28 Nov Girls – do you have to take your man’s surname?

Day 10 #44DayWritingChallenge

After yesterday’s post about what a dork I am when I meet guys and I see how their surname sounds with my name – it started an interesting conversation with some girlfriends of mine about surnames and how we feel about taking them. A very close friend of mine is getting married next weekend and one friend asked her if she’s going to take his name. She’s torn because she really wants to take his name but here’s her problem. She is Korean and he isn’t and she’s adopted an English first name. So if she 100% takes his name it will mean she won’t have a Korean sounding name at all. Interesting and fair problem. She is taking his name but I think she’s considering double barreling which then brings on a whole new set of questions.

It got us all questioning (us single gals) if we kissed a frog and found our prince charming, would we take his name. Candy Charming. Yep sold! Seriously, I don’t know what I would do because I hope to keep building my profile and that means I will have to keep my name. But I love the old fashioned romantic gesture of taking on your husbands name so I too would feel torn. I also understand when there are no sons in a family and girls feel like they need to keep their surname so to keep the family name alive. Again, fair enough.

I worked with a girl once who together with her fiancé decided to create a brand new surname that was a merge of both of their names. I’m not sure how I feel about that one. But it’s definitely unique.

Is does beg the question, is it an outdated tradition that needs to change or is it one of those beautiful rights of passage that as women we should embrace? I’m really not sure what I’ll do but I’ll tell you once I’ve found my frog.