Last but not least

When I got a tattoo recently (my first!), one of the employees asked for the story. “I have three sisters, and awhile ago we all decided we’d get the letter Z tattooed on us somewhere. Our last name starts with Z, and that way, no matter what, we’d always have that bond.” “So… do all [...]

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Hyper hyphens

When people hear that Mike and I each kept our own surnames at marriage, the most common question we get is “What about the kids?” And we’ve mulled it over greatly, and decided that we’ll hyphenate their last names.* The decision to hyphenate was a hard one for me. I kind of hate hyphenated names, [...]

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It’s all in the name

Now that I’ve written about how happy we are with our last name situation*, let’s talk about the kids. I’ve never really been sure what I’d want to do with my kids’ last names knowing that my husband and I would likely have different names, but I always hoped a good answer would emerge at [...]

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Z is for me, M is for him

As most of you know, I decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t change my last name when I got married. Before I met Mike, I heard several times from several people that once I met the right guy I’d change my mind. Once I was actually getting married, I’d understand why most women [...]

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Premarital counseling

Did we ever tell you that we were rock stars at premarital counseling? We were pretty much star students, the valedictorians of premarital counseling, as Dooce might say. Before our first appointment, we were given an assessment to take separately. It was supposed to tell the counselor what areas we needed to work on, where [...]

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Making a map for the wedding

Over the weekend, I made a map to accompany our invitations (which are SO cool by the way – I’ll show you when they’re done). I wasn’t sure how to go about it, but I found this tutorial incredibly helpful. Basically I pasted an image from Google Maps into PowerPoint, then drew over it, added [...]

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What if there’s no precedent?

Because it’s my favorite topic, I enjoyed reading this post and its comments on So You’re Engayged. I swear someone needs to pay me to do a study on the culture of last names because I find it absolutely fascinating! With straight couples it’s usually assumed that the woman takes the man’s last name, and [...]

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Further discussion on the topic

For those of you interested in more of the great last name debate, I cross-posted the Last Name Ultimatum at the Feministing Community site, and it generated some interesting discussion. Check it out.

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A Man’s Pride

Shan and I have had many conversations regarding name changing in marriage. I don’t really get it. Who cares what people do with their last names? Here are some arguments I’ve heard: It’s tradition. And? There are lots of traditions that we don’t observe any more. Did you know that the word ‘bride’ comes from [...]

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A last name ultimatum

I was scanning the radio this morning and stumbled upon a local morning show that I don’t normally listen to. I was intrigued by the few seconds the scanner caught because it was a woman explaining why she didn’t change her last name when she married. This is one of my very favorite topics, so [...]

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