I have never intended to change my name, even when I dated dudes. Just wasn't something I thought twice about. We were going to hyphenate our kids' last name but I thought it was just too cumbersome, so told DW I wanted them to have her last name and mine would be their middle name. Not sure I'd have felt the same if I were married to a dude (on baby last names, that is).

Huh. The only Taliaferro I've ever known pronounced it just like bonny's.

I changed my name, mostly because I knew it would make David and his dad happy (it did, very much so) and I hoped it would make Emmett happy (what was I thinking? He couldn't possibly care less), and partly because David's ex had not and I was very firm on doing things differently than she had. Also, I was very tired of being at the end of the alphabet and liked the notion of trading up, at least a little bit.

I don't think any of those are especially good reasons, except the making David happy part, but the conclusion I've come to in the end is that I was really not much attached to my old surname and I'm not much attached to this one either - I would fight tooth and nail to keep Jacqueline, but it just doesn't matter that much to me what comes after that. I have my mom's brain and my grandmother's face and feet, and Matilda has my grandfather's sly grin and my cheek dimple; David and I have been married probably three times as long as he and his ex, and each of us is the person the other has been with longest in all our lives, and Emmett sometimes slips up and calls me Mom. And all those things matter much more to me than a surname.

Though if I could convince David that we should both change our names to Zmayhem, I'd be all the hell over that.

But not only will my last name change, but my Ms. changes to Mrs.

Wait, isn't the point of "Ms." that it doesn't denote marriage status (as opposed to Miss v. Mrs.)

part of my identity is spelling a difficult last name

Ahahahaha, yes.

I did not change my name or really even think about it as an option. I feel very much the same way le nubian does about it. We did discuss not-terribly-seriously about changing both our names to something new, but Tom was in the middle of getting his green card and knew that the feds would not be pleased about that kind of change.

JZ reminded me, one of the reasons I took H's name was I was tired of being in the dregs of the alphabet, too (I went to school with a girl whose last name, no lie, was Zyvith. I hope she married someone named Aaron).

But H and I had had the discussion, precisely because his name is difficult. Some of my friends were adamant about keeping their fathers' names. I've always missed the point of that, from a feminism stance--your father's name, your husband's name--it still a male relative's name. If you're so against taking a man's name, take your mom's name--oh, wait. Add to this is the fact I'm adopted. Legally, but still, I was not particularly attached to the name, which is not particularly attractive, and as I said earlier, latterly in the the alphabet, and I was rattling on about not really feeling as though I had a name of my own.

Whereupon, Himself cupped my nape in his hand, touched our foreheads together, and said, "Take mine." So, of course, I did.

You mean you didn't change your name to McWarnigle?

You nor Tom?

We've been laboring under a misapprehension all this while?

You mean you didn't change your name to McWarnigle?

Not technically, no. Sad but true!

I think whether I was willing to change my name would depend on the person's name I was contemplating! I'd also be willing to consider a mashup name. Because at some point we'd probably have to discuss kid last names, and that just gets complicate (Plus if you have kids and have different names, you end up being "Mrs. [Kid'slastname]" to everyone anyway)

Oddly, in some ways I am more attached to my last name than my first name, so...yeah.

Wait, isn't the point of "Ms." that it doesn't denote marriage status (as opposed to Miss v. Mrs.)

Yes indeed. That's more important to me than the name itself, honestly.

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

My mom recently told me that when I was a kid, I suggested we could do just that in our family. She appreciated the gesture, but she never liked her last name much anyway, so she didn't really care that my brother and I didn't share it. But she never changed her name to my dad's, which is one reason why I always knew I wouldn't change my last name either.

Deciding on a last name for our kids, though, was much trickier. We ended up going with M's last name, which I think was the right decision -- primarily because it meant so much to his parents, after his brother's death, that our kids, who would be their only grandkids, would have their name -- but I do sometimes feel like I let down the feminist team with that one. I have at least three (female) friends I can think of whose kids took their last names, and I admit it makes me feel a little bit jealous.

But, you know, it really is one of those things where the right decision is whatever feels right to you. And Teppy, I totally understand wanting your names to match so that it's easier for people to think of you as a family. I think especially if you don't have kids, the name is sort of the primary signifier that means, "We are a family."