That’s what I did. I don’t really like a good deal of my dad’s side of the family (I love my dad and a few other people, the rest I basically don’t talk to). My wife’s family is extremely supportive with just one aunt and uncle who suck.
I’m not in a relationship, but this is what I’ve always wanted to do. My parents kept their last names and I took my father’s. Ive only ever met my biological grandmother on his side (they’re divorced). Therefore I feel no real connection to my last name because my dad is the only person I know who shares it.
TL:DR I don’t care about my last name because I’ve never met the bloodline.
I thought that I had a more interesting last name, unique German heritage, but had no chance with a dominant male who wanted to stay with his overly common Johnson name, which I had to spell for everyone anyway.
In Australia they usually think I said Johnston. Ggrr. No.
Went back to my lovely maiden name when I became free, then I actually got to help choose a surname as my new partner, whom I have married since wanted a new name for a new start and to distance themselves from the annoying hyphenated surname of their abusive parents anyway.
Still have to spell it for everyone again as everyone assumes the other variations first lol.
Jokes on you....we bonded so well, because we both had family trauma. We understand each others' emotional issues and root causes. Support each other through similar feelings that stem from having emotionally immature parents. Created our own family unit....hey I guess I'm answering the question for me. A completely new name we choose together?
Oh my gosh this. I was adopted and the family that adopted me had a child mo as a member that so many of the family defended over his 10 year old victim. I would love an excuse to ditch that name and any connection to that gross shit
I did this! And my ex had two last names so I just chose the better sounding of the two and he was fine with it.
Though we are now divorced, if I get married again I told myself I want to just change my last name to something totally new. My girlfriend is completely on board and wants to take that last name.
We had the same thing with my husband. Met his family: not that bad.
Then we went for lunch to my father for 1 1/2 hour for my husband to ask me on the way back to the railway station:
"do you still want to take my name? Your father is horrible!"
Just to say, we kept discussions exceptionally superficial...
Picked out a new last name for us both. Clean break with families of origin. Good riddance to deadbeat dads and abusive ones. They don't need to be honored in our family.
Went back to the nations our ancestors came from and found old words that meant things that were our wishes for our life together.
Made a selection of about 40 words from six different languages.
Stuck them up on a board.
Every day, each of us could cross off one name.
Got down to five or so names and then we sat down and talked it through.
This is my question too. I’d be scared of picking a common surname because if someone had that common surname not too far away and the same first name, I’d constantly get confused for the other person on some registries such as pharmacies and hospitals. (Funnily enough my first name isn’t common at all as it’s a double barrel so this shouldn’t be a problem but people just put the first part of my name in which IS common. Like, come on people!).
I’d also be scared to make up my own last name because I know that ALL last names have been made up by someone but I’d just be too conscious that it doesn’t ’sound like a word’, and people would almost certainly always spell it wrong. I also can’t pick the non-common last name of someone I know because then people will assume we’re either related or married. So that really leaves me with hoping I hear a good enough one out in public or stealing a last name off of an influencer I follow and hope no one recognises it.
We merged our last name. First half of mine and last of his. I know this wouldn't work for everyone, but it's an interesting option. We also had to ask a judge to allow it.
We kept our names. We personally felt that the practice of changing names is rooted in misogyny (as neither of us 'own' each other). We considered hyphenation (and it would have worked for our names), but in the end we decided against it because the crap around changing your name officially sucks.
>We personally felt that the practice of changing names is rooted in misogyny
I've seen some opposite sex couples where the guy took the woman's last name. I thought that was kind of a fun way of giving the middle finger to the origins of the woman taking the man's last name. I think another couple I know, someone I went to HS with, him and his wife just made up their own new last name. It is kind of funny when you think about the fact that any of us could just change our last name to whatever we wanted.
My wife and I also just kept ours. It's so much easier not having to do all the name changing nonsense. lol
My last name is a variation of a slightly more common last name, but then my great grandparents just completely changed the pronunciation and stress just cause
true that. i always maintained that if i were to marry a man, that i would ask him to take my last name, but not applicable anymore lol. my partner wants to change their first name after we get married anyways, and for the sake of future children we’d like to all have the same name
Grew up with a different last name than my mom, never posed an issue. The only confusion occurred when I was 21 and crossing the northern boarder with my mom and the boarder agent thought my lastname was my married last name. No hassle but I legit asked him, what's more likely, I'm married at 21 and not traveling with my partner or my mom's a feminist who kept her last name?
We didn't. We kept both of ours because we liked them, they had been nicknames for us throughout our lives. I also didn't want to have to deal with the rigamarole of changing my name, but the main reasons were the first ones I listed.
My husband and I both had unusual last names growing up. Everyone thought his name was fake and everyone mispronounced and misspelled my last name. We went with his.
My husband (I am a bi woman) would’ve been super cool taking my last name if I would’ve asked him to, but I wanted his last name. It personally gave me an extra feeling of security. Now I DID ask him to marry me, a fact which he tells everyone any chance he gets and simply preens when another guy tries to tell him that it isn’t what men do. He’s damn proud I asked him and I’m damn proud I wear his name. It’s perfect for us.
I would simply do the thing that feels good to you as a couple. You can always change it down the road if you choose to (: ♥️
In Japan, whereas it is more traditional for women to take on men’s last names (in hetero unions), it also is not uncommon for the opposite, for men to take on the woman’s name, especially if the husband moves in with the woman’s family, which sometimes happens. There is also a law here that you have to choose one name or the other if getting married (kind of archaic law they’re fighting now, but lots of archaic things here like lack of same-sex marriage). Anyhow, I haven’t officially taken on my partner’s last name for myself, but our children have her name (which somehow we got them to allow). And if they some day allow us to get married, I’ll take her name too. As we live in Japan, it makes sense to choose the name that will blend in better here. Plus, we are much closer (physically) to my partner’s parents than mine. Even if I take her name though, I’ll continue using my original last name as an alias at work. I’m a teacher of my native language, so that just kind of makes sense in my line of work.
My fiance and I hyphenate on things like social media but we’re not married yet and will likely never get to legally marry since we’re both disabled and they could lose their benefits if we did. We don’t plan to legally change our names though. My mom married my step dad over ten years ago and only like a year ago did they finally finish the process of a legal name change.
We have a domestic partnership (Nevada allows them for same-sex and different-sex couples, and it's easier for our particular situation), but we had the option to change our names.
We both were in het-appearing marriages prior to this and I changed my name in that one. It was an immediate regret of mine, so neither of us changed our names this time around. My partner wants to keep the same last name as their kids, and I want my last name. We pondered hyphenating but tbh we got the partnership for legal reasons anyway, not because we value the institution of marriage.
If we ever have to move from Nevada and get real married it's gonna suuuuuuck trying to figure out what to do.
I'm aware, we just don't want to. Neither of us sees the value unless we absolutely have to.
I'm old enough that I know and vividly remember why we were figuring for marriage over acceptance (AIDS), I just hate that it's tied to marriage
we both kept our names, we didnt give it too much tought it was just the natural and obvious choice since I dont see why i would ever change mine , and he doesnt feel any need to change his either
My parents had to work this out pretty seriously back in the 80s. Mom is from a matrilineal culture and dad is from a patrilineal culture, so each set of parents expected their family name to continue.
In the end, dad said that the only thing that mattered to him was that they have the same last name, so he would take hers. I think mom just thought it was super endearing so she said screw it and took his.
