Great topic. Every time there is something just the bride "should" do to get married, fiance and I imagine what it would be like for just the groom to do it. This came up when looking at wedding announcements in the paper where only the bride was pictured. If we do an announcement, we want both of us in the pic, since we both got married (duh, right?). Being told that this is "just not done" by my southern mother, we imagined how funny a pic of just the groom would be. Just finace in a tux by himself in the paper. This is how I feel about the name thing too. A man showing up at work and needing to remind everyone "It's Mr. HACKNEY people, not Rosenblatz" is just kinda funny.

I like the idea of doing nothing for the time being. Worry about officially being The Gordons later.

I see nothing wrong with keeping your own names. You aren't changing the people who you are right?

What you name the kids, should you have them, is where it really needs to be sorted out. There is something to be said for carrying on the western tradition of taking the father's name but even that can be questioned.

I have friends who married a few years ago and the husband took his new wifes name. We never questioned it though. If you last name was Bumcrot would you really want to keep it?

Much less subject someone else to it?

In Spanish-speaking countries, children always take compound surnames featuring a surname from each parent. Only the first surname (usually the father's) is passed on to a child. A married name may be optionally tacked on as "de (insert surname here)". E.g., Julio Ramos-Fonseca, with his wife Anita Garcia-Flores de Ramos. Women get to keep their maiden surnames.

I would've totally considered taking my wife's name if I hadn't wanted to cling as desperately as possible to whatever name recognition I had cobbled together in my writing career. It would have been a delightful way to screw with people's expectations, but ah well.

The final decision about name changing is up to you guys, but if you take a @planetgordon.com email we won't be able to IM anymore. BOOOOOO
MOB