Name Change/Professional Identity

[foreverbull]

Looking for advice from women and progressively-minded men in our field who have considered name changes with marriage. I have built my professional identity (i.e. completed grad school, became fully licensed) with my birth name and will be getting married in the future, and my fiance and I are considering the ramifications of name changes both personally and professionally in this field.

Did you opt to change your legal and professional/business last name? Just one of the two? How has your decision affected your day-to-day life (i.e. was it easy and convenient? Caused any issues?). Your insights would be very helpful in this process. Thanks!

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[deleted760483]

I'm a male so I haven't personally had to deal with this but my former employer/supervisor married after about 10 years of practice, and her practice was named after her. She did legally change her name but kept the name of the practice and continued to use her maiden name for professional correspondence. I think it was a little more work for her that way but it sort of provided the best of both

 

[biscuitsbiscuits]

I changed my name legally and professionally when I got married. It was actually a lot easier than I had expected, but I was in a different field at the time. I have one publication and two degrees under my previous name and the only way I account for them is to include both names on my resume/CV heading, written like "First-name Previous-last Current-last," with my previous last name as sort of a middle name (even though, legally, it is no longer associated with me). It seems to be clear enough. I just went through the application process to doctoral programs that way and had not a single problem or question. People get it.

Legally, it was surprisingly easy. I think it was all done and dusted about four weeks after we got married. It actually felt too easy, but I think that was because I was having (and still have, in all honesty, four years later) a sort of quiet nagging voice in my head asking me why I wanted to do this regressive thing. I went very traditional and took my husband's name which is sort of rare in my area and group of friends. The default in my world is to keep your last name (or for both partners to change their last names), so I went against the grain by making this decision. And I could think of no real reason for doing this other than that I wanted to (and I really, really did want to). And then the next question I would ask myself was whether that was a good enough reason.

Most of the time, it does feel like a good enough reason. Maybe there's a tiny part of me that is more traditional than I had thought or wanted to admit.

So.... a little more than you were looking for, but that was my whole experience.

 

[Doctor Eliza]

I imagine a lot depends on what setting you work in. My friends who are academics didn't change their names. I, however, am in PP and did change my name. It was a smooth transition and I don't regret it. One thing I did do was legally change my middle name to my maiden name. My business cards have Eliza Maiden Married, PhD on them so I was able to hang on to a little of my old identity.

Best wishes!

 

[deleted343839]

It's a 100% personal decision. Name changes are common. The inconvenience of a name change is short-lived so this shouldn't be the basis for your decision. If you decide to change your name, take an afternoon off and update everything in one go (passport, Social Security, driver's license, bank/credit card, professional memberships, etc.). If you have publications in your former name, one line on the CV and a few asterisks will take care of any confusion. Again, it's very common.

All that said, I didn't change my name, and I don't regret it.

Whatever name you pick, my advice is to choose one name and stick with it. If you are in clinical practice, use the (legal) name that appears on your active license.

 

[EmotRegulation]

I actually got divorced during grad school and re-married after I got my PhD and started my job. I actually still have my ex-husband's name. I decided that for myself, having established my professional identity with my grad school last name, I didn't want to change it again. The legal pieces are annoying but manageable, I just really wanted my professional identity to stay the same. And I've heard stories of people trying to change their name legally but go by their old name professionally (or vice versa) and it caused a bunch of problems; I agree with the previous poster who said pick something and commit to it. So, I have a different last name than my husband and kid (soon to be kids). I've basically decided that I'm going to change my name when I retire, so that post-retirement I'll have the same last name as my husband and children and can use that as a way to distance myself a bit from my professional career (as I anticipate having difficulty with that separation).

For what it's worth, too, I have a friend (not in psychology or academia) whose husband changed his name to HER last name, as she had reasons she wanted to retain her family name and he didn't care all that much. So sometimes that is done too!!

 

[CheetahGirl]

I hyphenated my last name with my Maiden-Married name, and professionally, have no problems with the hyphenated name, some people call me one name or the other, but I respond to all. Passport, Driver's License, Voter's registration, etc. No issue. Just added the new name and all is good. For me, professionally, not much was done before I married (only a BS), but I was solid about keeping my maiden name and thought I would retain it only, until I saw that my spouse was a bit hurt by not taking his name on (true story).

Also, for me, my ethnicity is a big part of my identity, as is my ethnic surname. My husband is from a different ethnic group, so felt like adopting his name was better for me, than just dropping my maiden name (I also use both my first and middle names, so couldn't drop either of those). My husband and kids retain his last name only, but I have a cousin who shares his wife's hyphenated Maiden-Married name, and so do their children (I think that's so romantic of them).

 

[foreverbull]

These are all good points!