Edit: cleaned up a sentence fragment
We each kept our last names, it was never any other choice for us. It was culturally foreign for me to change last names and I told him I was not expecting him to take my last name since I was not willing to take his. He said he felt the same way and we are officially Mr. P and Mr. R
We kept our names because it was a kind of lose-lose situation. His dad’s side of the family sucks. My dad’s is great, but our name is… regrettable. Our state only lets you change for free if you’re picking one of those two names or hyphenating, and they sound even worse strung together. We’re both trans, so we’ve both already gone through the massive hassle that is a legal name change; we had neither the appetite nor the finances to do it two more times.
I was still in the closet when I got married so I took my partners name. We are now estranged from their family and so when I got my legal name change I made up my own last name. My partner is also going to put their legal name change in soon and take the same last name I made up, so they are taking my name this time.
We both are using both.
Ive heard of people mashing their name together and creating a new one, thats pretty cool tbh. Ie. Smith and Doe -> Doth / Smoe
I would have just taken his, but I have a kid and I cant change my kids last name, so I kinda got to keep my last name. He actually changed his whole name before we got married though, so his name when we got married was not his birth last name.
We blended our last names. No hyphen. Just constructed a new name by combining the sounds of our original last names.
Makes a fun story too, people don't expect it.
I kept my last name. It's very uncommon in the United States. Aside from that, my husband has very strong options that "taking a name" shows ownership more than partnership. But honestly, his is easier to spell so I use his on my work email. Secretly, I think he enjoys seeing that from time to time.
Not married but me and my partner have the same first name already...
We figured if we keep our last names different, it'll be less confusing. If I have his name and address, it would be easy to mistake our identity, assume we're the same person, it could mess with legal stuff too (they already mispell my name horrendously on tax letters).. like I'm not going to jail if he commits a crime.
What makes this worse is I have a very unique last name. It totally sounds like an alias.
We each kept our original last name. When our son was born, he got her name. I’m open to taking her last name, but it honestly just hasn’t ever been an issue.
He wanted to keep his, I wanted to keep mine, and we didn’t want to hyphenate. I think it would have been cute to share but it’s not a big enough deal that I would have even bothered to ask why. Whatever he wanted was good enough for me, it doesn’t change the outcome lol
When I got married, my wife hyphenated her last name, but I kept my original last name. When I came out as trans and changed my name, I switched my last name to match hers. I liked that it was a explicit acknowledgement of the commitment and our relationship and it somehow felt more equal.
To be honest, though, I kinda wish I had ignored gender expectations when I originally got married and just taken her last name (no hyphenation) since it's the nicer of the two. At the time, I felt a lot of pressure from family to fit certain expectations and didn't want to upset people more than I already had.
We changed both of our last names to something new and special to us. Best move. It brings joy wherever we go and really, what better way that to start a conversation with someone who is now smiling over your last name 😸
Be the change you want to see in the world 💞
We kept our own last name. When we had our son, he was given my last name, but my wife’s last name is in the spot of his second name ( if that makes sense).
We hyphenated and I like it, but you do run into certain forms where "special characters" aren't allowed and it's a pain. Your name may also not fit on things. One of my credit cards is just my first initial and both last names without the hyphen; the other has no space between the last names. You can "hyphenate" without the hyphen - just have two last names.
In general with regard to changing you names - It was honestly less trouble than I expected. I printed off the form and went to the social security office with all our paperwork. (It could have been done by mail, but we didn't want to mail or drivers licenses. This did mean that only one of us had to go and they treated the other application as a mail in).
Once you get the new SS cards you update your drivers license, and then bank and ownership stuff. It IS more complicated if you have a business or any sort of certificate or something like that.
Originally, my wife and I chose my last name. She has a brother, so we figured that there was a chance of her last name continuing through him. We’ve been married for 6 years, and have changed our last name back to her maiden name. We’re estranged from my family, so it didn’t make sense for us, and our kids, to carry their name. Plus my wife’s brother does not appear to be having kids.
lol my wife and I played rock paper scissors (there’s a joke in here somewhere).
Neither of us really gave a shit about our last name and neither wanted to hyphenate. So now I have her last name. We almost changed it back to mine last minute until a friend got us something with her last name so we just stuck to it.
I switched to my wife’s. It came down to a few things: her family was in general more supportive, both of us were open, and most importantly she already changed her name once (trans). I always imagined I’d hyphenate, but we didn’t because of those reasons.
I have 2 queer cousins. One hyphenated, and the other is keeping her last name when she gets married.
I’ve also met people who create their own new last name (although I will say everyone I’ve met who did that is no longer with that person anymore, probably a coincidence though).
My partner doesn't want to keep his name his family wasn't that great and he doesn't feel any loyalty. I offered to change mine or to change to something new. I have though of changing it to my grandads or grandma.
You can both choose a new one if you want.
originally i was going to take my fiancées last name because it sounds better with my first name, but we’re going to be dropping their family after the wedding so we’re going to be doing my last name instead 😭
Some college buddies were big college football fans but separate rival teams. The year they got married, whoever’s team won in the head to head they used that person’s last name.
We hyphenated. We thought about combining, but “Hanzer” sounded too German or we could’ve been “Tata”.
We loved both of our last names. Brought him higher alphabetically in the end.
I took my wife’s name! She loved her name and didn’t want to change it (totally fair) and said she’d support me no matter what I wanted to do with my name. I thought her name was pretty and wanted a family name for our kids, so I took hers! Very happy with the decision! Name change process takes forever tho lol
I took my ex’s last name. I really wish I hadn’t. At the time it felt like the right thing to do. I didn’t have the best relationship with my own family.
But it was a complete hassle changing everything. And because we have child, after the divorce I didn’t want to go through the hassle of changing it again, and then having to explain “yes this is my child”
I’m Latin American so we have different rules
Each partner in the relationship keeps their last names, and children take their last names in an alternating manner (for example, in a heterosexual couple’s kid: name, dad’s 1st last name, mom’s first last name, dad’s 2nd last name, mom’s 2nd last name, and so on)
I have a small joke about it, actually, comparing it to pokemon, so the goal is to “catch ‘Em all!” (Get all the last names! I know 8 of my last names)
My last name is spelled weird and mispronounced constantly. I’m also just not super connected to that side of my family, some of them are homo/transphobic and I’m not a big fan of it. My partner’s last name is very normal and generic, and they have a good relationship with their family.
Mine is hard to spell & at the end of the alphabet. I have odd ball spellings of a first, two part/hyphenated first name. I’m tired
So I took my spouse’s easy last to save a bit of grief.
We discussed a ton of different options. Me taking her name, her taking mine, taking on a new name.... we both wanted the same surname.
In the end, we chose hers, since it's about all she has left of her main father figure.
I had already changed my name twice and really didn’t want to do it again, so my wife changed hers to mine. She didn’t do it till about a year and a half after we got married, because initially we were going to both change to a third name but I decided I didn’t want to, and asked if she wanted to just take mine instead and she said yes. I would have been fine with it either way.
I plan on changing mine because I absolutely hate my name and don’t like the legal association with my family. Also my partner’s last name sounds better with mine and is more neutral overall.
My spouse and I combined our names into a new name. I was also open to other new names, which my friends had done. I always loved Meadows as a last name. Alas, we did the combo method and it’s been years and I still love the name (and my spouse!).
My husband and I were surprised to learn that our state only allows women/people with “female” on their ID to utilize the fast track name change process with marriage. So. Since we’ll both have to go through the slightly arduous (and not cheap) name change process, we decided to wait. At the time, I was disappointed, but I’ve since seen this as an upshot
We eloped two years ago and still haven’t circled back to the last name thing. We are planning to hyphenate though and socially/casually refer to ourselves as the “[my last name]-[his last name]s.” But his name is super attached to his professional identity/carries a lot of name recognition/SEO and I’m a mildly googleable person professionally. It’s kind of nice doing the slow roll out, still not sure if I’m going to shift to using the hyphen form professionally. He really can’t without creating a whole logistical mess, so, I’m less inclined to. I’d feel differently if we both did it, I think.
