A Rose By Any Other Name...

Regarding name changes, FH and I have reached our final conclusion: for the time being we will both keep our current legal names. We've discussed me hyphenating, we've discussed both of us hyphenating, (one thing we did not discuss was me changing my name completely, I've worked long enough in my profession that I'm not willing to totally give up my name) and have decided that keeping the names we have now will work just great for us.

Why? Perhaps it's laziness. I mean, who really wants to get a new driver's license, social security card, credit/debit cards, checks, change all your tax and insurance forms, etc? Especially when you're keeping the name you have as part of your new name. I may eventually choose to hyphenate socially without legally changing my name but I just don't see it being worth the effort to make the legal change.

(me, filling out name change paperwork? I'll skip it.)

Most importantly, our names have served us quite well for nearly ... well, for some years now. If people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the idea that we're married but have different names, we'll just write it off as part of our "mystique".

(And if you're thinking of asking, "but what about when you have kids?" let me say, IF we have kids we'll probably hyphenate their names, but don't go counting any chickens before they're hatched folks! :P)