Taking the Man’s Name: Do I? or Don’t I?

I consider myself to be a flexible, tolerant and open- minded person, but when it comes to the taking of names upon marriage I am a traditionalist.  I wanted to take my husband’s name.  Not only because I love him, but because I wanted people to know that we were in fact married.  There are lots of other options, let’s take a look at some.

1. The man taking the woman’s name.  Not too common, and most states do not allow this to happen freely.  The woman can change her name with the signing of the marriage license, but the man needs to go through the court system like anyone else wanting a legal name change.  There have been numerous lawsuits to try and get this law changed, and according to Wikipedia, only California, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Massachusetts, New York and North Dakota allow men to change their name at the time of marriage.