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I was curious what other people were planning on calling themselves post-wedding.

1. Did any kind of name-change take place? If so, what was it?

2. What title do you use now? Individually and as a unit with your spouse?


My own answers:
We both changed our names, on the formula of Sally Smith and Jane Jones become Sally Smith Jones and Jane Smith Jones, where Smith is the middle name for both and Jones is the last name for both. We did this because hyphenating both our names would have been really long and cumbersome. I like hyphenating best when both parties have short names, but in our case, the result was unwieldy and not fitting on any forms. Also, one of us had a maiden name which is very rare and the other one had a really common maiden name, so there was a somewhat obvious choice about which name would become new last name and which name would become the middle name. Two years later, we're really happy with the result. We can use both names when we want to, but we aren't obligated to use them all the time when it gets too cumbersome. Doing some kind of name change was important to us because having a family last name is one of the few rights of marriage that we can have, and also, we want to have children so it was important to us for that reason as well.

As for titles, Mrs mostly, but Ms as befitting the occasion, i.e. professionally. As a unit, we're fond of Mmes, short for Mesdames, which is the proper English term for more than one Mrs. We recently received an invitation to a bridal shower that used the appropriate term, and it made me ridiculously happy.

Hey, Countess!

You've added some great resources to the forum. I love it!

And, this question you raise is great! My partner and I share the same given middle name (Elizabeth) so, though we haven't changed our names, we have joked about referring to ourselves as Kathryn & Amy Elizabeth!

But, on to a recent conversation I just had about this topic:

A groom-to-be called me yesterday and this was one of the first questions he asked me -- he wondered: if he and his partner were to go somewhere where marriage was legal, would this automatically change his name?

After giving him a bit of "legal gay marriage" 101, I told him that anyone can change his/her name for any reason and that he and his partner would just need to consider doing this (if that's what they want) in conjunction with any ceremony they choose to have (legally sanctioned or not).

How difficult did you find the name change process to be -- from coming up with which names to use to going through the courts to get the process completed. Were there any specific "name change" kits or resources you relied on?

I changed my last name to be the same as my parnter's, and this was one of the only times I encountered homophobia during the process of planning the wedding!

When I went to the county clerk's office and asked for a name change form, they directed me to the family services area. However, when I arrived at the family services, the woman at the desk turned up her nose at me and said they only dealt with "real" weddings and since this was not any kind of legal event but merely a personal choice on my part, I needed to go now the hall to civil services. It was really her tone that was unbelievably rude. The other woman in the booth next to her was quite embarrassed and felt bad for me, so she said something lame like, "um, it's not far down the hall, only two doors," or something like that. Poor thing.

What I discovered is that, at least in California, it is more difficult and expensive to change your name when the marriage is not recognized by the state.

I'm very happy I did it, though. It has been very fun to tell everyone my new name, it definitely makes a statement about being married.

quote:

Originally posted by Kathryn:
And, this question you raise is great! My partner and I share the same given middle name (Elizabeth) so, though we haven't changed our names, we have joked about referring to ourselves as Kathryn & Amy Elizabeth!

Ha, that's really cute!

quote:

But, on to a recent conversation I just had about this topic:

A groom-to-be called me yesterday and this was one of the first questions he asked me -- he wondered: if he and his partner were to go somewhere where marriage was legal, would this automatically change his name?

After giving him a bit of "legal gay marriage" 101, I told him that anyone can change his/her name for any reason and that he and his partner would just need to consider doing this (if that's what they want) in conjunction with any ceremony they choose to have (legally sanctioned or not).

Straight people get married all the time without changing their names. And it's possible to change your name without marriage entering into the picture at all, just because you hate being called Sarah Smith and would rather be called Xena Warrior-Princess. With and without marriage license name changes are two different processes, though.

One is the "common law name change", wherein you take your marriage license to the social security office and the DMV and say, "Hi, we got married, look at our marriage documentation, we'd like to change our name". If you are in MA, you can probably do this, like straight couples do (I would guess). Thus, name changing is a little bit of a hassle, but it's just a matter of waving your document around in the right places (and sending copies around to a few places), and you get all of your ID issued in your new name, and then you use that to change your name everywhere else.

We had a civil union license but not a marriage license, and we basically could not go this route (as per the Social Security office). Instead, we had to get a court order from a judge to get our name changed. We could then brandish the court ordered name change document in all the above places (DMV, Social Security office, etc.) to get new ID in the new name.

How easy it is to get a court ordered name change varies a LOT from state-to-state. Here in WA state, it was a very quick process. The nice people at the courthouse even allowed us to put both of us on one court order document, so we only had to pay the fees once (ballpark: $70). Basically, we showed up one afternoon, stood in line, filled out forms and gave them our money, and we were then given a date to show up in court a week later. We did, and had to swear an oath that we were not changing our names for any kind of fraudulent purpose (tax evasion or running from the law), the judge signed it, and that was it. So while it's a bit more of a pain than if you have a marriage license, it wasn't all that bad. Took a couple of hours of our time and $70, nothing too traumatic, and if we hadn't had to wait through the long session at court it would have been even faster. It's worth noting that you do not need a civil union license or anything to change your name through court order. You do have to fill out why you're changing our name, and we put down something about wanting to reflect our status as a family unit.

I do know that in other states there are more stringent requirements, like having to publish that you intend to change your name in a newspaper for a certain period of time, before you can get a court-ordered name change. But for us it was a really quick simple painless process.

