While most women take their partner's surname at the alter, they're under no legal obligation to do so. But one woman has encountered an "unexpected" complication after refusing to take her husband's last name.
She explained how she and her husband both have double-barrelled names - and both feel strongly about keeping them in their bloodline. However, this would mean condemning their children to four surnames.
Taking to Reddit, she said: "Like many women, especially those who choose not to change their names or choose to hyphenate, I feel strongly about passing along my name. My husband feels the same way about his - as we are both only children."
Using fake names to protect her privacy, she added: "My last name is Fuller-Smith and my husband's is Watson-Jones.
"Neither of us want to name our child Baby Fuller-Smith-Watson-Jones but we are having trouble figuring out which name to drop."
She went on to explain how she doesn't want to drop part of her identity to make room for her husband's - and visa versa.
But knowing a decision needs to be made, she added: "I think we are both being stubborn at this point, I can fully admit that," she added. "Five names is absurd, and I don't want to do that to my child."
Offering their advice, one user said: "Hyphenated names are silly and, from what I've seen, couples who hyphenate their names seem to always end up divorced anyway.
"A family should have a family name. It doesn't matter whose name you keep (the wife's or husband's), but it should be one name.
"A family has an identity - being part of the Flintstone family sounds more unified than the Henderson-Flintstone family."
Another user added: "I didn't change my name when I got married. When we decided to have children, we gave this a lot of thought.
"We planned to have two children. If the first was a boy, he would get my husband's name - if a girl, she would get mine. Whatever gender the second one, it would get the other spouse's last name.
"Our first was a boy, and he has my husband's last name. Next time it's my turn, so whether it's a girl or boy, it will have my last name.
"However, neither my husband nor I has a hyphenated name. We chose this system in order to avoid hyphenated names, because frankly hyphenated names are ridiculous. Just pick one."
A third user said: "My husband and I both hyphenated our names (for example, he was Smith and I was Wesson, so now we're Smith-Wesson).
"It was cool and neat when we were young newlyweds, and even when our kids were little, but it quickly became a pain.
"He has his doctorate, and half the time people call him Dr Wesson, which annoys him.
"When we have our names in a system somewhere, it's either under Smith, Wesson, or Smith-Wesson, but we never know, so it takes forever to find anything.
"Computer systems often do not accept hyphens, so now it's Smithwesson."
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