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Have you heard about MissNowMrs.com yet? It's a new service that provides forms and letters to make changing everything from driver's licenses to voter registration cards a breeze for new brides who are taking their husbands' name (for a fee of $30, of course). I was going to send the link to some just married ladies I know, but then I realized, none of them actually changed their names. Which brings up the question: Why does anyone bother to change their last name at all?
The women I know who chose not to change their last names did so for both personal and professional reasons and just plain, "old-fashioned" convenience. When all the people in your work community know you as one name, why change it and endure getting all the new business cards, email address, re-introductions to contacts, etc? Especially for the self-employed and freelancers who are a company of "one," some feel that changing their name could in some ways, intrude upon their brand identity, (not to mention their own sense of self). And speaking of those notions of self, can the idea of taking a man's last name coexist within the psyche of the postmodern/postfeminism/modern progressive feminist?
Then again, there are now a small percentage of grooms who actually take their wives last name, as a symbol of unity and respect, and there are always the compromises of hyphenation, for example. What do you think? How important is it to you (or not), and why?
SEE ALSO: "Why I didn't change my name when I got married"
