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I have never thought about it this way (in terms of grants) I am a PhD student too! I am sure you will be able to change your name after the wedding with the granting agency!
My personal big worry is that I have a publication going out this year and I will use my married name on that - I want people to be able to search adequately for all of my work!
I personally don't think it is tempting fait; however, we are already considered common-law so I could have changed my name years ago if I wanted too!
Are you common-law?
I could see how the name change might be hard for you professionally. However, I don't know if you can just randomly change your last name, without being married yet. You might want to check with your state. I had to provide our marriage license in order to change my name. I don't know what would happen if you didn't have some sort of documentation but wanted to change your name. I don't think it's tempting fate or anything, but it might not be logistically possible.
We aren't common-law, so taking his name would be just that, taking his name, until July. I haven't published anything yet (luckily?), so the only thing attached to my maiden name is a few conference presentations, which I'm not tooo worried about. If I had something going out this year, though, i think I'd be doing the same as you!
Hopefully I'll be able to name change with the agencies, I'm just concerned because they're both governmental (US and France) and that always seems to be harder.
Good point about it's legality, Jessie! I hadn't thought about that, really (whoops!) Since basically I just put my name in an application box, I was figuring I could write whatever I wanted. Perhaps not...
I would guess if they're government grants, you'll want to use your legal name. They're pretty tough with all the red-tape and such, so you don't want to do anything that might hold up the process. Your legal name is what they'll have on record for all your school records and your SS-ID#.
I'm in a similar situation, and I decided *not* to take FI's name until after we get married in July. I defended my dissertation last spring, I have multiple papers under my maiden name, and I currently have a postdoc grant under my maiden name. Yet I will still be changing my last name this summer. Crazy? Maybe... but I have a plan to make it all work out.
(1) For at least 2 years following my wedding I am going to publish under 'myfirstname mymaidenname mynewlastname' to make a bridge in my publication record. After that I will switch to just 'myfirstname mynewlastname'
(2) I am getting my maiden name linked to my new last name in the search engine that is generally used for finding papers in my field. Then, whenever someone searches my new last name, papers under my maiden name will also show up
(3) I am going to get the word out about my name change at conferences by announcing it at the beginning of any talks that I give
I think if you make a note of your name change on your CV and tell the grant-giving agency as well, then you would be able to make a smooth transition too.
@skibobrown Thanks for the suggestions! I really like the idea of announcing it before any papers you give, it makes it more personal.
Looks like it'll just be easier to deal with the change after the fact than try to pre-empt it. Not surprising, but needed someone to reinforce that :)
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So maybe I'm one of the few who's in this situation, but I figured I'd try.
I'm 95% sure I'm going to change my last name to his both personally and professionally next July (after our wedding). I'm a grad student, about to go do dissertation research, and I'm applying for several major grants in hopes of winning some support for next year. What name should I apply under? Is it testing fate to apply under his name?
I'm slightly concerned that if I win (huge if), people in my field see the winners and are like, oh Ms. Maiden has a great project and then when/if they see me later, they're like, Mrs. HisName? Who's that? Also, the money won't be dispersed/grant won't be given until after the wedding, when I truly will have his name... could it cause financial stress?
Any thoughts on this transition? Did you ease into using his name, or are you just hoping everything changes just fine once you do?