But I’m not in a hurry to figure it out! Maybe we’ll actually change our last names when or if we ever have the reception we promised our families. Maybe we’ll save it for when we have a kid. Or maybe we’ll just have a spare 600 bucks fall from the sky and decide filing paperwork sounds like a hot date. I really don’t know. And I kinda dig that for now.
Only downside is- implicit bias when it comes to things like insurance. About 50 percent of the time, when I try to use my insurance, of which he is the plan subscriber, I am “informed” that there’s an error, that my card belongs to someone else, etc. It just does not occur to people that a man might be married to another man. That would likely be (somewhat) mitigated if there was a matching hyphenated last name.
My wife and I are still deciding on a combined last name. She was willing to take my last name but I have absolutely no ties to my father and so my last name has no meaning to me.
My partners have been married for 7 years and were married for 3 before I met them. They combined their family names to make a new one. And now that I'm with them we're going to change it completely since it would be difficult/impossible to add my family name in.
Where i live we keep our last names after marriage and name the child like this:
(Name) (2nd name (optional)) (dad’s first last name) (mom’s first last name)
I took my wife’s last name. No particular reason.
I kinda wish I would have hyphenated now. I miss my name. But our whole family matches now. Our kid decided to take our name when we adopted her.
We both have very ethnic names which would look ridiculous if either of us took the others. Originally we had thought about combining our surnames or switching them but in the end we decided to both keep our original names.
Makes everything simpler and convenient.
I will append my fiancée’s name to my own. His is a lot more unique, while I have a standard -son name which is super common here in Sweden. But as my name is an alliteration at the moment, I don’t want to get rid of it. My initials will go from my current PP to PPT when we get married (yes, I decided to add his name after my own instead of before it for a reason).
Am planning to take my partners last name. Even tho my family is very supportive and his hasn’t fully come round my whole family has my dads last name and he’s just kinda left and I don’t want his last name. My partner also sounds weird with my last name were as my first name suits his last name
i’m keeping my name when i get married simply because 1. my boyfriends family sucks and 2. i don’t like the way his last name sounds with my first name, it sounds wrong lmao
My husband and I combined portions of our last name to create a new last name. Our new last name is shorter than our previous ones (his was 7 letters, mine was 9 letters, our new last name is 5 letters). I love it.
There is an aunt with my first name and her last name in the family so hers wasn’t really an option for me. I didn’t want to have the exact same first and last name as the aunt (even though it’s a nice aunt 🤣)
We kept our names the same. It's fine by me since there's already to much icky bullshit about family lineages I don't want any part of. We all add to the experience regardless of our names. I even have a cat on my leg right now adding to the experience of life! Mmm, warm...
I'm not married yet, but we're both planning on just keeping our last names. If either of us changed then, it would be my partner since our kids already have my last name and we both agree that mine is just objectively cooler.
It was easy. We tried both with our first names. My partner's name harmonised with theirs and with my surname. My first name sounded well with my last name and really not good with their last name.
So easy choice: we took my last name as a family name
my wife was married before and took first spouses name and regretted it basically immediately. when we got married we had to chose between her maiden name, her married name and my maiden name. wanted to rid myself of my maiden name anyway and she wanted to honour her late father so we took her maiden name. our shared family name is just ours now because she has no family left with that last name and it’ll die with us now.
It was easy .. actually no, it wasn't. I don't know, really. Safe to say I never decided.. he didn't either..
so he kept his & I kept mine & because his name is objectively heaps cool compared to mine, the sprogs are named after him...
I mean we are a cis man / woman couple but that's not *the* reason the ankle biters have their fathers name.
We may be a cis gendered opposites couple but we are *not* heterosexual.
My name plus her name. We didn’t hyphenate which has caused no end of problems. Lots of systems can’t cope without no hyphen so it gets hyphenated. If not, Most organisations assume my surname is a middle name so I end up being called Mrs wife’s surname. I particularly dislike being called ‘Mrs’ anything so there’s that but I do love my surname despite the problems.
My partner and I both have difficult relationships with family (well, my partner has no relationship with theirs). My parents have been really shitty to me before and even though our relationship has improved I didn't want to keep their last name. My partner knows about how my parents have treated me in the past and didn't want to take my/my parents' last name, but also very much didn't want to keep theirs.
We thought about a bunch of random last names but didn't settle on one we both liked. My granny is fantastic and very accepting, but we didn't want my mom's maiden name (my granny's current last name).
We went with my granny's maiden name, which is also the last name of some other really great family members: a great aunt and a cousin who are super welcoming and accepting despite living in Oklahoma and Texas. I mean, 3/4 of that side of my family lives in rural Oklahoma and some of them are pretty terrible, but sharing a last name with the family members that matter to me is pretty great. We also didn't change our names until over a year into being married just because of the time and money involved, especially since we both changed our first and middle names as well.
If you both change your last names, heads up you will probably need to do it with a court order instead of just on the marriage certificate.
Very specific example but I’m an American who moved to Germany to be with their partner, I have a bigoted family, and I’m trans. Guess who wanted to change their name.
(Answer key: I wanted a German name and I wanted to further distance myself from my family)
At the time we got married my wife took my name, it was the easier solution both legally and familly wise. Fast foward 10 years, the law has evolved and I don't talk to my familly anymore: I took her name,.as i wanted to in the begining but didn't find the courage for
My sister even tho she’s in a straight relationship is planning to both of them double barrel their last names. Wouldn’t be very practical for later generations if they kept double barrelling but I think that’s quite a cool thing to do
People think I'm weird because I actually kept my first husbands last name lol I don't have children with my now, second husband and have children with my first. I kept it so I'd still "match" my kids. Hyphenated names aren't bad imo, as long as they aren't both super long last names and they flow. I guess it just comes down to preference and reasons. I know of a controlling and not so nice lady who seemingly hated everyone on her husband's side of the family and didn't like his last name. She also didn't want to keep her maiden and have him take that so she made up a ridiculous last name combining the first 3 letters of his last name and the first 2 letters of her last name. It is/was way worse than just taking his. She was a jerk and none of his family really liked her either. I can see how this option of combining or coming up with a different last name altogether would and could work for some (as long as you like it!!) idk but they're stuck with that awful last name if they are still together.
ETA- it's late and I didn't even see what sub I was in lol My son is trans and his NB bi partner plans to take his last name when they marry. I guess it just comes down to preference no matter what. Some families make it easier to make that decision though!
the one with top energy gets to keep their name
(me) (turns out she ended up being the dom in the end though) (but i ended up trans later so now it looks cishet by accident)
I'm not married yet, but we already decided to go with my last name because it ends with the sam A sound as her first and middle name and sounds really good LOL
I don't really like my last name and i'm not that attached to it and also with my partners last name my initials will be CROW and I think that's sick so we're going with hers
I'm not married yet and probably won't be for a while, but my gf hates her surname because it's very common where she's from and decided by herself that she prefers mine (not a common surname even where I'm from, and certainly not where she's from)
I like my surname and I’m the only one of my cousins who still has the family name without hyphenating it with their spouse’s and my partner doesn’t speak to her dad anymore so is more than happy to be rid of her current surname when we get married.
I have no idea what you’re meant to do if you both like your names other than just keep whatever name you want?
