WTF should I do with my last name?

Dear ESB,

WTF should I do with my last name when I get married?

I've read some great posts over at APW about name changing which gave me some good ideas and opinions, but I still can't decide.

I'd love to see what your and your reader's thoughts on the subject are.

Options I’m considering:
-Keeping my name
-Changing my last to his & moving my last name to be part of my middle name
-Keep my name legal and go by his name publicly

Future baby name options:
-All have his last name
-Hyphenated
-One has my last name, one has his

He doesn’t want to change his name at all (which is understandable because his last name is awesome), so unfortunately we can’t go the route of making up a brand new one. He is also supportive of whatever decision I make.

Reasons to change it:
His last name is seriously awesome, my last name isn’t awesome, it’s easier on kids than hyphenating (which I’m not super stoked on anyway), I’m not super “established” in work/art, I love change/fresh starts & what’s the difference if I take one man’s name (FH) over another man’s (father)?

Reasons to keep it:
It’s MY name damn it, I feel like it’s “anti feminist” if I change it and mostly; I’m really proud of my family which is tiny and I feel like by changing my last name I’m leaving part of me behind (if that makes sense).

HALP.

-Ms. ?

*****

A few months after H and I got married, my 13-year-old niece stood next to me at H&M, watching me sign a credit card slip.*

"Wow, I guess you had to learn to sign your name all over again, huh?"

"Nope. I didn't change my name."

"You don't have to change your name?"

"Nope."

"You mean I could keep my name when I get married?"

"Yep."

She's got a great name. She should keep her name. And it blew my mind that she didn't even know this was an option.

I knew from the time I was little that I'd never change my name. I never even CONSIDERED IT. And it makes me crazy when a professed feminist (!) explains that she never liked her last name anyway and/or it was really important to her husband that she change it and/or she wants to have the same last name as her children (my mom and I have different names and WE SURVIVED!).

Makes me crazy.

It's 2013 and we're moving backwards.

Those are my thoughts.

Kirsten Owen in Comme des Garçons by Craig McDean for Visionaire 20 via Enid Hwang via Tosha Wynn
______________________________

*I believe I was buying her a pair of hot pink mittens. It was her first time at H&M! Not that anyone cares.

Should I take my husband's name?

Dear ESB,

Did you take H's last name when you got married? I'm batting the idea around but the modern I-can-take-care-of-my-own-damn-self woman in me is cringing at the thought (and the paperwork!).

Here's the thing though, my parents are divorced and my father is remarried so there's a Mrs. My Last Name that's not my mother. I'm not crazy about my step-mom (probably because she is crazy) and after the remarriage my dad and I have had on-again-off-again relationship. So keep my last name and all that is associated with it? Hyphenate it (ugh) or have both last names? Or change it and be done with it? I guess I could always drop the last name and only go by my first name but I can foresee problems with TSA.

I'm not hell bent on having kids but if I did get knocked up I would want them to have my fiance's last name (which is very German and has six consonant in a row).

Any advice from you or your lovely readers would be much appreciated.

*****

I did not take H's name. Didn't even consider it. Frankly, it amazes me that so many women continue to buy into such a neolithic tradition.

It's YOUR NAME. Who gives a shit if your dad and your stepmom are using it too?

As far as kids go, I will tell you this: I grew up with a different last name from my mom and it mattered not one bit. She's still my mom.

(Correction: *Raquel Zimmerman* photographed by Ezra Petronio. Get it together, self service magazine.)