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.

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

This is what I thought!

I wonder if part of it is that if you plan on having children you want to have the same name as them. I know that was part of the reason why I wanted to add TCG's last name to mine. When Mom remarried she took Stepdad's name, and I was really upset that my mother and I had different last names. So I want at least part of my last name to be the same as possible future children's last name.

And John has three kids and they all have their mother's last name as their middle name.

I wonder if part of it is that if you plan on having children you want to have the same name as them.

I've wondered this too.

When I married, my husband had 3 kids already and I was certain I would not have any of my own, so that didn't influence my decision, but I know some women for whom it was the deciding factor.

One family I work with sort it out by giving their girl children the mom's name and the boy's, the dad's.

When I asked if it was a problem with school or legal records their reply was something like, 'no more so than someone with a hard to pronounce name'.

I have to admit, I dearly love being called Mrs. Neil. Part of it is because so many people use first names routinely that I don't get to hear it often, so it feels more like an official title than a simple name. There's a bit of gravitas to it, which I appreciate at age 52. Plus, I just realized it rhymes with Mrs. Peel.

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

Which makes Pete facepalm, so added bonus!

If I would have had a kid, I would have hyphenated kid's last name. It's no more cumbersome than many naming conventions that include the mother and father's last names in a child's name. Or, yanno, weirdly pronounced British last names. "Featherstonehaugh," I'm looking at you!