[name]Hi[/name] berries! I wasn’t sure where to post this topic so I hope here is OK! I was just thinking about the future and wondering if any of you have done this or have thought about doing it.
I would like to keep my maiden name as an additional middle name when I get married. I would take my husbands last name. I am currently, Firstname Middlename Maidenname and I would want to change it to Firstname Middlename Maidenname Hislastname. I hope this makes sense…
Anyway, I just want to know if any of you have done this, how you feel about it, is it worth it, etc. All comments are welcome! Thanks for your time.
My [name]SIL[/name] did this. Not sure if it has affected her life much or not. She uses both middle initials when writing her name, so make sure you’re not accidentally spelling something odd if you choose to do the same!
It’s not quite the same, but in the Philippines everyone has their mother’s maiden name as their middle, and then when a woman marries she drops her middle name and her maiden name takes the middle spot. And then all of her children have her maiden name as their middle. It sure makes picking out names a little easier.
I know this isnt exactly what you are talking about, but my kids have my last name (I kept my last name) as their 2nd middle name. they have dads last name as their last name. That way we can still pick a first and middle name that we love.
I tried to do this and Social Security said I was not allowed to do this as part of a marriage name change. I would have to do it as a whole separate transaction. Hyphenation would have been okay.
I think its definitely worth considering, especially if your middle name doesn’t have a great deal of meaning to you or your family.
I also have a coworker whose mother did something kind of interesting, when she got married, she took her husbands last name, but changed her first name to her maiden name and kept her middle name, so it was like going from [name]Marie[/name] [name]Anne[/name] [name]Smith[/name] to [name]Smith[/name] [name]Anne[/name] [name]Johnson[/name]. Maybe not something most people would do, but it’s the only time I’ve ever heard of that.
It’s a tradition in some parts of the US for the bride to drop her middle name, move her maiden name to the middle position and then add the husband’s last name. My whole family has done this, as did I, and I think it’s a nice tradition. I understand what you’re proposing is a little different to just add his lastname onto the end. My only hesitation is that it might be confusing - is it a double last name? is there supposed to be a hyphen? etc. People here sometimes report problems with two middle names and since one of those middles used to be your surname, I can see how paperwork might get mixed up. (I am still mailed a lot of things where my last name is correct but the middle initial is for my original middle name rather than my maiden name).
You also might run into some problems with length of name (there are limits for Social Security). I’ve never heard of the problem pp said, where Social Security wouldn’t let her change her name as part of the marriage change. When I got married, the form just said Old name: ___ New name: ___. So I think they’re fairly flexible.
Thanks for all the replies! Looks like every situation is different. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. If simply adding it as a second middle doesn’t work, I will probably drop my original middle and add my maiden name. Thanks so much!
I did this–or tried to. After I first got married, I wanted to basically have two last names and not hyphenate. It was a disaster. I was in graduate school at the time and my records ended up in two separate files because they thought I was two different people .The same thing happened at one of my doctors’ offices.
I ended up changing it again and dropped my former middle name, which I had no emotional attachment to ([name]Elizabeth[/name]) because I felt it was just a “place holder” name–it’s not for a family member or of any significance to my parents, they just picked it because they liked it and had to give me a middle name. So now I’m legally First Name Maiden Name Married Last Name and that has worked fine for the last 14 years. If you want to keep your last name as part of your last name, I’d say hyphenate or just keep your own name. You can always change it later if you want–say if you have kids and you want everyone in the family to share a name.
SSA doesn’t actually make those rules. SSA follows state law on what name changes are allowed based on a marriage certificate. So it kind of depends on your state.