Thanks for letting me lurk a bit, gals. I’m a newbie and was wondering what FDS thought of name changes. For starters, I know, you’ll tell me I shouldn’t have changed my name in the first place. But my father was a dirtbag abuser, and I took the easy way out when I got married and changed my last name to my husband’s and dropped my maiden name completely. I have very little attachment to that side of my family, and all of the family members I do like don’t share that name. I even like more in-law family members in my husband’s family. (Although, we’ll see after the divorce is known...which will happen after I change my name publicly.) It made sense at the time.

But now I’m getting a divorce, so yeah, I can’t keep my husband’s name. I never liked it that much in the first place (it’s a weird one you always have to spell), so this is definitely not the saddest part of my marriage ending. I don’t want to go back to my father’s last name, as we have been NC for years.

I am considering selecting a name from my mother’s side of the family, since I feel closer to them. But we’re still not close. Also, all my choices for her side are Hispanic names. I grew up with the privilege of my white father’s name. The feminist side says go for it, but the logical side says, “Don’t do it! You live in a racist state in a racist country!” A person with a white name gets more respect—it’s just the reality we face in this day. Even my own mother uses an Americanized version of her first name. I don’t know if I want to subject myself to more racist hate from white LVMs.

Did anyone pick a brand new last name in a divorce? How did you decide? Unmarried ladies, anyone else pick a new name in adulthood to detach from your abusive family member’s name? What about middle name changes? My current middle name is just a generic popular name during the time I was born, so I’m not attached to it either, so I might change them both since I have to pay for it anyway due to not just reverting to my maiden. Tell me your stories and share some thoughts on changing names in adulthood.