My mother really could do that, Tep. Working in title has made her an excellent "forger"(Which I mostly think about regarding that one West Wing where the office worker can write like Bartlet.) About the name: Don't know...I joke that I'd be thrilled to drop this one, but it is my byline, so...(as if anyone wants to share a name with me. Sigh.) I don't know...do what you feel. I will always think of you as Steph Lang anyway.

DH just said, when I hollered "Will you take my last name?" "Take it where?"

Then when I explained, "It's often not the people in a relationship that make it fraught, it's all the other people."

When I was young, my dad wistfully asked me that, if I ever married, if I would keep my last name as a second middle, seeing as my 1 male first cousin was (at the time) pretty much a tool. I was all "I don't think I'll marry, but if I do, I'll just keep it." Which I did, and would have done without Dad having asked, but it's nice that his request and my preference dovetailed so nicely.

I never really seriously thought about taking DH's last name, although it is a fine one. 1. My last name is ME. It is mine, and I like it. It's on all my degrees and writings. 2. His brother has my first name, in the male form. Just NO. 3. Our son bears his last name, and there will be no other children to consider in the naming issue.

My female friends are divided evenly into keep/take, and so the choice was never a big deal there. Some strangers can't seem to wrap their minds around it, but that's their issue. And it REALLY boggles some of my students' minds! I've gotten a very few pieces of mail or verbal addresses as Mrs. DH'sLastName; the mail is never from people I know, and I just absently say, "Ms. MyLastName, please" to the verbal addresses, but I don't mind, unless the person is being a tool about it. Which has happened once. And DH never even thought I would take his, so we're cool, and that's all that really matters. And his family doesn't care.

But everyone's decision is going to be different for a myriad of reasons. ITA that it's annoying that most men don't give it a single thought. You've got a while to decide, Tep. Play around with writing/speaking different iterations, see what feels right, and go from there. And remember, if you don't take it in Sept., you have YEARS to make up your mind. No rush.

I have to admit I really came to dislike hyphenated names. (Except yours, SJ. Yours is perfect.)

Hey!

sj, I never get 'which is the _right_ last name", people just routinely alphabetize me under T. Happens, all the ever-loving time.

I'm so used to it, it doesn't really bug me anymore. I just wait while the clerk stumbles around, perplexed for a bit and then suggest checking under the wrong letter.

When I was very young, explaining the hyphen came down to "You know, like Wilfred Hyde-White (who was on a lot of daytime chat shows for a while) but now there are not "It's like" comparisons available any more, it seems.

I took Pete's last name and didn't really have any twinges about it. Which, in retrospect, does seem weird. But the important bit of my family name history is my middle name, which is the combination of my maternal grandmother & great-grandmother's names. Plus this way my initials are JVV, which I like better than JVS.

Plus this way my initials are JVV

Because it looks like a J followed by fangs.

And because you can do the last name spelling thing, "V as in vampire."

When I married, many, many years ago, I never really considered changing my name and my ex didn't expect me too. His name would have been easier, but part of my identity is spelling a difficult last name, plus I had several years of newspaper bylines. Hyphenating would have created a seven syllable last name, so no. Back then, I naively thought that by the 21st century, women would no longer routinely change their names.

Back then, I naively thought that by the 21st century, women would no longer routinely change their names.

This is what I thought!

Though, thanks to living a life with wildly eclectic people, I have no issues with anything anyone wants to call themselves, under pretty much any circumstances.

Speaking for myself and holding no judgment on people in the midst of making decisions or who have made decisions counter to my own position in this matter:

I have never consider changing my name. Even when I was in elementary school, I had no interest in changing my name should I marry in the future. My name is me and a core part of my identity. This was true before I established a professional reputation in the name I hold. Personally, I have really resented the patriarchal assumption that women should change their name when they marry. This is something that has bothered me nearly my whole life.

Hey!

Sorry! Obviously all Buffistas have made the exactly right name choices for themselves.

EM kept her last name and we had a bit of a tussle over Emmett's last name. I think she only relented because I gave her daily footrubs for all 37 weeks of her pregnancy. Ultimately he wound up with a two part middle name which was EM's father's name. So he is Emmett Jack Devine Smay.

My Mom always signed her name (after she was married) First Name Initial of Maiden Name LastName.

For awhile she talked about changing her name and I wanted to give her the money as a birthday present one year, but then her brother married a woman with the same name as Mom so she decided to stay with my Dad's last name.

(There were also issues in the fact that my Uncle's wife is a year younger than his oldest daughter and he wasn't divorced yet from his first wife when they got together).

One of his daughter's went through the process of legally dropping her middle name and making her maiden name her middle name.

Both my brother's ex wives took his name, although his 2nd ex wife used her maiden name professionally.

I think all my female cousins (that I know of) changed their names. But my cousin John's wife kept her maiden name.

Will and I aren't at the getting married stage but I'm probably going to keep my name. I'm used to spelling it out and dealing with the slight hassle.