I think the tricky part for me is that my future spouse and I will both be psychologists who will eventually be in private practice together, so marriage is going to confuse things if we are both "Dr. X" with the same last name legally and professionally. Another wrench in the mix is that we are both female with our first names starting with the same letter! The hyphen idea sounds like it might work in general situations, but professionally could be a nightmare with 2 Dr. E. X-Y women practicing together.

I've also heard of people simply taking 2 legal last names without the hyphen (but generally only using my spouses's last name for simplicity's sake). I've seriously considered going this route and having clients call me by my first last name (surname by birth) to avoid confusion in practice...but I'm wondering if having a separate "professional" name would cause a lot of confusion also, which is what concerns me.

Any suggestions given my very unique situation?

 

[glowstick]

I've also heard of people simply taking 2 legal last names without the hyphen (but generally only using my spouses's last name for simplicity's sake). I've seriously considered going this route and having clients call me by my first last name (surname by birth) to avoid confusion in practice...but I'm wondering if having a separate "professional" name would cause a lot of confusion also, which is what concerns me.

I think hyphens work well here. One solution is to switch up the order: Dr. E X-Y and Dr. E Y-X. (Works without the hyphen, too.) I couldn't imagine asking someone to change their name without changing mine, too. (That all said, I don't intend to change my name, and publications are definitely a part of the equation for me – even if it's easy to figure out.)

 

[Grenth]

I think the tricky part for me is that my future spouse and I will both be psychologists who will eventually be in private practice together, so marriage is going to confuse things if we are both "Dr. X" with the same last name legally and professionally. Another wrench in the mix is that we are both female with our first names starting with the same letter!

The both female aspect is pretty unique, but I can think of quite a few psychologist couples practicing/publishing with the same last name, and even the same first initial. Drs John and Julie Gottman come to mind. Not saying you should do anything in particular but if you do choose to go with the same name or hyphen name as your partner there is a precedent.

 

[singasongofjoy]

I changed my name a few years into my career and after a few publications. I now write my name as @Doctor Eliza does above and have never had issues with confusion. On my CV I bold my name in each of my publications, and for my maiden name, I just bold it the same as my married name in publications above. My full name (name, maiden, married) is listed on my CV so I don't think there's any confusion. Name changes are common enough that I don't think it's really very confusing to folks. I also know people who have chosen to not change, or to use one for work and married for personal life and don't know really of anyone who's had any major issues. I think whatever your personal preference is will work out fine. I do second taking an afternoon off to take care of everything in one fell swoop though if you do change your name.

Really the only issue I ran into after changing my name was at the doctor's office and pharmacy. There was another person with almost the same name, except with married and maiden names reversed, who had graduated from my school (in nursing, not psych) a couple of years earlier and apparently we had the same doctor and physician.... and she also got my emails occasionally from people who looked me up in the school directory.... and once my fingerprints for a job got sent to her place of employment which caused some nice confusion. So maybe you want to do a google search and see if anyone with the same name lives in your town before you change it, lol.

 

[PsychedTriGirl]

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[DokterMom]

Assuming a woman is asking entering into a hetero marriage --

It is, as has been said, very easy for a woman to take her husband's last name when she marries. This is our long-standing tradition, so systems are in place to make it seamless and easy -- if not actually the easiest thing to do.

Keeping your original name professionally post-marriage and using your husband's socially is also relatively easy, but will require a clear 'which to use when' decision and a little bit of clean-up from time to time to keep the distinction clear and meaningful. (Truly much easier to keep your original name legally and professionally and just allow social friends and acquaintances to assume Mrs. Hubby rather than go legal with his name and professional with yours.)

Changing your name back to your maiden name after you've been Mrs. Him is a PITA that's best avoided if possible. And of course, remaining Mrs. Him post-divorce is also no picnic, though often done when there are kids.

The advice I'd give my daughter is to retain her own name professionally and legally and be flexible socially. After there are children involved, for kid-related stuff you can always use John Jones and Mary Smith Jones just in case there's overlap. If it's kid-related but you need legal names, you can sign 'Mary Smith (Mother)'.

 

[EarlyCareerAcademicPsych]

I'm a man by birth and a psychiatrist by profession who does a lot of psychotherapy. I think that this stuff is really important; I'm progressively minded; and - because folks in my camp were explicitly invited by the poster ("progressively-minded men") - I'll chime in!

I changed my name when I got married to my long-time female partner in 2000. We took our birth last names and joined them together alphabetically (also, it sounded better the way that we did it). We both have the same hyphenated last name and our two children now have the same last name. We did this so that we would have a 'family name' which all of the members of our inner family have.

My wife's sister also did this with her parter. So we call ourselves - collectively - the "SMITH-dashes" (Smith is not the name, but you get the point, because of the hyphens).

Our plan to offer our children is that they can take one of the birth names and join with their potential parter when they get married (if that is what they choose to do). I kinda hope my son takes my birth last name and my daughter takes my wife's birth last name. But who know WTF will happen.

