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This is such a personal decision, it's hard to really give advice. I've been very attached to my name and struggled a lot with my decision. I had originally resolved to hyphenate, BUT, in the end decided to go First Maiden New Last. My reasoning was that when we have kids, I want us all to have the same last name- I don't want them to wonder why I have a different last name. I don't know if you plan to have kids, but that would be something I would consider, if you do.
I definitely do plan on having kids, and we will give them his name, b/c it's a lot to give kids two names. So I am really just trying to decide between the "Eva Longoria Parker" versus the "Ashlee Simpson-Wentz." I guess I am trying to figure out which would get me what i want - i.e. people know i am married to him, but I still go by the maiden name in most situations.
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I keeping my name. I hate paperwork!
Anyway, you can keep your name and still go by your husband's last for social situations. In fact, many people will make this mistake automatically. You just won't need to correct them.
ive been thinking about this lately too and all the paperwork involved, i think i still will do it..... eventually. 6 more months to worry about it..
Have you asked your FI for his take on the matter? To echo the other commenters, this is a highly personal subject.
I didn't realize it was such a dealbreaker for my fiance. About two months before the wedding my paternal grandmother died and I thought outloud about not changing my name, as it was her name for most of her life and I wanted to continue to share it with her and my father. My now-husband was completely against me not changing my name. I even told him our children could have his name with no mention of mine, but he wouldn't budge.
He wouldn't have minded hyphenation, but my last name is REALLY long and hard to pronounce and his is not much shorter and just as hard to say, so unfortunately hyphenating was NEVER an option. My hyhpehnated last name would be impossible to say and people would hate me right away. He wouldn't have minded if I took it as my middle name, but my middle name is a family name so that wasn't really an option. So I just caved and changed it, bitching and moaning through all of the paperwork. :)
Good luck with the decision!
I second bluegreenjean! I already have a hyphenated last name, so adding on my husband's last name would not work out well (the inevitable problem with hyphenation). So I have kept my last name and use his last name when we're at his work functions or among his family. For the most part, I'm still using and called by my maiden name, but am known by my husband's name at his workplace.
I am just taking his name and dropping my last all together.
However, if I were doing anything else it would be changing my middle name to my maiden. I wouldn't want the super long last name! But that's just me! Do what you think will be best. You can always change it again, right? (Your mom can too, I believe!)
You can also just wait and see before deciding what you want to do. Many people do change their names right away after getting married, but who says you can't take your time and go with your feeling once you have one?
Good luck! 
I'm going the First Maiden Last route - I want to take his last name, but keeping my father's name is also very important to me.
i always thought I would change but keep my maiden name professionally since my name is very important in my profession. I spoke with my FI about it and he is fine with whatever I want to do. The closer we get to the wedding more I freak out about it so I've decided to just wait and see how I feel. I think eventually I will do it but it makes me panic to think having a set day to do it. Re: your own question it is so personal all I can say is I've never been a fan of hyphenation I much prefer Eva Longoria Parker. Good luck!
If you want to use one last name or the other, but not necessarily both at the same time, I would do the two-word last name without a hyphen. The hyphen makes it more all one word, more difficult to break up.
But if the only situations wherein you want people to call you "Mrs. W" are informal social situations, why change your name officially at all? You won't need to pull out a photo ID to prove your last name! :) When you have kids someday they will probably call you Mrs. W whether you like it or not!
I would start using his last name socially as appropriate after the wedding and see how it fits. If you like it, change it officially. But there's no rush! There's no time limit on when you have to change the name by. Good luck!
My family is Puerto Rican. My two aunts never changed their names. And they both married Puerto Ricans as well.
My mom's sister- never changed her name- and she has three kids, two of which in college, one in high school. The kids don't seem to care.
My uncle's wife, she never changed her name, and they have two young kids.
So, just leading by example (from my two aunts). If you wanted to keep your first name. It's been done. They don't feel any guilt or harbor second thoughts over their personal choice.
