolutely nothing wrong with that!!!

     • Love this explanation. Going to use it on some picky relatives who like tradition

128. I was given a hyphenated name at birth! (And no middle name). I spent a lot of time growing up and being annoyed with my mom and dad for giving me BOTH of their names with a hyphen, but now, I am becoming more and more happy with it.

     I am getting married in less than two months, and I keep going back and forth about what to do with my name! There are many options, but, right now, I am leaning more and more towards legally keeping my current given-at-birth hyphenated name and using my almost-husband’s last name socially and personally when we have kids so that we are all associated as being one family (not that we wouldn’t be otherwise).

     I felt like already having a hyphenated name was even weirder if I wanted to keep it after marriage because a lot of people have enough trouble with it now (not sure why since it’s really not THAT complicated or THAT uncommon these days but I too have gotten used to all the variations and sometimes play around with it as well), and some have already thought my hyphenated name is my combined maiden+married name. But the more I find articles and blogs like this one, I am encouraged to keep my name as is, at least legally.

129. I really hate my hyphenated last name. It’s tedious when filling out forms, people have a really hard time remembering it and when I have to give my name for one reason or another many folks take the liberty of knocking one of the names off. This means that if I go to the pharmacy, the dentist or the doctor, there are at least three possible names my file could be under. Sometimes I have several files under several names at one location. My parents decided this for me, but I will not be deciding this for my children.

130. I have a questions, what could you do if my parents hyphenated and so did his, so both of our names are already hyphenated?

131. What a great post. I kept my name after marriage (http://itssimplylindsay.com/to-change-or-not-to-change/) and to this day, 2 years later, people have a problem with it. The people who accepted it now roll their eyes and act like I’m physically harming my baby by giving her *gasp* both my and my husband’s last names. It’s refreshing to hear something positive about this because people have such weirdly strong negative feelings about it!

132. I’d like to hyphenate our names as well but my maiden name consists of six letters while his is ten! I’d feel bad for our kids having to write it all out. My SO’s last name is difficult enough as it is for people to spell let alone pronounce! We have thought about combining the last names and sort of splicing them together but we’re both pretty keen on keeping our ties to our family names.

133. My last name is Åsgård – yup! I’m norwegian, so if the norse gods were actually real humans, they would be my ancestors (geni.com says so, at least). So I will definitely keep my last name.
     My husband to be’s last name is Skulstad, which is also a unique norwegian name. I LOVE his family, and want to be a part of it. So I’m planning to have both. I don’t think I / we will hyphenate, but we’ll see what happens! I am also thinking it would be SUPER COOL to have kids named after norse gods, hahah.

134. I absolutely love my last name. I’ve said since I was at least 10 that I would never change my last name. It’s mine. It’s German so for most Americans it’s weird, hard to spell, and no one can ever pronounce it properly, but it’s mine and I have a lot of attachment to my beautifully strange last name. Partly because my grandfather made the comment “I am not now nor have I ever been a pause and or stutter” when a telemarketers mispronounced it, partly because my entire extended family is made up of daughters (most of whom changed their name) and there aren’t that many of us left with it, and partly because I’ve lived the struggle for 28 years correcting people and learning to take the cruel jokes kids made up.
     Now that it’s my turn, we are thinking of hyphenating. I told my fiance early in our relationship that I would not get rid of my name, well before we were on the path to marriage. He asked about hyphenating, and I was like “why so I can still have a different last name than my family? No thanks”. He was shocked and confused, because he couldn’t understand why only the woman would change her name and not also the man. For this I am eternally grateful, because it showed me early the type of person he was and what expected from our relationship and ultimately for our marriage.

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