Deciding on the name change took the longest time. That's what year-and-a-half engagements are for! Then the court stuff didn't take very long - basically two trips to the courthouse, one of which we spent the morning waiting for our turn in court. Then after that going systematically through every piece of paper with your old name, and making sure it's changed to your new name, is a bit of a pain, but it's the same thing that any straight married name-changer goes through. I wouldn't get any specific kits, it's all common sense. You start with social security number, then move to your photo ID of driver's license and passport, and then go through all of the bank stuff (they just want to see your new photoID usually). For the next half-year, you'll get bills and whatnot in the old name, and you'll just change the name as you come across it.

I would advise that you do the name-change AFTER any honeymoon, so that you're not trying to deal with travelling when not all of your papers are in agreement yet.

quote:

Originally posted by Countess:
I was curious what other people were planning on calling themselves post-wedding.

1. Did any kind of name-change take place? If so, what was it?

2. What title do you use now? Individually and as a unit with your spouse?

We haven't had the ceremony yet, so we're still working on our name change...
We think we're going to combine our names - which are Emmons-Bradley and Zaidberg. (my mom was a big hippy, so i have both my parent's last names, further hyphenation is out!)

We've tried a LOT of combinations, and in the beginning came up with the simplest EmBraZa, with the prefix from each name, and thought it was so silly sounding, that we started using it all the time at home. And then we got used to it, and decided we liked it best.

So we'll both be changing our names to Embraza, after the wedding. We write about it on our website, and also give people a vote. Turns out our friends LOVE it, and close family members do not. We asked all our parents about it, and none of them liked it. None of them liked us changing our names to anything though...

I think we will both go by Mrs when after we're married, and obviously Mmes as plural. Which i'm very excited about (thanks kathryn!)

I'd love to hear what other folks have done / will be doing!

-Rachel

One more question for everyone else - if you did a name change, how did you go about that process? Was it difficult? I've begun to deal with the New York City system - and it is INCREDIBLY overwhelming.

Any helpful hints? Even if you're from outside of the city, or a different state?

We've had so many good laughs over this, as our names do not combine well at all- I suggest trying this even if you're not combining names. We're definitely not going with any of our choice possibilities: Bixtini (our favorite), Martibix (breakfast, anyone?), Tinibix (sound naughty), Bixbini (er, no.) We considered hyphenating, but then our initials would be "BM". My mom being a nurse, I just can't stomach this. Having had my father recently back out of the wedding, I thought about it and realized I don't much like the guys who've passed my last name down, so why should I keep it? Also, J changed her last name a while ago to her current one in order to honor her maternal grandfather who was a fabulous guy and who she loved very much, so I think that's a great reason for choosing a married name. I think we'll both be going by Martini- I'm pretty excited! As for the process, we're in Mass, so I hope it will be easy. One caveat for Mass residents- still no go for changing your passport- the feds will still charge you the hefty fee for changing it, as they will not recognize a Massachusetts marriage license for a same-sex couple.

quote:

Originally posted by Not Yet Married:
Was it difficult? I've begun to deal with the New York City system - and it is INCREDIBLY overwhelming.

It may be a comfort to you that the concept of name changing is incredibly overwhelming in general, just because there is SO MUCH that has your name on it. But you're right that you have an additional burden of needing to actually go through the court system, and I know in some states that's much more of a hassle than what we experienced (described above).

My helpful hint would be to try to find someone else who's done a name-change-by-court-order before. We found helpful info on a transgender website about which courthouse was best to go to, for example.

And other than that, just take it one step at a time... but I do encourage you to do it sometime not too long after the wedding so that you have the impetus to go ahead and do it, rather than putting it off forever because it's inconvenient and a pain in the derriere.

quote:

Originally posted by Kate:
We've had so many good laughs over this, as our names do not combine well at all- I suggest trying this even if you're not combining names.

Ha ha ha! These are hilarious! A lot of them do make me think about Wheetabix, the British Breakfast Cereal. We also had fun with the names-in-a-blender game, but it only yielded incredible hilarity rather than anything one could actually use for a last name. Our last names were very different in terms of country of origin and they just didn't combine well on the syllable level.

Martini is lovely, and I like your reasons for choosing it. Ultimately, not every generation can have every name fairly represented, so I think sometimes choosing a new name can be a really good solution, and if it's a family name with a meaningful history behind the choice, even better.

Sorry to hear that your father backed out of the wedding. That's really rough.

As far as getting the passport changed, it didn't cost a fee at all, I think, they just printed a line onto one of the pages...???

Yes, sorry, that was a mistake. It's not that the Federal gov't charges a fee for changing it, but they won't recognize a same-sex marriage license from Massachusetts as valid documentation, so if you already have a passport, you still have to go through the Probate Court name-change in order to change your passport, which in Mass costs $165 (unless you get a hardship-waiver). Or so I read on the informational flyer on the legalities that I received from one of our local equal-marriage groups. I don't have a passport, so it's been pretty simple thus far. I changed my name when we went for the license, when we finally got the marriage certificate, I took that to the Social Security office and changed my name there- the new card came in about 2 weeks. Then I took those to the RMV and changed my license (still procrastinating on the registration, which has to be done before I can change the name on our car insurance). Most other stuff was done over the phone, except for my student loan holder who insists I send a copy of the marriage certificate. Complicated! I wish there were a button in City Hall that you could push and have it all done.

We are not changing our names - neither of us wants to do that.

But - interesting new developments in NJ (where we are having our ceremony) - their version of civil unions is **100% identical** to hetero marriage (except in name obviously, but I'll get into that another day.) They literally took the existing marriage statutes, and changed them accordingly: each time the word "marriage" appeared, they added "or civil union."

So - (and I read it to make sure) - a name change would be no different or more expensive for a same-sex couple than a hetero couple.

But we're still not doing it lol.

Another nice touch is you don't have to live in NJ to do it (unlike NJ's previous domestic partnership law, and unlike Massachusetts' marriage law.)