I just wanted to throw that out there for ya. I don't think you need to decide now though. One of my friends waited a year before she made her final choice.
But I hear you. It's a personal decision! Do what makes you feel comfortable.
This is a very personal decision, and you don't have to make it now. I didn't even go about doing my name change until a few months after we were married. I have a friend who has been married 2 years that just now decided to change her name. Think long and hard about it, and do the change when you are good and ready!
wow, now that I think about this it makes me wonder what I will do when I get to that point. I am an only child and we joke about when we get married he should take my last name (he has 9 siblings) to carry on my family name but I will want to take his last name as mine and be "Ann Smith". My cousin many years ago changed from using her middle name of "Marie" to her maiden and then using her husband's last name so now she goes by Ann Green Smith as a formality but day-to-day and with their children she goes by Ann Smith. I will most likely do the same as I am an only child and my family name is very much a part of who we are and also coincidentally my last name was his grandma's maiden name so in honor of my family and his grandma (who his mom insists brought us together in a heavenly way) I will go that route.
My wedding is in March, but we got legally married in Sept. For purpose of the honeymoon, I actually went ahead and obtain all legal documents in my new name First Maiden New because we're traveling out of the country and require a passport. Though I changed my maiden to my middle name, I don't plan on even using it. For all intent and purposes, it's just first New last.
Something to consider is that people will most likely not refer to us as first maiden last if you don't hyphenate. If I see someone with a name like that, I automatically defer to first last only, no middle. You may have to continue to correct people until it sticks.
I am trying to decide this as well -- with a wedding in 3.5 months!
A few posters mentioned taking into account your FI's thoughts. I wanted to second this advice. I almost wish mine had said that he wanted me to take his name, but he says I can do whatever I want and it doesn't matter to him. If he had said it was important to him, I would have done it without a problem.
Otherwise, you can do the double name. I will most likely do this myself and have been starting to like the sound of it.
I plan to change it. My own last name is one of the 50 most popular in the U.S., whereas my man has an extremely uncommon last name - I would be the only person in the country with Myfirst Hislast as a name, which I think is pretty cool. (Whereas, even with my uncommon first name, I'm one of hundreds right now.)
My mom did the first-maiden last route, and here's now she designated: She always signs her middle initial. So for Jane Doe Smith, She signs Jane D. Smith. Another friend of mine does this same thing. That way, she's still Mrs. Smith, but also paying tribute to the Doe. Does your first name pay tribute to your culture? If so, you won't have to worry too much about losing that by changing your last name.
I've heard of friends who didn't change their last names having confusion over whether they're 'really' even married. Here's another funny little example for you that I experienced personally:
The man and I aren't married, but we each have a charge card on a shared account at a local department store (where I do most of the shopping). We occasionally get coupons for the store, and they always have his name (Man Jones) printed right on the coupon, since he originally opened the account. My charge card of course has my name, Lady Olson, on it. When I was shopping recently, I went to use the coupon, and they said "This is Man Jones's coupon, you can't use it." When I explained that we shared the account, they asked if we were married, to which I (lied) said yes (how could they prove/disprove at a damn checkout counter!), but they wanted to see proof. Luckily, I had anticipated this, so I whipped out Man's credit card for the store, which has a number matching my own. I bet I wouldn't have needed to do all of that if our last names were the same.
Anyway... Since i do most of the financial and other work for both of us, it's important to me to make the processes as easy as possible, and as discriminatory as it is, people just believe you're married more easily if your last names are the same. I don't know if I'd feel the same way if I had solid reasons to be attached to my last name, however.
A lot of you had mentioned FI's thoughts, which is definitely important - see, I had always planned on just not changing my name at all, but he really wanted me to have his last name in some form, which is why we are now in limbo on what to do as far as using them both.
