One Family, Two Names

After changing my mind about fifty times, Mr. Spaniel and I were finally able to reach consensus on the great name change debate of 2009-10: we will both change our names. This is a pretty big deal for us, since he was totally unwilling to discuss it until pretty recently.

Mine will definitely still be the harder one, since people will know me by a completely new surname, but we will both be known as First Middle Mylast Hislast, as will any children we may decide to have in the future. It's not an ideal solution (that would only happen if he said to me, "You know, Miss Spaniel, you're right! You shouldn't change your name!" but that statement does not appear to be forthcoming), but it's a solution I can live with.

I did consider a few other options, like dropping my middle name (which I have no major connection to) and hyphenating, but I decided to frame what we're doing as adding a family name rather than losing any of my individual names. And it does make me feel a lot better that he'll be joining my family just as I'll be joining his. I think it's only fair. :)

I intend to use my maiden and new last names whenever possible (so my current middle name will probably be dropped, de facto, even if not legally) so that my maiden name doesn't get lost.

(source) I know this isn't actually relevant, but it's still funny!