>
Not that I’m ever going to have this problem, but changing your name when you get married is a big deal for a woman and can be way more complicated than you realize.
For example, what if you got married young and took your husband’s last name. While you were married, your career took off, but the marriage failed. For let’s say, 10 years everyone knows you as Mrs. Jones.
Then you break up. You keep the last name for the kid’s sake, and also because all of your clients know you as Mrs. Jones and in general changing your name on legal documents is a huge hassle.
Then you start dating someone new. It gets serious and three years after the first marriage broke up, you are married again.
So, now you are faced with a problem. If you keep going by Mrs. Jones, whenever the clients meet your new husband, Mr. Brown, they call him Mr. Jones…the ex-husband’s last name.
Now what do you do? You have to change your name to appease the new husband, but do you take his name hoping that it really is until death do you part? Or do you just revert to your maiden name?
And if you do choose to go with the maiden name…that will be an interesting and very personal conversation with a client.
“So, Jones isn’t your maiden name? But your last name is Smith…Who’s this Brown then?”
I won’t have this problem because odds I’ll get hit by lightning before I get married, but even if I do happen to defy the odds, I will probably just keep my maiden name professionally.