I definitely agree that if the only time I am going to be called Mrs. W is by my kid's friends and my husband's co-workers, there's probably not much need to change it - I'd rather not do all the paperwork! However, I feel as though he'd like his name to be a part of mine in some "official" capacity.
Thanks so much for all the advice, everyone is so different with this, and it is very personal, but I do love hearing other people's stories, they're very helpful! If only guys knew what we had to go through with this!
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I have plenty of time to make a decision myself, but I'm having a hard time with it too. I have an extremely common first and last name and Mr. Spin has an extremely common last name. However, changing my last name to his would make me SpinningJenny Smith, the exact same name as a girl I LOATHED in college. And that may seem petty, but I have a hard time reconciling myself to that. ALSO I have a hard time dealing with why, in this day and age, I need to subsume MY heritage and family history into his. Why shouldn't my family name be just as important? Yes, I am becoming a part of his family and I love them dearly, but he is becoming a part of my family as well.
It's very important to Mr. Spin that I take his last name and I think it is partly tied into how traditional everyone is in the Midwest. It matters to me that he has a strong opinion on taking his name and it will factor in when making my decision, but I think we should all remember that your opinion should matter just as much to your fiance. At the end of the day his love for you shouldn't be altered if you sincerely just don't want to change your name.
My one friend never changed her extremely difficult to spell/pronounce Italian last name because she loves it and it's a very important part of her. Her husband really wanted her to take his name, but to her, her heritage superceded changing, as tradition called, to her husband's very common, English last name. 3 years later people still call her Mrs. C instead and some rude people still make vaguely rude remarks about not taking his last name. But they love each other very much and though they sometimes tease each other about the whole big deal it is to some people, at the end of the day it doesn't really matter because they're married and in love.
God that was long-winded. And a smidge angsty. :P Forgive. ^_^
SpinningJenny, I totally emphathize! We're from the Midwest, too, and everyone here is sooooo steeped in tradition about the name change thing. At the same time, though, I attend grad school in a liberal department at a big university. I honestly feel like people at home will think I'm weird if I DON'T change my name, and people at school will think I'm weird if I DO. The cultures are so radically different!
I've decided to keep my last name, and it was definitely a process of adjustment for my fiance. We've had long talks about it (about the inherited nature of the tradition, etc.), and he's on board now and understands why it's so important to me. A big part of the hurdle was helping him realize that I'm not rejecting him by keeping my name, and that he shouldn't feel emasculated by his crazy feminist girl, but rather proud that we've chosen to really think about and participate meaningfully in the traditions surrounding the act of marriage.
Good luck!
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So, this is terrible, but it's less than 2 months until the wedding, and I still haven't decided on whether I should change my name. I had always planned on not, I guess partially because my mom said she always regretted giving up her maiden name without much of a thought (my parents are still married, she just thinks it would have been nice to keep her maiden, which is now her middle name, but I mean, no one would know that).
Another big reason I have wanted to keep my name is that I am part-Hispanic, and I have a Mexican last name - and I am very involved in the Latino community. My fiance is white, and has a very English-sounding last name. I want to keep some of my heritage, because I am proud of it. I originally thought about making my name First Maiden New Last, but I have just begun to feel like, for all practical purposes, that is about the same as just changing my name altogether, because how often does anyone really ask your middle name?
So, I know I am not going to just take his name outright, but I know he'd like people to know I'm his wife - which I also would like, I mean, I would love for people at hiw work parties to call me Mrs. W, and to know I am his wife. But I want my friends to call me by my maiden, and same goes for my co-workers.
So the two choices I am deciding between are going by First Maiden Last, as in "Eva Longoria Parker" - making the maiden my middle and actually using all three, just no hyphen. But, like Eva, I'd mainly be called by my maiden - she is generally called Eva Longoria, but sometimes referred to as Mrs. Parker. The other option is hyphenating, as in Ashlee Simpson-Wentz. It would make sure both names are included, but would be kinda of annoying, because then all people would have to say two names.
What should I do??