Ladies: You'll Miss Your Maiden Name

I love having the same last name as Dan. It makes us feel more like a team (Go Glovers!) and I’m honored he is willing to share that with me.

Still, I felt some sense of loss when I stopped using my maiden name, McCoy. After all, it was a significant part of my identity for 20 years.

There are also some little things that I miss… My initials used to be ELM. I got to have a random capital letter in the name. People would jokingly ask, “So, are you the real McCoy?”

It sounds trivial, but those things really were meaningful to me.

Even though no one warned me about it before getting married, I know I’m not alone in post-maiden name grief…

Once, when I expressed my feelings to Dan’s mom, she told me she used to miss the alliteration of her maiden name, Lucy Long.

My mom was also so attached to her maiden name, Lohr, that she swapped it for her middle name, Louise. However, she was able to pass the original middle name off on me and didn’t have to deal with many legal hurdles because it was the same initial.

Still, it was only in the months leading up to the wedding — when I was figuring out how to go about the name change — that reality began to sink in.

I wasn’t just changing my name, I was losing part of it.

Desperate for some way to hold on to my maiden name (but not wanting to hyphenate), I asked the social security office if I could take on two middle names. That would make my legal name Emily Louise McCoy Glover, but I would just go by Emily Glover.

Unfortunately, I was told that is no longer possible — apparently the government has tried to streamline personal information since September 11, so people are only permitted to have three spaces for a first, middle and last name.

So that was that. I changed my name to Emily Louise Glover.

In the time since then, I’ve come to accept this a little bit more. Now, I think of it less as losing my maiden name and more as taking on a new one. (And even if the government doesn’t recognize it, I’ll always identify myself as Emily Louise McCoy Glover.)

Besides, there are plenty of things to love about my new name. I get to write the fun cursive G. The word “love” is sandwiched in between the first and last letters. Best of all, Dan and I are the solely responsible for carrying on the family name — and I’ll be proud when my children identify as strongly with Glover as I did with McCoy.

Stephanie B.

I miss my maiden name so much. It was a huge source of contention for me and my husband in the early stages of our marriage, and now, three years after changing it, I still am upset about it.

I took my maiden name as my middle, and I sign Stephanie Maiden Married whenever possible, and it is incorporated into my work Outlook signature.

The other day, I found myself doodling my old name, I just miss it so much! :/ I try not to dwell on it.

I’d love to hear advice from other readers on how to deal with this!
Erin H.

I was so excited to get a new name. I thought Brown was so plain, and a million different people were named Brown, and I didn’t show up on a google search, and I was looking forward to being a little different.

Now that I have a name I have to spell for people (and they still get it wrong!), I feel that I do miss my maiden name. People still think of me as a Brown and call me a Brown on occassion. I always say I am still a Brown at heart! It really was such a bigger part of my identity than I realized, and sometimes I feel like having a different last name also separates me from my family a little. Overall though, I don’t dwell on it often, and I think with time I’ll get more and more used to being a Heger.

If I had a cool last name like McCoy though, I might be more sad about losing it. (Seriously cool. But Glover is too!) I know that if it really meant that much to me, Steven would have been supportive of me not changing my name at all. But I wasn’t too attached to Brown, so I never brought it up and it never became an issue.
http://itsalyx.com Alyx

I hate the G!!!! AArrrgghhh… My signature was so much easier when my last name was Dodds. A lot of times, I’ll put the “Dodds” in there somewhere, just because I like it. I do like having my new last name though, and after almost 2 years, it’s finally to the point where it doesn’t sound odd to me.
http://mrs-alanas-miscellany.com Alana Winder

I love this post! Even though I still haven’t *technically* changed my name legally, I go by my married name except sometimes when I absentmindedly doodle or refer to myself as Alana Smith. I do miss never having to spell or tell someone how to pronounce my last name, but at least my new name is more unique!
Ashley Spencer

I don’t miss my last name. The hardest part was moving alphabetically from a “C” to a “S”.

My family is very well known in education down here, which had it’s advantages. But for once in my life, I am an unknown, and I can make a name for myself! (Until all my coworkers find out that my grandpa was the superintendent of schools for a really long time here…)
Ashley Spencer

Erin — I had the opposite happen. I always had to spell out Curran, but I never have to spell out Spencer! It’s wonderful!
Jenn

So glad you brought this up! I was definitely going to add it to my middle name. That’s dumb you can’t do that!

Have a quick question that relates to weddings. My fiance and I are not seeing each other before the wedding, so we’re going to take pictures after. That’s what you did correct? If so, when was your ceremony and did you have angry guests by the time of the reception? :) Just curious. Thanks!

Emily

That’s what we did — and that’s actually what the bride and groom have done at every wedding I’ve been to. We didn’t take too long with pictures, but it also helped to have a little “cocktail hour,” with some appetizers and the DJ. I didn’t get the impression that anyone was bored/angry with the wait and I’ve never really felt that way at the other weddings. I hope that helps!

http://www.joggingconcierge.com Alaina

My maiden name was Bliss and I definitely miss it from time to time. My husbands last name is Polish so I’m constantly spelling it out to people. But I do love having a shared last name. After almost 4 years of marriage, it seems like such a part of me know. Of course, legally, I changed my name to Alaina Bliss “New Name”. Can’t get rid of it. :-)