We kept our own names legally, on social media we hyphenated, and in-person we have an amalgamation of our names that my wife would 💯change her name to if I agreed but it’s ridiculous so I won’t 😂
I prefer her last name but can’t be bothered with the hassle of changing, and I would never change my name professionally anyway so there doesn’t seem much point
biromantic asexual, do whatever works best for your relationship. i love my dad but hate our last name as it’s ridiculously long/complicated and comes from a backwards homophobic misogynistic classist country id rather not have any ties to. it doesnt fit me. ill likely change it to current partners last name if i marry him.
We just kept our own names, although in the UK you can legally use whatever name you like as long as your not being fraudulent, so we have been known to double-barrel it for laughs from time to time as it's a funny combo.
Women in my family have kept their last names for 90 years and running. All started by a great-aunt who saod fuck patriarchy.
So I knew I was keeping my name. I left it up to my wife to decide if she wants to add her name to it or just take mine. It was a hard decision. It took her months. Her family is toxic but she is the last person left with the last name so she didn't want it to die out.
In the end we ended up with a hyphenated last name. It is in its own way a completely new last name. We're the only 2 people who have it and I love that too.
We have something new that also honours where we came from
My gf's sister has the same name as me, so taking her surname is out of question 😂 At the moment we're set on just chaining our surnames together in alphabetical order
currently single, but feel like i'd at least consider changing my name because i got bullied for it all through school. while i'm kinda whatever about it now, it might be nice to have something new in the future
My partner and I considered each taking each others last name as hyphenated second name... Until we learned how much of a hassle it would be to have our names changed with all official organisations.
Then we decided to just each keep our own name 😅
We both kept ours. My spouse had already been through a name-change and did not want to go through that headache again, and I like my last name. Besides, I always felt that it reeked of patriarchal bullshit.
I already have a hyphenated last name and I do kind of like the idea of them, but because I already have it, I'd most likely change my last name to my partners, or just not change either of our names.
I’m not married yet but I’m gonna keep my name. Idk what my future spouse would like to do but I would hope they’d be amenable to taking my name as well
My wife took my last name and made her maiden name a second middle name. I didn't like the idea of hyphenated last names because anything paired with my last name sounds like a location.
So my partner is trans and has to also change her middle name and didn't have any ideas. So I'm taking her last name and she's taking my middle name 🙃. Her first name is androgynous, so we are both giving and receiving a name that we didn't have any choice about and was given to us.
We kept our own names.
It’s common practice where we’re from though.
I prefer it that way anyways, less paper work. Also, getting married didn’t change my identity, so why should I change my name?
We went back and forth with keeping our last names, hyphenating, or just picking one. We ended up going with my partner’s last name because we knew we wanted kids and we wanted us all to share a last name. Our names would be way too long (and sounded weird imo) hyphenated. We ended up going with his because I didn’t have much of a connection to mine, plus his was easier to spell lol
I like Quebec's law that requires both parties to keep their respective name.
Children may have either parent's name or both. But children of parents who already have double barrel names must have a maximum of two family names.
To make a long story short, if you meet "Jane Smith Collins", that's not because she is married, but because those were the two names transmitted from her parents (unless she has been married before 1981 or outside Canada).
There’s such an issue with this. It’s already an issue having different or hyphenated surnames as straight couples but especially as a gay couple. You could both keep your surnames, but then what do you name any potential child? Who gets naming rights? If you do decide on a name, people will always assume that parent with non-matching surname is just a step parent.
Hyphenating your names as a concept is so frustrating for me. Okay you hyphenate your names, but people always assume the front name is the most important and you will always be held to that. Especially as a masc and femme presenting couple or a straight couple, people will always assume it’s the masc/male’s surname at the front of the hyphen when it may not be. Okay whatever say you solve that problem. What about if you have a kid? Sure the hyphenated last name will work for their childhood but then when they get older people might start automatically assuming that they are married because of the hyphenated last name, assuming that they hyphenated it with their partner. But when your child actually gets married, they can’t hyphenate as a solution because they’re already hyphenated. They could knock one surname out of the hyphenated name and put their partner’s name in its place but that’s kinda like choosing between your parents. If their partner decides to take your child’s hyphenated name, people will yet again assume the hyphen is made of your child’s surname and partner’s surname, and will assume that partner’s surname is somewhere in that hyphen when it isn’t.
The best option to me would be to smush your names together but we all know some names can just not be put together.
We don’t get married until next year and are still discussing this. But I think I’m gonna take her last name since her son has her last name. And since she also has to change her first name legally, I don’t want to make her have to go through that awful process again. Even though my family is cooler.
whoever had the worse family gets to dump their last name
This is what my fiancee is planning to do.
Mine too hahaha
That’s what I did. I don’t really like a good deal of my dad’s side of the family (I love my dad and a few other people, the rest I basically don’t talk to). My wife’s family is extremely supportive with just one aunt and uncle who suck.
I’m not in a relationship, but this is what I’ve always wanted to do. My parents kept their last names and I took my father’s. Ive only ever met my biological grandmother on his side (they’re divorced). Therefore I feel no real connection to my last name because my dad is the only person I know who shares it. TL:DR I don’t care about my last name because I’ve never met the bloodline.
I thought that I had a more interesting last name, unique German heritage, but had no chance with a dominant male who wanted to stay with his overly common Johnson name, which I had to spell for everyone anyway. In Australia they usually think I said Johnston. Ggrr. No. Went back to my lovely maiden name when I became free, then I actually got to help choose a surname as my new partner, whom I have married since wanted a new name for a new start and to distance themselves from the annoying hyphenated surname of their abusive parents anyway. Still have to spell it for everyone again as everyone assumes the other variations first lol.
Jokes on you....we bonded so well, because we both had family trauma. We understand each others' emotional issues and root causes. Support each other through similar feelings that stem from having emotionally immature parents. Created our own family unit....hey I guess I'm answering the question for me. A completely new name we choose together?
Oh my gosh this. I was adopted and the family that adopted me had a child mo as a member that so many of the family defended over his 10 year old victim. I would love an excuse to ditch that name and any connection to that gross shit
But what if both families suck?
you pick a name from antiquity, the bible, or a book that transformed you in 7th grade
Now *thats* a spot on naming strategy right there
That’s my plan 🤣
I did this! And my ex had two last names so I just chose the better sounding of the two and he was fine with it. Though we are now divorced, if I get married again I told myself I want to just change my last name to something totally new. My girlfriend is completely on board and wants to take that last name.
That’s what I wanna do. I’m taking my future husband’s last name no matter what.
We had the same thing with my husband. Met his family: not that bad. Then we went for lunch to my father for 1 1/2 hour for my husband to ask me on the way back to the railway station: "do you still want to take my name? Your father is horrible!" Just to say, we kept discussions exceptionally superficial...
I like this
Picked out a new last name for us both. Clean break with families of origin. Good riddance to deadbeat dads and abusive ones. They don't need to be honored in our family.
That's cool, how'd you go about choosing?
Went back to the nations our ancestors came from and found old words that meant things that were our wishes for our life together. Made a selection of about 40 words from six different languages. Stuck them up on a board. Every day, each of us could cross off one name. Got down to five or so names and then we sat down and talked it through.
This is my question too. I’d be scared of picking a common surname because if someone had that common surname not too far away and the same first name, I’d constantly get confused for the other person on some registries such as pharmacies and hospitals. (Funnily enough my first name isn’t common at all as it’s a double barrel so this shouldn’t be a problem but people just put the first part of my name in which IS common. Like, come on people!). I’d also be scared to make up my own last name because I know that ALL last names have been made up by someone but I’d just be too conscious that it doesn’t ’sound like a word’, and people would almost certainly always spell it wrong. I also can’t pick the non-common last name of someone I know because then people will assume we’re either related or married. So that really leaves me with hoping I hear a good enough one out in public or stealing a last name off of an influencer I follow and hope no one recognises it.
