Fluff - Maiden name when married?

Since my Father had 2 girls and we are the end of the line, we both kept our Maiden name as our middle names.

I got married at 19 and while that lasted 10 years, I dropped my maiden name during that marriage. Got married again a few years later and that lasted for almost 20 years and I took my then H's name. I still use it to this day because I was that name longer than I was single so I decided not to go back to my maiden name. 

I had been married once before and had changed my name and then changed it back. Not again. Dh would have liked me to change my name to his but I'd made it clear before we ever got engaged, I wasn't doing that again.

I thought most everyone changed their middle name to their maiden name if they took their husband's last name. That's pretty traditional here; however, I recently found out that it isn't the case everywhere and I can see from the responses that it is more common to drop it.

I switched it to the middle name position. DH and I talked seriously about him taking my name when we married and I think if any of his brothers had kids carrying his name, he would have.

I went from a 10-letter name that I had to spell for everyone to a 5-letter name that I thought would be easy-peasy but apparently is both hard to spell and pronounce. Go figure.

My only regret is that because it wasn't a offical name change through the court system (because that's not required here) it was a WHOLE BIG deal when getting my British passport (because they wanted the legal paperwork for my middle name change)

I kept my maiden name, but I use my married name.

The first time, the SSA and DMV automatically moved my maiden name to my middle name, and I was fine with that. The second time, I guess times had changed, because they asked me, and I ended up using my original middle name. Informally though, like on FB, I still use my maiden name as my middle name so that people who know me can recognize the name since the other two are fairly common.

My oldest lives with their girlfriend and both have hyphenated last names, so it is a possibility they get married and this is an issue. It’s up to them. Definitely don’t see it as more troublesome than just having the wife always take the husband’s last name (plus, neither of them are male so there would be no obvious last name to pick).

I changed my name. I couldn't hyphenate because both last names end in with ER so it wouldn't flow very well. I do like my birth last name better but when I got married, not many had started to keep their own name and I also didn't want to have a different name than my kids. It might be a silly reason, but I was young at the time and it wasn't as popular as it is now.

I don't know anyone who did that. 25 years ago when I got married we still mainly descendants of the people who stettled in this area who were of Eastern European decent. Lots of very long mouthfuls of names from Ukraine, Poland, Yugoslavia. Too much to keep all that! I had a 9 letter Ukrainian last name. Traded it in for a 5 letter Ukranian name.

I was never a fan of my last name so I took Dh's without hesitation.

I think my mother wanted me to change it to my middle name or use it as a middle name for a son, because she hinted at it a lot. Not happening.

I don't know for sure, but I think if both people getting married have hyphenated surnames, they can decide what they want to make it when they get married, and use whatever combination of the names they want.

No longer married here but never changed my name legally. The intention was to change my name to my EX's when we married. However, when I went to get a copy of the marriage license to actually do it I found that the license had never been filed and no one seemed to know where it went (it was the minister's first wedding and we were really young, I don't even remember signing it) so I just stuck with my "maiden" name. Then when we finally got "remarried" a few years later (so we could buy a house) I was over the idea of changing my name. Now that I'm divorced I'm really thankful I never legally changed it because I would've been such a headache. My kids all share their dads name and I didn't argue when people called me Mrs. "His Last Name" when they were growing up.

The EX got married again in 2022 and even though his new wife was very much entrenched in her career so you'd assume she'd want to keep her name she almost immediately started using what she assumed would be her new name. In an odd turn of events, their marriage certificate also went "missing". This time it was definitely "foul play" as the EX hadn't wanted to get married (even up to a week before the wedding he was telling people that he wasn't sure he wanted to get married) and it was his way of making their marriage not legal so no name change for her either.

Married in 1990 and it never occurred me to not take his last name. I didn’t have a strong connection to my bio dad and I liked dhs last name.

I realize I run in non-traditional circles, but I have multiple friends and relatives who have (1) come up with a portmanteau of their last names and both taken that newly-created name (eg Benson and Holley become Benley) or (2) decided jointly to take a new, unrelated surname (Benson and Holley become Wolf). It’s a little bit more paperwork since both partners are changing. I would never joke about this with my oldest because it’s their decision about whether to get married obviously, and I also wouldn’t tell other people what to do with their last names, but one of my children’s hyphenates begins with an A and one of the girlfriend’s hyphenates begins with a Z, so I think they should for coolness do the A-Z hyphenate (like Anders-Zora) if they want to share a last name .