This is a deliberate attempt to challenge and dismantle patriarchy. People ain't property, period. Women don't belong to men. My wife's middle name (and her sister's middle name and her mother's middle name) was her father's first name. When we got married, she hyphenated her last name with my last name and she dropped her father's name as her middle name.

I'm pleased that we did it. It is - sometimes - a bit of a PITA. Not infrequently, people think that I am a women if they see my name before the meet me. Spelling out my name is a pain because it is long and it doesn't match my birth ethnicity (another wrinkle). People get confused. But they get over it.

Also - this was my wife's idea, not mine. I wasn't initially opposed but I had to warm to it.

Of note: I had a single publication at the time and I didn't really give a **** about that. If I had a bunch of publications and I was trying to establish myself in a field, then I get keeping the birth last name.

The other reasons listed above for keeping a maiden (or bachelor) name - these make a lot of sense to me, too.

Also - I did this before I graduated from medical school when I was still a student. So, my name on my medical school diploma is my hyphenated name. All I had to do was to show my marriage license at the social security office and this got me a new social security card - my wife did this at the same time. Once I had a new social security card, everything else was easy to do. I didn't need any other legal paperwork to do it.


Hope this is still useful - I see the thread is back from May!! But nobody ever asks me about this. Clearly, I had stuff to say!

 

[PhDToBe]

Spelling out my name is a pain because it is long and it doesn't match my birth ethnicity (another wrinkle).

I'm just curious: What do you mean by this?

 

[temppsych123]

My husband and I got married during graduate school; we both now have PhDs (different areas of psychology). We decided it made the most sense to keep our original names, but tossed around the idea of us both hyphenating. I got a lot of "hey Mrs. Husband's-Last-Name!" from friends leading up to and following the wedding, but I just politely corrected them that I was keeping my original birth last name (I find the term "maiden name" sort of weirdly antiquated sounding, but that's just me) and people got used to it. We occasionally get mail addressed to "Mr and Mrs Husband's-Last-Name" but again, it doesn't particularly bother me.

The best suggestion I heard in the lead-up to the wedding came from one of our non-academic friends. I told them that we each planned to keep our original names because we'd already published papers under those names. They said, "well, I guess whichever one of you has the most publications should be the person who keeps their last name!" We had a good laugh about it, but ultimately didn't operationalize "most publications" very well - I had more first-authors, but my husband had more pubs total 😛

One thought - if you plan to be working clinically and using a name that is different than what is on your legal license, I think you should make it really clear to clients what your legal name is for insurance/billing/verifying your license purposes (and, while certainly wouldn't expect this to be a problem, if someone wanted to file a complaint against you). From a consumer protection standpoint, our clients have the right to know who is treating them and to be able to verify our credentials if they want to (assuming that your license etc would be under a different, legal name).

As a non-professional aside, I grew up with a mom with a different last name (she had been married before, changed her last name, went back to her maiden name after she got divorced, then didn't change her name again when she married my dad and had me and my sibling), and it wasn't a big issue. I think that, nowadays, so many families have nontraditional naming structures, or are being raised in single-parent households, that it's not a huge deal. ALTHOUGH, she did get an above-average number of people assuming that she was divorced from my dad or otherwise not with him, which might annoy some people more than it annoyed her. (This would also vary based on whether or not you wear an obvious wedding ring, and/or the extent to which your partner would also be involved in kid-related activities at school, clubs, etc.). In her case, people made the assumption because she didn't like wearing a wedding ring and was much more involved in school-related stuff than my dad was, so they assumed she was the primary/sole parent. Just some other food-for-thought.

Congrats on the upcoming nuptials, OP!

 

[foreverbull]

Interesting to hear more experiences from men and women!

I got married a few months ago and we opted to to both change our last names to be the same: I added my spouse's name after mine as a 2nd legal last name (space with no hyphen; spouse and I are the "X Ys" and she took my last name before her last name).
Professionally, clients still call me my birth last name, and my group practice has no personal names in its title, so that wasn't affected. I have yet to fully add my 2nd last name on all legal paperwork, but we'll both do that in the next month or so.

I think really, the biggest issue was making sure that it felt completely equal between us and not someone "giving up" their name for the other person.

 

[EarlyCareerAcademicPsych]

I'm just curious: What do you mean by this?

I'm as white as you can get - American, 5th generation, Irish all the way back.

My wife is Indian from India. Her birth last name shows it.

Now my last name = her birth last name + my birth last name (put together with a hyphen)

That is what I mean by my last name does not match by birth ethnicity!

It is long because it is 12 letters and 3 syllables. Not super unwieldy - manageable - but it gets annoying spelling it out and nobody gets it right.

 

[cara susanna]

I got married and changed my name right before internship applications, so I ended up applying for internship under my married name. The only really annoying part was that I had publications under my maiden name. I just put my maiden name on my CV in parentheses and bolded my name in the citations. Other than that, I just had to specify my maiden name when requesting transcripts from my college.