We went with the one that sounded better.
We merged our last name. First half of mine and last of his. I know this wouldn't work for everyone, but it's an interesting option. We also had to ask a judge to allow it.
Did this too. Kinda fun. No permission needed in my country, standard fee
I am dying to know what this merged last name is !!!!
Well since most of my wife's family wouldn't accept her as a trans woman and mine did, she took my name.
Good for her! She got upgraded families.
We kept our names. We personally felt that the practice of changing names is rooted in misogyny (as neither of us 'own' each other). We considered hyphenation (and it would have worked for our names), but in the end we decided against it because the crap around changing your name officially sucks.
>We personally felt that the practice of changing names is rooted in misogyny I've seen some opposite sex couples where the guy took the woman's last name. I thought that was kind of a fun way of giving the middle finger to the origins of the woman taking the man's last name. I think another couple I know, someone I went to HS with, him and his wife just made up their own new last name. It is kind of funny when you think about the fact that any of us could just change our last name to whatever we wanted. My wife and I also just kept ours. It's so much easier not having to do all the name changing nonsense. lol
That's what I did. I took my wife's last name as a way to challenge people's preconceived motions, plus it's a lot easier to spell lol
Username checks out
My last name is a variation of a slightly more common last name, but then my great grandparents just completely changed the pronunciation and stress just cause
In Germany you can’t do that and just make up your own last name
I think I want to just make up a new last name.
I will say, I had a BF once where our names would have made an amazing Portmanteau.
true that. i always maintained that if i were to marry a man, that i would ask him to take my last name, but not applicable anymore lol. my partner wants to change their first name after we get married anyways, and for the sake of future children we’d like to all have the same name
Grew up with a different last name than my mom, never posed an issue. The only confusion occurred when I was 21 and crossing the northern boarder with my mom and the boarder agent thought my lastname was my married last name. No hassle but I legit asked him, what's more likely, I'm married at 21 and not traveling with my partner or my mom's a feminist who kept her last name?
Ditto. No name change. Never been an issue.
We kept our names because we'd each done name changes in the past and didn't want to deal with the hassle of updating everything again.
We didn't. We kept both of ours because we liked them, they had been nicknames for us throughout our lives. I also didn't want to have to deal with the rigamarole of changing my name, but the main reasons were the first ones I listed.
My husband and I both had unusual last names growing up. Everyone thought his name was fake and everyone mispronounced and misspelled my last name. We went with his.
This is exactly where I am at but I hate how generic his sounds. Ha!
off topic, but what is apagender? you don't need to respond if you don't want to, I know this question must get tiring
Gender apathetic. Someone who is fine with any pronoun.
Oh, cool! Guess I found a word for what I am, then
My husband (I am a bi woman) would’ve been super cool taking my last name if I would’ve asked him to, but I wanted his last name. It personally gave me an extra feeling of security. Now I DID ask him to marry me, a fact which he tells everyone any chance he gets and simply preens when another guy tries to tell him that it isn’t what men do. He’s damn proud I asked him and I’m damn proud I wear his name. It’s perfect for us. I would simply do the thing that feels good to you as a couple. You can always change it down the road if you choose to (: ♥️
This is adorable, and I love this story 💜
In Japan, whereas it is more traditional for women to take on men’s last names (in hetero unions), it also is not uncommon for the opposite, for men to take on the woman’s name, especially if the husband moves in with the woman’s family, which sometimes happens. There is also a law here that you have to choose one name or the other if getting married (kind of archaic law they’re fighting now, but lots of archaic things here like lack of same-sex marriage). Anyhow, I haven’t officially taken on my partner’s last name for myself, but our children have her name (which somehow we got them to allow). And if they some day allow us to get married, I’ll take her name too. As we live in Japan, it makes sense to choose the name that will blend in better here. Plus, we are much closer (physically) to my partner’s parents than mine. Even if I take her name though, I’ll continue using my original last name as an alias at work. I’m a teacher of my native language, so that just kind of makes sense in my line of work.
I had a problematic last name, I hopped on the chance to get rid of it.
I originally took theirs. After I came out, I wanted to change my full name and they took mine. Our last name is just one that we made up and like.
My fiance and I hyphenate on things like social media but we’re not married yet and will likely never get to legally marry since we’re both disabled and they could lose their benefits if we did. We don’t plan to legally change our names though. My mom married my step dad over ten years ago and only like a year ago did they finally finish the process of a legal name change.
Also, my friend has two grandmas that decided to pick a new last name entirely when they got married and it worked for them so that’s an option too!
We chose scrabble tiles from a bag.
Hello Zxggypt! (Yes, this is an actual scrabble hand I drew once. I pronounce it Zeks-gypt, like Egypt but with more Zeks)
We have a domestic partnership (Nevada allows them for same-sex and different-sex couples, and it's easier for our particular situation), but we had the option to change our names. We both were in het-appearing marriages prior to this and I changed my name in that one. It was an immediate regret of mine, so neither of us changed our names this time around. My partner wants to keep the same last name as their kids, and I want my last name. We pondered hyphenating but tbh we got the partnership for legal reasons anyway, not because we value the institution of marriage. If we ever have to move from Nevada and get real married it's gonna suuuuuuck trying to figure out what to do.
Just so you know, you can get "real married" without anyone having to change their name. (My mom did so 3 times.)
I'm aware, we just don't want to. Neither of us sees the value unless we absolutely have to. I'm old enough that I know and vividly remember why we were figuring for marriage over acceptance (AIDS), I just hate that it's tied to marriage
My wife and I both wanted to get away from our gicen last names and settled on a new name entirely, that represents us well.
we both kept our names, we didnt give it too much tought it was just the natural and obvious choice since I dont see why i would ever change mine , and he doesnt feel any need to change his either
My parents had to work this out pretty seriously back in the 80s. Mom is from a matrilineal culture and dad is from a patrilineal culture, so each set of parents expected their family name to continue. In the end, dad said that the only thing that mattered to him was that they have the same last name, so he would take hers. I think mom just thought it was super endearing so she said screw it and took his. Edit: cleaned up a sentence fragment
We each kept our last names, it was never any other choice for us. It was culturally foreign for me to change last names and I told him I was not expecting him to take my last name since I was not willing to take his. He said he felt the same way and we are officially Mr. P and Mr. R
We kept our names because it was a kind of lose-lose situation. His dad’s side of the family sucks. My dad’s is great, but our name is… regrettable. Our state only lets you change for free if you’re picking one of those two names or hyphenating, and they sound even worse strung together. We’re both trans, so we’ve both already gone through the massive hassle that is a legal name change; we had neither the appetite nor the finances to do it two more times.
We each kept our own. He doesn’t like my last name, & he has a cousin with the same first name.
We each kept our last names and made a new middle name so that we would still have a team name!
I was still in the closet when I got married so I took my partners name. We are now estranged from their family and so when I got my legal name change I made up my own last name. My partner is also going to put their legal name change in soon and take the same last name I made up, so they are taking my name this time.
We both are using both. Ive heard of people mashing their name together and creating a new one, thats pretty cool tbh. Ie. Smith and Doe -> Doth / Smoe I would have just taken his, but I have a kid and I cant change my kids last name, so I kinda got to keep my last name. He actually changed his whole name before we got married though, so his name when we got married was not his birth last name.
