That being said, my mom kept her maiden name when she got married. People have asked me if that was ever strange for me growing up, but I never thought so. My mom is a strong, independent woman who loves my father very much, but was also well-established in her career when she tied the knot. For her, getting married wasn't a fanciful, big ordeal. It was just the next stage in her relationship with my father and neither of them equated that stage as one that was necessary for my mother to trade-in her identity that she'd worked for so long to develop to become a "Mrs." No. She belongs to no one but herself. But she chooses to give her life and love to my dad, without that sense of "property" or whatever that goes along with a last name change. As a child, I never even realized that people might look at me as if I were the child of an unwed mother or divorced parents or anything like that, though, looking back, I'm sure people could have. And, quite frankly, even if I were the child of divorced or unwed parents, whose business is that? Right. People's only business is that my parents provided me with love and attention, which they, of course, showered me with.
Plus, I grew up in a great and comfortable city where we didn't call parents "Mister and Missus." Everyone went by first names. There were JoAnne and Rich, Sylvia and Franklin, Lynn and Tom. Last names were never a part of our naming conventions, so it was never a deal having a mom with a different last name.
Being an academic brings all sorts of other considerations to the forefront of this issue. I'm not highly reputable or anything, but I'm a co-author on a handful of papers now and it would be a shame to disassociate those with myself by changing my last name. I like the research that I did as a master's student. It's very different from what I do now, but it's something that I would consider turning to as a career path, so being associated with those PIs may be great for my future career!
However, I know that it would be J's preference if I were to become a Zagel, though I know he won't push me either direction and, really, just wants me to be happy. When we had first discussed the idea of marriage, I told him I'm not sure I'd change my last name, but our kids could surely have his last name.
Of course, there are a lot of other options. I could change my last name officially, but still publish under my maiden name. I could keep my maiden name as part of my name -- maybe as a middle name. I could hyphenate (but I won't, because that's a lot of Z's for one last name!).
Of course, there are pros and cons for all options. All-in-all, I'm glad I have a fiance who isn't egotistical enough to feel that I should take his last name for whatever reason, and is placing that decision in my hands.
And, for fun, good music:
