For me, it was because my husbands last name was simpler than my maiden name.

Especially in the digital age, lots of people have digital usernames like SarahSmith1727373. So the last name clearly doesn’t mean much anymore…

but you also just used 2 names in your example… others here already said the right stuff, but I reiterate, it’s a lot of symbolism helping create feelings of unity in a family unit, but also there are legal issues/benefits for changing a last name.

I had discussed it with my wife. I didn’t want her to feel obligated to do so, and I know it would be awkward at her work to change her last name, but ultimately she wanted to - so I guess that’s one reason?

There is a degree of closeness from it that I think some people appreciate. If you all share a last name, perhaps you feel closer as a family? I’ve known some people that don’t share the same last name as their kids, or people that went double-barrelled, but didn’t with their kids, and some of them had either changed later, or regretted not having the “same” name.

A. Many men would not marry a woman who didn’t take their name.

B. Makes parenting more difficult in social settings by not sharing the last name of your kids. I.E. Picking up your kid at school or making medical decisions about kids and having a different last name as the child forces you to jump through a lot more hoops.

C. Women tend to grow up knowing they are going to change their last name it’s not even an afterthought. My girlfriend told me her and her friends would often talk about what their name would be if they married a guy they liked.

D. In some states it is very difficult for a man to change their last name but for women the processes is already in place.

I’ve dated a few people who seemed progressive, and I’m a woke-ass queer, but names were a sticking point. I have a complicated welsh travesty of a name I would happily trade in for something shorter - so when I got engaged and I didn’t like his name either, and neither did he, I suggested we both pick something new and change our names together. I mean, if it’s no big deal for me to change my name, it shouldn’t be for him either, right? Anyway, I’m single now.

I am originally from Spain but have since moved abroad where partners changing names is common.

Personally I love the way it is handled in Spain, where you get your family name at birth and won’t be changed by marrying (you could change it but it is not normal to do it when you get married). And the family name is always a combination of both parents. Traditionally it was the first family name from the father and the first from the mother, but nowadays it can be decided which goes first. So officially everyone’s got two family names, one from each parent. Unofficially you can just go as far as you want, so you get your given name, then first family name from one parent, then first from the other, then the second from the first, then the second from the second, etc. So if you track your family tree you can take all family names to make a huge list of them, which is not used for anything but somehow makes you be more attached to all those roots without names being lost.

Of course that makes it a nightmare when going to other places, everyone thinks your first family name is a middle name and dealing with two family names officially can be a pain. And let’s not go into naming your kids then…

When I was marrying my wife she asked me how I felt about her changing her name to mine and if I wanted her to do that. She got her father’s name but her mother divorced him later on and changed her name back and my wife’s father was not much part of her life, so she was happy to just change it. I told her that for me that custom is a bit strange and I didn’t need her to do it but would accept it if she wanted to (knowing her background), so whatever she did I wanted it to be her choice, but notice how in Spain people who share family name are siblings, as it is extremely rare for two persons to share both first and second name if not related, so sharing family name with my wife is really odd in a way…

At the end she changed her name, but because in this country you only have one she only took the first one. While our kids had to take either both of mine or hers (we had our first kid before us marrying and her changing name, so we chose mine), so now we all share the first (and only, in the case of my wife) family name but me and my kids have both my first and second family name (any kids after the first kid must get the same name).

If that was not complex enough, as I got my kids both nationalities, in Spain the rule is always first of one parent plus first of the other parent, and as the first one was born before us marrying, in Spain he has a different family name than he does where we live.

She takes my hoodies, my snacks, my cash, the blankets… why wouldn’t she take my name?

(She didn’t take my name.)

Can’t speak for all women, but I (and I imagine some others) changed my name because I knew I’d be having kids and didn’t want there to be any confusion. Like, if I’m traveling internationally or if my kid ends up in the hospital, I don’t want one of us having to fish out a birth certificate to prove we’re both the parents. Also I’m of the percent that absolutely hated my long last name so the chance for my name to be shorter and nicer was a no brainer.

My wife took my name because she liked it better than hers. Although if we had known that where we live, you can change your name to whatever you want when you get a marriage license, then we would have picked something cooler.

We couldn’t decide on something on the spot though.

Many people are fine with changing their names and the ones that aren’t won’t do it. There’s your answer. Don’t rag on the people that like changing their name.

My SO and have talked about possibly changing both of our last names when married. Neither of us are tied to or really care about our current names for any reason so why not just start fresh.

After we were married wife kept her last name, partially for professional reasons partially because she didn’t like my last name :-) When we had kids we decided that the kids would have my last name to avoid hyphen hell and her last name is super generic so any time she has to search for an account at the bank or anything like that she almost always has someone else with the same first and last name it can be a pain to find the correct “her”

Tradition, mostly. When I discussed this with my fiancee she just wants to - I certainly don’t care. My one cousin went with both hyphenated, in alphabetical order so hers was first.

Makes things easier for both parties when medical issues arise, even more so for parents. And I genuinely believe that a lot of women don’t know it’s an option.

I actually didn’t change my name when my mom married my dad, so you can really just say “no.” i was in middle school when I decided that, but whenever my dad tried to do anything, he had to jump through hoops. 🤷🏿‍♀️

It helps with legal documents and proof of ownership of equity if both last names are the same. Taking the man’s last name is just an archaic tradition but I do agree that having both last names the same is useful.

I will say though that people who hyphenate both their last name’s are fucking psychopaths. Just choose one. Don’t make other people have to remember 2 last names.