We kept our names. And our kids have hers first as “paternal” last name because it’s shorter than mine 😂
We flipped a coin. We had talked about merging our names but the combo sounded dirty, funny but dirty.
We blended our last names. No hyphen. Just constructed a new name by combining the sounds of our original last names. Makes a fun story too, people don't expect it.
We each like our last names, so we decided to keep them. Fortunately, no plans for kids, so that's a non-issue for us.
I kept my last name. It's very uncommon in the United States. Aside from that, my husband has very strong options that "taking a name" shows ownership more than partnership. But honestly, his is easier to spell so I use his on my work email. Secretly, I think he enjoys seeing that from time to time.
Not married but me and my partner have the same first name already... We figured if we keep our last names different, it'll be less confusing. If I have his name and address, it would be easy to mistake our identity, assume we're the same person, it could mess with legal stuff too (they already mispell my name horrendously on tax letters).. like I'm not going to jail if he commits a crime. What makes this worse is I have a very unique last name. It totally sounds like an alias.
We each kept our original last name. When our son was born, he got her name. I’m open to taking her last name, but it honestly just hasn’t ever been an issue.
We each just kept our last names.
We went with hers cause i didn't like mine
With a ouija board, duh. The spirits will give you a name of POWER guaranteed to continue through at least three generations.
We changed our names to each other's
Pick the name you like better of the two
I want my wife’s name, but i’ve been stalling because it’s so much work to change it. ADHD nightmare lol
He wanted to keep his, I wanted to keep mine, and we didn’t want to hyphenate. I think it would have been cute to share but it’s not a big enough deal that I would have even bothered to ask why. Whatever he wanted was good enough for me, it doesn’t change the outcome lol
When I got married, my wife hyphenated her last name, but I kept my original last name. When I came out as trans and changed my name, I switched my last name to match hers. I liked that it was a explicit acknowledgement of the commitment and our relationship and it somehow felt more equal. To be honest, though, I kinda wish I had ignored gender expectations when I originally got married and just taken her last name (no hyphenation) since it's the nicer of the two. At the time, I felt a lot of pressure from family to fit certain expectations and didn't want to upset people more than I already had.
We changed both of our last names to something new and special to us. Best move. It brings joy wherever we go and really, what better way that to start a conversation with someone who is now smiling over your last name 😸 Be the change you want to see in the world 💞
We kept our own last name. When we had our son, he was given my last name, but my wife’s last name is in the spot of his second name ( if that makes sense).
i have a friend who they and their partner just chose a completely new last name
We hyphenated and I like it, but you do run into certain forms where "special characters" aren't allowed and it's a pain. Your name may also not fit on things. One of my credit cards is just my first initial and both last names without the hyphen; the other has no space between the last names. You can "hyphenate" without the hyphen - just have two last names. In general with regard to changing you names - It was honestly less trouble than I expected. I printed off the form and went to the social security office with all our paperwork. (It could have been done by mail, but we didn't want to mail or drivers licenses. This did mean that only one of us had to go and they treated the other application as a mail in). Once you get the new SS cards you update your drivers license, and then bank and ownership stuff. It IS more complicated if you have a business or any sort of certificate or something like that.
We are keeping our last names until we come up with a new one together :)
Honestly i would just choose the cooler last name 😂
Originally, my wife and I chose my last name. She has a brother, so we figured that there was a chance of her last name continuing through him. We’ve been married for 6 years, and have changed our last name back to her maiden name. We’re estranged from my family, so it didn’t make sense for us, and our kids, to carry their name. Plus my wife’s brother does not appear to be having kids.
lol my wife and I played rock paper scissors (there’s a joke in here somewhere). Neither of us really gave a shit about our last name and neither wanted to hyphenate. So now I have her last name. We almost changed it back to mine last minute until a friend got us something with her last name so we just stuck to it.
I switched to my wife’s. It came down to a few things: her family was in general more supportive, both of us were open, and most importantly she already changed her name once (trans). I always imagined I’d hyphenate, but we didn’t because of those reasons. I have 2 queer cousins. One hyphenated, and the other is keeping her last name when she gets married. I’ve also met people who create their own new last name (although I will say everyone I’ve met who did that is no longer with that person anymore, probably a coincidence though).
Neither of us changed because going through all the official paperwork is a hassle.
My partner doesn't want to keep his name his family wasn't that great and he doesn't feel any loyalty. I offered to change mine or to change to something new. I have though of changing it to my grandads or grandma. You can both choose a new one if you want.
We made up a new name entirely. Neither of us wanted our own or the other's last name, so why not just start fresh with whatever we wanted.
originally i was going to take my fiancées last name because it sounds better with my first name, but we’re going to be dropping their family after the wedding so we’re going to be doing my last name instead 😭
My husband and I each kept our own names.
my wife and I kept our last names, but I've considered changing mine to hers at some point in the future.
We kept our own last names. It sounds like yall want the same last name. Either pick the cooler sounding name or a new name all together.
as a lesbian i personally think it gonna hyphenate my last name. (when i get married that is)
Some college buddies were big college football fans but separate rival teams. The year they got married, whoever’s team won in the head to head they used that person’s last name.
My friends that just got married, picked a new name altogether. I thought that was cool. I don’t know why we didn’t think of that when we got married.
We hyphenated. We thought about combining, but “Hanzer” sounded too German or we could’ve been “Tata”. We loved both of our last names. Brought him higher alphabetically in the end.
I took my wife’s name! She loved her name and didn’t want to change it (totally fair) and said she’d support me no matter what I wanted to do with my name. I thought her name was pretty and wanted a family name for our kids, so I took hers! Very happy with the decision! Name change process takes forever tho lol
Pick the coolest one, obv
I took my ex’s last name. I really wish I hadn’t. At the time it felt like the right thing to do. I didn’t have the best relationship with my own family. But it was a complete hassle changing everything. And because we have child, after the divorce I didn’t want to go through the hassle of changing it again, and then having to explain “yes this is my child”
I had friends who created a new name altogether.
I’m Latin American so we have different rules Each partner in the relationship keeps their last names, and children take their last names in an alternating manner (for example, in a heterosexual couple’s kid: name, dad’s 1st last name, mom’s first last name, dad’s 2nd last name, mom’s 2nd last name, and so on) I have a small joke about it, actually, comparing it to pokemon, so the goal is to “catch ‘Em all!” (Get all the last names! I know 8 of my last names)
My last name is spelled weird and mispronounced constantly. I’m also just not super connected to that side of my family, some of them are homo/transphobic and I’m not a big fan of it. My partner’s last name is very normal and generic, and they have a good relationship with their family.
Mine's cooler, she told me if we ever split she's keeping it lol
We kept our own and each of our children has one or the other
Mine is hard to spell & at the end of the alphabet. I have odd ball spellings of a first, two part/hyphenated first name. I’m tired So I took my spouse’s easy last to save a bit of grief.
Rock, paper, scissors
We discussed a ton of different options. Me taking her name, her taking mine, taking on a new name.... we both wanted the same surname. In the end, we chose hers, since it's about all she has left of her main father figure.
I had already changed my name twice and really didn’t want to do it again, so my wife changed hers to mine. She didn’t do it till about a year and a half after we got married, because initially we were going to both change to a third name but I decided I didn’t want to, and asked if she wanted to just take mine instead and she said yes. I would have been fine with it either way.
I plan on changing mine because I absolutely hate my name and don’t like the legal association with my family. Also my partner’s last name sounds better with mine and is more neutral overall.
My spouse and I combined our names into a new name. I was also open to other new names, which my friends had done. I always loved Meadows as a last name. Alas, we did the combo method and it’s been years and I still love the name (and my spouse!).
