Did You Change or Hyphenate Your Name?

[Aymsgirl 0]

Changed it and he is proud by it!

[S and S 12]

I moved my maiden name to my middle name. Then took my husband's last name as my last name. This way I could keep both. It took awhile to change credit cards and things over so it helped to gave an ID still showing my maiden name somewhere so they didn't get confused or refuse my credit card.

[esmatsgirl 1]

I changed mine...however I have not started using it officially yet...I am waiting for him to get here. We have some issues with the way it is spelled vs. the way it should be spelled. If we spell it the way it was translated in his passport, it will be pronounced incorrectly here in the US. Eventually, we will be changing the spelling a little. Also, he has Al in front of his name....in Jordan they do not pronounce the "Al" part of the name out loud.....it is silent....but when it is translated from arabic into english, the Al comes along and you know how that gets botched up in the US. In the end, we will keep the Al, I do think....despite anti-middle eastern sentiment...which is only shown by ignorant people that do not fully understand the people, culture and religion of the middle east. I am ready for them if I get any rude reactions on my new arabic last name...which I am very proud of.

Long story short...yes, I changed my name...my husband is extremely proud as I am very proud to have the honor of being a part of his family and using his name. You know, a lot of women already have the same last (family) name of their husbands...usually marrying within the same family.....so they don't have to change it. In my husband's family the women that married into the family that were not already in the family did change their last names.

Eventually we have plans to move back to Jordan (in quite a few years) and I will then hold dual citizenship...for fun we already picked out my arabic last name. Yasmin. It means the same thing as Jasmine...the flower. Since I love Jasmine so much my husband picked this name for me. It was that or Farah...which means Joy.

Hope this helps....

Deb

[S and S 12]

I changed mine...however I have not started using it officially yet...I am waiting for him to get here. We have some issues with the way it is spelled vs. the way it should be spelled. If we spell it the way it was translated in his passport, it will be pronounced incorrectly here in the US. Eventually, we will be changing the spelling a little. Also, he has Al in front of his name....in Jordan they do not pronounce the "Al" part of the name out loud.....it is silent....but when it is translated from arabic into english, the Al comes along and you know how that gets botched up in the US. In the end, we will keep the Al, I do think....despite anti-middle eastern sentiment...which is only shown by ignorant people that do not fully understand the people, culture and religion of the middle east. I am ready for them if I get any rude reactions on my new arabic last name...which I am very proud of.

Long story short...yes, I changed my name...my husband is extremely proud as I am very proud to have the honor of being a part of his family and using his name. You know, a lot of women already have the same last (family) name of their husbands...usually marrying within the same family.....so they don't have to change it. In my husband's family the women that married into the family that were not already in the family did change their last names.

Eventually we have plans to move back to Jordan (in quite a few years) and I will then hold dual citizenship...for fun we already picked out my arabic last name. Yasmin. It means the same thing as Jasmine...the flower. Since I love Jasmine so much my husband picked this name for me. It was that or Farah...which means Joy.

Hope this helps....

Deb

I hyphenated the "Al" part of my husband's last name. Mostly I just get questions about where the name comes from. Then when I tell them they say "oh, okay". One guy then asked if I was from Iraq! I simply said no so he asked how I got my name. As a joke I said I bought it at a market there. That if he goes to Iraq he could buy anything, lol. I swear he was going to believe me, but my co-workers were laughing so hard that he caught on.

[Staashi 371]

I changed mine to my husband's...although he said I should keep mine and add his like they do in Argentina, but I just switched because I would have had 5 names. I have to say though it is very difficult at times, because my maiden name was an easy one like "Johnson". Now it is a double last name...because he had two from his parents...one is a Spanish surname and the other is Italian...it is real fun here in Tallahassee, where people are very Southern and their pronunciation is very off all the time. I do feel proud of it, knowing that nowhere else is there another girl out there with my name.

Edited July 3, 2008 by Staashi

[amal 4]

changed. he still laughs when he hears me say my name wiht his last name. I'm very proud of holding this mans last name although i wish I would have hyphenated my maiden name or put my maiden name as a middle name. The main reason I changed it is coz I was still under my ex's last name and was ready to get rid of it.

enjoy making this decision.

[~Jackie~ 30]

Had to change mine cuz I wanted to ditch the ex's last name. I swear..I want to be like Cher and Madonna and truly be just 'Jackie' that's it. just me.

We kept the Al and used a space not a dash. The dash/space issue was messing things up. So it is Al Haji on my drivers license and Alhaji on my business cards.

Jackie

[Hanna&Mohamed 0]

Mohamed and I talked about this and I was so happy he wanted me to take his last name. Its very long !!lol! I also use my ex name in the middle because i have children by that name!!

[Jenn! 918]

I didn't change my name. It wasn't a big deal or difficult decision, I don't really care either way (although I do like my last name and after growing up feeling it was too "ethnic" I'm proud of it now!). As it was not part of his culture or family tradition, he didn't see any reason why I should have to change it.

[browneyez40 0]

Everytime i actually let myself think about fun married-life stuff (instead of dreadful USCIS stuff), i think i might like to keep all my names: Given Middle Family Hubbie's. No hyphen, just a bunch of names... is that too much?

Who cares if it is to many names as long as you are happy? I didn't like my middle name so I moved my family name to my middle and took my husband's last name. I use all three names on everything - Name Maiden Name and Husband's Name all in a row no hyphens or anything. And I request that other people use all three.

[Nutty 2]

First of all, not all of us on the MENA boards are married to Arabs (some are married to Persians,North Africans and even some South Asians).

To answer your question though, no. My husband has a bizaare, eleven syllable last name. Wouldn't dream of changing my family name.

[Nita&Assaad 0]

I do the same, I request that people use my whole name too, some say it's too long... Oh well, that's my name and I LOVE IT!!!

Everytime i actually let myself think about fun married-life stuff (instead of dreadful USCIS stuff), i think i might like to keep all my names: Given Middle Family Hubbie's. No hyphen, just a bunch of names... is that too much?

Who cares if it is to many names as long as you are happy? I didn't like my middle name so I moved my family name to my middle and took my husband's last name. I use all three names on everything - Name Maiden Name and Husband's Name all in a row no hyphens or anything. And I request that other people use all three.

Then if that's the case I am married to a Lebanese, not an Arab! B)

First of all, not all of us on the MENA boards are married to Arabs (some are married to Persians,North Africans and even some South Asians).

To answer your question though, no. My husband has a bizaare, eleven syllable last name. Wouldn't dream of changing my family name.

[CassandraHaydar 0]

My fiance will actually take my last name when we get married. He didn't seem opposed when I suggested this.

[sereia 0]

did not change my name. maybe in the future...

[sara535 15]

I did not change nor hyphenate my name

neither did i.

charles, you rebel!