Professional Names - in theory for now

[clodia_risa]

Here's a resource I haven't been able to find, and I need desperately in the next, oh, month.

How do professional names work? I've seen some website that suggest that a woman take her husband's name and keep her name as her "professional name". How does that work?

Theoretically, this isn't for me, but for my soon-to-be husband - for I am objecting strongly to being Mrs. Firstname Lastname. I wouldn't mind being Mrs. Firstname Mylastname-Hislastname. But he says that he has made contacts and put out posters, so he doesn't need to change his last name because of professional recognition. (I think that because he hasn't published any papers and hasn't gotten his Ph.D. yet, it's a fine time, but he knows more about his career than I do.)

So I've asked him if using hislastname as his professional name would be a good compromise. He's promised to think about it until we could discuss it face to face (had discussion over phone at work when I realized how much of an issue I was having).

I've googled, and not found much except for "use your maiden name at work, but your new name everywhere else." Help? How can I convince him - how does this work?

Also, I don't feel like going through all the paperwork, but if he was going through it too, I'd feel better. Mostly its my feminist side (side? self. entire self.) that is in uproar.

Comments

[scottique.livejournal.com]

So... you're opposed to taking his last name, and you want him to take yours?

I do hope there's something more complicated going on than "I'm allowed to want to keep mine on principle, but he's unreasonable if he wants to keep his for the same reasons." Right?

Or am I braindead and completely mis-reading this whole post? :-)

[clodia-risa.livejournal.com]

So, I thought about it more, and the problem was that I was having a crisis in identity stemming from completely lack of self-esteem and fear that I would never be anything but Mrs. FN LN. I'm over it now, but you're right. It would be silly of me. Or worse than silly.

[of-the-myst.livejournal.com]

you could both keep your own last names... then any children (if you do have them) could have the two name combo....

On the other hand i have a friend whose husband kept his name the way it was and she hyphenated her name....

[clodia-risa.livejournal.com]

Problem resolved - it was all in my head, I've been planning on taking his last name for ages, I'm over it.

BTW - you had asked when the wedding was (I just noticed the new feature on lj.com - I almost never go to the main page, sorry) - its July 29.

[of-the-myst.livejournal.com]

LOL ... thats funny...

Congrats sweety!