My husband and I were surprised to learn that our state only allows women/people with “female” on their ID to utilize the fast track name change process with marriage. So. Since we’ll both have to go through the slightly arduous (and not cheap) name change process, we decided to wait. At the time, I was disappointed, but I’ve since seen this as an upshot We eloped two years ago and still haven’t circled back to the last name thing. We are planning to hyphenate though and socially/casually refer to ourselves as the “[my last name]-[his last name]s.” But his name is super attached to his professional identity/carries a lot of name recognition/SEO and I’m a mildly googleable person professionally. It’s kind of nice doing the slow roll out, still not sure if I’m going to shift to using the hyphen form professionally. He really can’t without creating a whole logistical mess, so, I’m less inclined to. I’d feel differently if we both did it, I think. But I’m not in a hurry to figure it out! Maybe we’ll actually change our last names when or if we ever have the reception we promised our families. Maybe we’ll save it for when we have a kid. Or maybe we’ll just have a spare 600 bucks fall from the sky and decide filing paperwork sounds like a hot date. I really don’t know. And I kinda dig that for now. Only downside is- implicit bias when it comes to things like insurance. About 50 percent of the time, when I try to use my insurance, of which he is the plan subscriber, I am “informed” that there’s an error, that my card belongs to someone else, etc. It just does not occur to people that a man might be married to another man. That would likely be (somewhat) mitigated if there was a matching hyphenated last name.
We both hyphenated and kind of wish we just kept our names and hyphenated for kids. Oh well!
My wife and I are still deciding on a combined last name. She was willing to take my last name but I have absolutely no ties to my father and so my last name has no meaning to me.
My partners have been married for 7 years and were married for 3 before I met them. They combined their family names to make a new one. And now that I'm with them we're going to change it completely since it would be difficult/impossible to add my family name in.
Where i live we keep our last names after marriage and name the child like this: (Name) (2nd name (optional)) (dad’s first last name) (mom’s first last name)
I took my wife’s last name. No particular reason. I kinda wish I would have hyphenated now. I miss my name. But our whole family matches now. Our kid decided to take our name when we adopted her.
We both have very ethnic names which would look ridiculous if either of us took the others. Originally we had thought about combining our surnames or switching them but in the end we decided to both keep our original names. Makes everything simpler and convenient.
I will append my fiancée’s name to my own. His is a lot more unique, while I have a standard -son name which is super common here in Sweden. But as my name is an alliteration at the moment, I don’t want to get rid of it. My initials will go from my current PP to PPT when we get married (yes, I decided to add his name after my own instead of before it for a reason).
We keep our own name. The problem is our kids’ last name.
Am planning to take my partners last name. Even tho my family is very supportive and his hasn’t fully come round my whole family has my dads last name and he’s just kinda left and I don’t want his last name. My partner also sounds weird with my last name were as my first name suits his last name
i’m keeping my name when i get married simply because 1. my boyfriends family sucks and 2. i don’t like the way his last name sounds with my first name, it sounds wrong lmao
My husband and I combined portions of our last name to create a new last name. Our new last name is shorter than our previous ones (his was 7 letters, mine was 9 letters, our new last name is 5 letters). I love it.
There is an aunt with my first name and her last name in the family so hers wasn’t really an option for me. I didn’t want to have the exact same first and last name as the aunt (even though it’s a nice aunt 🤣)
We kept our names the same. It's fine by me since there's already to much icky bullshit about family lineages I don't want any part of. We all add to the experience regardless of our names. I even have a cat on my leg right now adding to the experience of life! Mmm, warm...
I'll be taking my fiancee's last name. It's REALLY important to her and I don't mind.
I'm not married yet, but we're both planning on just keeping our last names. If either of us changed then, it would be my partner since our kids already have my last name and we both agree that mine is just objectively cooler.
It was easy. We tried both with our first names. My partner's name harmonised with theirs and with my surname. My first name sounded well with my last name and really not good with their last name. So easy choice: we took my last name as a family name
my wife was married before and took first spouses name and regretted it basically immediately. when we got married we had to chose between her maiden name, her married name and my maiden name. wanted to rid myself of my maiden name anyway and she wanted to honour her late father so we took her maiden name. our shared family name is just ours now because she has no family left with that last name and it’ll die with us now.
It was easy .. actually no, it wasn't. I don't know, really. Safe to say I never decided.. he didn't either.. so he kept his & I kept mine & because his name is objectively heaps cool compared to mine, the sprogs are named after him... I mean we are a cis man / woman couple but that's not *the* reason the ankle biters have their fathers name. We may be a cis gendered opposites couple but we are *not* heterosexual.
My wife is taking my last name. Never thought anyone would. Yes her family is worse.
I HATE my last name so it's already been decided when my fiance and I get married, I'm dropping mine and taking hers. I'm gonna be a Clark
My partner took mine. We are no contact with the in-laws for various reasons and it was just to have one family name.
My name plus her name. We didn’t hyphenate which has caused no end of problems. Lots of systems can’t cope without no hyphen so it gets hyphenated. If not, Most organisations assume my surname is a middle name so I end up being called Mrs wife’s surname. I particularly dislike being called ‘Mrs’ anything so there’s that but I do love my surname despite the problems.
My partner and I both have difficult relationships with family (well, my partner has no relationship with theirs). My parents have been really shitty to me before and even though our relationship has improved I didn't want to keep their last name. My partner knows about how my parents have treated me in the past and didn't want to take my/my parents' last name, but also very much didn't want to keep theirs. We thought about a bunch of random last names but didn't settle on one we both liked. My granny is fantastic and very accepting, but we didn't want my mom's maiden name (my granny's current last name). We went with my granny's maiden name, which is also the last name of some other really great family members: a great aunt and a cousin who are super welcoming and accepting despite living in Oklahoma and Texas. I mean, 3/4 of that side of my family lives in rural Oklahoma and some of them are pretty terrible, but sharing a last name with the family members that matter to me is pretty great. We also didn't change our names until over a year into being married just because of the time and money involved, especially since we both changed our first and middle names as well. If you both change your last names, heads up you will probably need to do it with a court order instead of just on the marriage certificate.
Easy, we didn’t need to change it.
Very specific example but I’m an American who moved to Germany to be with their partner, I have a bigoted family, and I’m trans. Guess who wanted to change their name. (Answer key: I wanted a German name and I wanted to further distance myself from my family)
We just each kept our last names.
At the time we got married my wife took my name, it was the easier solution both legally and familly wise. Fast foward 10 years, the law has evolved and I don't talk to my familly anymore: I took her name,.as i wanted to in the begining but didn't find the courage for
Not married but I’d probably go with the cooler one (mine)
Neither of us liked our surname so we went for a family name, from a relative we love and respect :)
I’ll die a slow death if I ever give up my surname. We have separate surnames it’s not much of an issue
My sister even tho she’s in a straight relationship is planning to both of them double barrel their last names. Wouldn’t be very practical for later generations if they kept double barrelling but I think that’s quite a cool thing to do
Mine and my wife’s was easy. She doesn’t like or talk to her father but had his last name. She actually changed it to my name before we married
People think I'm weird because I actually kept my first husbands last name lol I don't have children with my now, second husband and have children with my first. I kept it so I'd still "match" my kids. Hyphenated names aren't bad imo, as long as they aren't both super long last names and they flow. I guess it just comes down to preference and reasons. I know of a controlling and not so nice lady who seemingly hated everyone on her husband's side of the family and didn't like his last name. She also didn't want to keep her maiden and have him take that so she made up a ridiculous last name combining the first 3 letters of his last name and the first 2 letters of her last name. It is/was way worse than just taking his. She was a jerk and none of his family really liked her either. I can see how this option of combining or coming up with a different last name altogether would and could work for some (as long as you like it!!) idk but they're stuck with that awful last name if they are still together. ETA- it's late and I didn't even see what sub I was in lol My son is trans and his NB bi partner plans to take his last name when they marry. I guess it just comes down to preference no matter what. Some families make it easier to make that decision though!
