Hi,

I hyphenated my name to include my mothers maiden name when I was 20 years old. My parents are still together, it was because I could not support the giving of the male name and the erasure of the woman's upon marriage.

Neither my DH or I changed our names upon marriage.

I thought it was important for DD to have my name and luckily DH agreed.

I decided only half of my name as i have found my own surname a pain now i am working in a career where my surname is used allll the time. I have since halved it for work as well. I chose the original half as it was what I was known as for 2/3rds of my life and I identify with it more than my mothers maiden name. Also my parents are my fathers surname and i realised that having that connection was more important than the somewhat political statement to include my mothers name in mine.

We also put in her fathers surname as her middle name as we did not see the sense in another first name as a middle name. We had none picked out anyway. We wanted her name to acknowledge the two main family lines. It is difficult where do you stop? My DH has his mothers name so it was easy for us there.

I had originally changed my name as i think it is unfair that the male name is the important one. One of my reasons is that I thought the role of the mother in growing her child and raising her child in our society naturally lends itself to the mothers name being given to them. However that is my view and i know not every one agrees.

If we had had a boy then i may have considered my husbands name as I felt he would have liked that, but we did not have to go there. But i would have been sad it was not my name. Who knows what would happen if we have a second child.

I am now considering changing my name back to my original surname for ease of use, which will cause some laughter amongst my extended family after all the scandal my decision caused before.(It really did cause some major reactions at the time).

Good luck with your decision. It is a hard one. My decisions are my own and everyone has their reasons for keeping/giving names.