My girlfriend and I are going to get married in April 2011 in San Francisco and the name change debate was very heated for us. It all began when we started filling out our domestic partnership paperwork because we can’t legally get married in the state of California yet. I was very surprised at how passionate I was about the name change issue. I found myself fighting for hyphenation, but she really wasn’t interested. My girlfriend is a very logical person and thinks ahead about 5 steps before making any big decision. Changing her name would mean filing paperwork, paying unnecessary fees, potential headaches with our passports when traveling (we’re going to Europe for our honeymoon) and we aren’t planning on having kids, so combining our names for the sake of the rugrats is not a consideration. Part of me wishes that we could find some sassy combination of our last names and create a new name, but we’ve established ourselves professionally with our current names, so we’re not walking down that road either.
Enjoying a moment alone on Turkey Day.
For me, the name change was fraught with emotions because I’d changed my last name when I was 18 to honor my mother’s lineage and taking my partner’s name (while keeping my own) would be a way to honor our relationship. She wasn’t convinced. It also doesn’t help that she is a professional editor and the “hyphenated American last names” drives her nuts. I was arguing for my name to be first, but then she thought her name should be first and back and forth we went. I held off signing the domestic partnership paperwork because I thought she needed more time to think about the importance of our name change.
Eventually, I came around and saw that it would be super difficult to change our passports and spending money on it right now isn’t the smartest thing to do. I signed the domestic partnership paperwork with my name as it is and hid it in a book for her to find. She said she smiled when she saw it. Yeah!
What we’ve agreed to do for now is to wait and see how the Prop 8 ruling goes in December and if it is overturned (again) we’ll go get hitched and add our partner’s last name as our middle name. The domestic partnership paperwork is a back up.
If gay marriage goes federal one day then we wouldn’t have to worry about this, but the name change debate is something slightly different for same sex couples. If we were having kids I would have won the name change debate – mark my words. So, for now, I’ll just stay Sarah Deragon and be a tad bit jealous of all the couples where this is a non-issue.
SD
Awww Sarah! I feel ya! I’m on the fence now because of all the costs associated…it really does suck. I live in the San Diego area and we’re also counting the day until the ruling.
Alex does want to change her name, but so many money/paperwork concerns will put it on hold for a while…
We are in the Bay Area and did exactly the same thing in the hopes that a Prop 8 ruling comes in our favor and we can legally change our names with a marriage license instead of the domestic partnership paperwork…
My wife and I were married on october 32rd…. in IOWA, but we live in S. Dakota…. well here is my link on change.org… it also has the details there as well … thank you …amy
http://gayrights.change.org/petitions/view/please_join_me_in_my_fight_to_carry_my_wifes_last_name
and if you can please pass this link around that would be wonderful we are trying to get as many signatures on our petition as possible !! thank you :)