Anonymous wrote:For me it's practical. I am a feminist, and that influenced why I didn't change my name...but mostly I didn't change it because I was in my 30s, professionally established with publications, and I have an ethnic name that sounds masculine and would have even moreso with DH's last name. I also know that men have a more difficult time traveling with children who don't share their last name than women do, so I figured it would be easier if the kids had his last name. I briefly considered hyphenating, but DH's last name has punctuation, which would have created a huge extra headache.
I was the same, but I kept my maiden name as a middle name and used all three professionally. It worked. For family stuff and kid stuff, I just use the family name.