Lucy Stone
Congratulations! You’re getting married! Or you’ve already gotten married. So, are you going to change your name?
It may be interesting to know that on average, 3 million women per year change their names. Naturally, you’re asking yourself, should I change mine?
Here are a few things to consider when changing your name:
- Do you want to change your name? Your name has been your identify for your entire life. Changing it takes some adjustment. Trust me, right after I got married I began the name change process but continued to refer to myself with my maiden name for at least six months until it finally stuck.
- Consider the possibility that your new last name may rhyme with your first name. Will your new last name rhyme with your first name creating some kind of unintended but kind-of-cute-nursery-rhyme? Heather Wether, Karen Aaron, Julia Gulia? (love that name from the movie Wedding Singer).
- Are you well known professionally as your maiden name? Will this confuse your clients, customers, employees, employers, etc.?
- Would you consider hyphenating your name to maintain your family name?
- Here’s the thing: You dont have to change it if you dont want to.
I came upon an interesting article on Oprah.com by Faith Sallie, who introduced her readers to a woman named Lucy Stone, a suffragist from the 19th century.
Sallie wrote:
“What would Lucy Stone say? She was a 19th-century suffragist who was the first American woman to revert to her birth name after marriage. She even had to chastise one Susan B. Anthony by writing to Suze, “A wife should no more take her husband’s name than he should hers.” Stone’s followers — women who refused to change their names upon marriage — were called Stoners. Today only about 20 percent of American women are Stoners. In other words, 80 percent of women change their identities — I mean, names — upon getting married.”
So for the 80% of ladies out there who choose to take their husbands name, we’re here to help. Remember – the decisions you and your new husband make are yours and yours alone. Eitherway, congratulations and enjoy this exciting time in your lives; new name or not!
