Some of you may know that back in 2019 I got married. It has been a blissful 4 years of marriage and it remains to be one of the best things that I have done in my life. Following the wedding, I wasted no time at all in changing my name. I was so excited to be married and I saw changing my name as the final step in the whole marriage process. But it wasn’t that long after everything became official that I felt strange in my new name. I missed my maidan name and my family associated to that name. For that reason, I wanted to write a post all about changing my name after marriage.
Why I chose to change my name.
I chose to change my name simply because I was swept up in the excitement of getting married. To be honest, it wasn’t even something that my husband and I discussed prior to the wedding. We both took it as just a given that I was going to change my name and take on his surname. For me, marriage was all about uniting us and the two of us becoming our own family. Little did I know at the time how that would make me feel in the long-term.
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When I recognised that I wasn’t sure about the change.
I would say that it was probably 6 months after the wedding that I first began to doubt my decision. By this stage, everything was officially changed, and I was a new person. The thing that made it crop up in my mind was seeing old work documents with my maiden name on. Seeing my ‘old name’, made me realise that I loved that name. I achieved so much under that name, loved my family that the name tied me to and I just felt like myself with that name. In a way, I felt like I had turned my back on who I used to be by changing my name. Like I had become a new person because I had got married and adopted my new husbands name. There was something anti-feminist that irked me about it all.
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Would I change my name back?
When I began to have doubts about changing my name after marriage, I spoke to my husband about it. I wanted him to talk to me about how I felt and help me rationalise how I felt. Instantly, he saw my point of view and told me that if it had affected me so much, to change back to my maidan name. For a while, I did mull it over. But I didn’t want to rush into anything. There were two things that stopped me from changing it back. The first was that if we have children one day, at least we will all share the same name. The other thing was that it would be a fuck load of paper work to revert back, not to mention expensive!
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My advice to others.
My main advice that I want to mention is just to take your time with the decision. If you have married for life, that will be your name for life. It is a big commitment to change your name. I was swept up in the beauty of the wedding and the marriage that I didn’t even think about how it would feel after. Or how I felt about my maidan name and the family that the name tied me to. Just take some time and don’t rush into anything. A simple name change doesn’t alter a marriage, make it any stronger or unite you any more than your wedding vows.
As I have mentioned throughout, my feelings towards the name change are not a reflection on marriage. I have never been as happy as I am now, but that certainly isn’t due to the fact that I changed my name. If you are planning on getting married and it is your intention to change your name, just think about it. Think about why you are doing it. Think about the name that you are leaving behind. It is a complicated thing to do, but it is even harder to reverse it and revert to your maidan name. Just don’t rush into it quite as quickly as I did. I would love to hear from you guys on this. Did you change your name? Or would you change your name?