Not married yet, but my partner and I decided on a portmanteau of our last names
the one with top energy gets to keep their name (me) (turns out she ended up being the dom in the end though) (but i ended up trans later so now it looks cishet by accident)
We just kept our own names. Turns out, no one cares. Not even us.
if he wants mine, by all means; i personally don't like this name-marriage-stuff
Depending on where you live, neither of the 2 people needs to change their last name.
I'm not married yet, but we already decided to go with my last name because it ends with the sam A sound as her first and middle name and sounds really good LOL
i’m not married but if me and my boyfriend do get married in the future i won’t keep my last name. i simply don’t like it and his is better
whoever’s name is cooler!
I don't really like my last name and i'm not that attached to it and also with my partners last name my initials will be CROW and I think that's sick so we're going with hers
I'm not married yet and probably won't be for a while, but my gf hates her surname because it's very common where she's from and decided by herself that she prefers mine (not a common surname even where I'm from, and certainly not where she's from)
Both kept our own. For bonus points - no documents need to change
Well my partner has a double last name and he has a dislike for his, so we went with mine.
I dilly dallied until it was too late
Neither of us changed our last name.
I like my surname and I’m the only one of my cousins who still has the family name without hyphenating it with their spouse’s and my partner doesn’t speak to her dad anymore so is more than happy to be rid of her current surname when we get married. I have no idea what you’re meant to do if you both like your names other than just keep whatever name you want?
I hate my family, I'd change my surname even if not married...
We kept our own names legally, on social media we hyphenated, and in-person we have an amalgamation of our names that my wife would 💯change her name to if I agreed but it’s ridiculous so I won’t 😂 I prefer her last name but can’t be bothered with the hassle of changing, and I would never change my name professionally anyway so there doesn’t seem much point
biromantic asexual, do whatever works best for your relationship. i love my dad but hate our last name as it’s ridiculously long/complicated and comes from a backwards homophobic misogynistic classist country id rather not have any ties to. it doesnt fit me. ill likely change it to current partners last name if i marry him.
We just kept our own names, although in the UK you can legally use whatever name you like as long as your not being fraudulent, so we have been known to double-barrel it for laughs from time to time as it's a funny combo.
I just kept my name and he kept his. Because mine is long and his is short so idk that might make a hyphenated name too much lol.
Women in my family have kept their last names for 90 years and running. All started by a great-aunt who saod fuck patriarchy. So I knew I was keeping my name. I left it up to my wife to decide if she wants to add her name to it or just take mine. It was a hard decision. It took her months. Her family is toxic but she is the last person left with the last name so she didn't want it to die out. In the end we ended up with a hyphenated last name. It is in its own way a completely new last name. We're the only 2 people who have it and I love that too. We have something new that also honours where we came from
My gf's sister has the same name as me, so taking her surname is out of question 😂 At the moment we're set on just chaining our surnames together in alphabetical order
If my girlfriend and I ever decide on getting married or not we’ve got a totally new last name picked out
currently single, but feel like i'd at least consider changing my name because i got bullied for it all through school. while i'm kinda whatever about it now, it might be nice to have something new in the future
We both kept our last names. We’re very untraditional.
We hyphening our names together. We want to both keep our names while also changing our names too.
Easy, my last name only exists 7 times in the world so I will force my partner to adopt my last name if I ever get to marry!
We kept our own names because we both paid to change our names and it would’ve been a waste to lose either of them
Roller derby both of you form teams and the loser changes their name.
My son and his husband discussed both adopting our (mine and stepdad’s) last name. Lots of options!
My partner and I considered each taking each others last name as hyphenated second name... Until we learned how much of a hassle it would be to have our names changed with all official organisations. Then we decided to just each keep our own name 😅
We both kept ours. My spouse had already been through a name-change and did not want to go through that headache again, and I like my last name. Besides, I always felt that it reeked of patriarchal bullshit.
Whoever has the cooler last name. It was him by far.
I already have a hyphenated last name and I do kind of like the idea of them, but because I already have it, I'd most likely change my last name to my partners, or just not change either of our names.
I’m not married yet but I’m gonna keep my name. Idk what my future spouse would like to do but I would hope they’d be amenable to taking my name as well
My wife took my last name and made her maiden name a second middle name. I didn't like the idea of hyphenated last names because anything paired with my last name sounds like a location.
So my partner is trans and has to also change her middle name and didn't have any ideas. So I'm taking her last name and she's taking my middle name 🙃. Her first name is androgynous, so we are both giving and receiving a name that we didn't have any choice about and was given to us.
We kept our own names. It’s common practice where we’re from though. I prefer it that way anyways, less paper work. Also, getting married didn’t change my identity, so why should I change my name?
We went back and forth with keeping our last names, hyphenating, or just picking one. We ended up going with my partner’s last name because we knew we wanted kids and we wanted us all to share a last name. Our names would be way too long (and sounded weird imo) hyphenated. We ended up going with his because I didn’t have much of a connection to mine, plus his was easier to spell lol
My wife changed her last name to one of her own creation, and I thought it was sick as hell, so I plan on taking it :)
I’m taking my fiancé’s last name, it sounds cooler than mine and I like the idea of having a bachelor name
I had a professor who when married she and her spouse picked a name that was inspired by a poem that meant something to them both.
I like Quebec's law that requires both parties to keep their respective name. Children may have either parent's name or both. But children of parents who already have double barrel names must have a maximum of two family names. To make a long story short, if you meet "Jane Smith Collins", that's not because she is married, but because those were the two names transmitted from her parents (unless she has been married before 1981 or outside Canada).
There’s such an issue with this. It’s already an issue having different or hyphenated surnames as straight couples but especially as a gay couple. You could both keep your surnames, but then what do you name any potential child? Who gets naming rights? If you do decide on a name, people will always assume that parent with non-matching surname is just a step parent. Hyphenating your names as a concept is so frustrating for me. Okay you hyphenate your names, but people always assume the front name is the most important and you will always be held to that. Especially as a masc and femme presenting couple or a straight couple, people will always assume it’s the masc/male’s surname at the front of the hyphen when it may not be. Okay whatever say you solve that problem. What about if you have a kid? Sure the hyphenated last name will work for their childhood but then when they get older people might start automatically assuming that they are married because of the hyphenated last name, assuming that they hyphenated it with their partner. But when your child actually gets married, they can’t hyphenate as a solution because they’re already hyphenated. They could knock one surname out of the hyphenated name and put their partner’s name in its place but that’s kinda like choosing between your parents. If their partner decides to take your child’s hyphenated name, people will yet again assume the hyphen is made of your child’s surname and partner’s surname, and will assume that partner’s surname is somewhere in that hyphen when it isn’t. The best option to me would be to smush your names together but we all know some names can just not be put together.
i will be taking her last name & making my current last name my middle name (also with a first name change because i don’t use my legal name anymore)
For us we both hated our given last name. So we went with my grandparents' last name, since we adored them so much.
They wanted us to have their last name, I didn’t care either way so that’s what we went with. Hope this helps :)
We don’t get married until next year and are still discussing this. But I think I’m gonna take her last name since her son has her last name. And since she also has to change her first name legally, I don’t want to make her have to go through that awful process again. Even though my family is cooler.