Just a different perspective, my Mum kept her name always because she wasn't married, but gave me Dad's surname. They split up when I was a baby so I grew up with just Mum and it was kind of irritating always having to explain she was my mother (even had to show my medicare card to someone in high school to convince them, since we had a shared card).

I think its generally really helpful if the mum's name and the kids names are at least connected (like hyphen or double-barrel without hyphen) just to ease the kids life if the mum is the one mostly dealing with school etc. If you both work though and will be pretty equal in dealing with schools and extra-curricular then I d on't think it matters as much.

I took DH's name just because I never really liked my Dad'ssurname (and had no close relationship with him). Had I had my Mum's surname I probably would have kept it.

Also one thing I saw a lot of in america was women dropping their middle name and putting their maiden name there, so Rachel Spellman became Rachel Spellman Sweet. And without the hyphen just Mrs Spellman Sweet. I thought that was kind of nice, not so much for Mums but for the kids maybe. Though so many pretty firstnames out there I need that middle name space - I'm too indecisive!

Interesting topic!