Why I'm Changing My Name

Basically, it comes down to searchability and uniqueness, not a sense of traditionalism. My maiden name, at a school with fewer than 2500 women, meant I had a name double. I have no particular attachment to my maiden name, and having a common name can quite frankly be a pain. Mr.ME, on the other hand, has an Ellis Island hat name (i.e., completely made up), so it's very uncommon. Also, I haven't published anything yet, so that's a non-issue.

Put simply, searching my first initial and maiden name on Google scholar yields over 50,000 hits. My married name yields 12, of which 10 aren't actually the proper combination.  The other 2 are from the 1950s.

I also want kids eventually, and it makes many things a lot easier if you have the same last name as your children. I noticed this a lot after my mom remarried and changed her name, even though if you stand us next to each other, the only difference is the hair. You would think as a child of divorce, I might be more apprehensive, but I'm really not. I try not to expect failure: it's a good way to make self-fulfilling prophecies.

Of course, our friends are still voting for us both changing to the trainwreck, since the last four letters of his and the first four of mine are the same. (Our invitations were even Venn diagrams with wedding ring circles... dorks much?). But that's twice as much paperwork. Equality is fine and good, but I'm not making him take time off work to sit in the Social Security Office and DMV.