One year of wedded bliss is creeping up on speeding toward us and I’ve settled into my new identity, my signature comes more naturally (and finally fits on narrow receipts) and I got business cards with the K-name on them.
But I still have my maiden name in parentheses on my Facebook and LinkedIn. I just sent a LinkedIn connection request to an old classmate and even though he probably would know it’s me, I still threw in the brackets, just in case. I, by no means, have a unique situation in which I switched from a long, complicated last name to yet another long, complicated last name but I’m sick of typing and writing it.
How long should I give people to get comfortable with it? Is a year really long enough to acclimate to a new identity when I had the old one for more than 20 years?
I was at a professional event where they provided fancy name tags for us on the check-in table. I checked in at the same time as a friend who got married the month before me. She found my name tag first because she was looking in the Ks for her own maiden name while I was looking in the Es! That made me feel a bit better.
Usually at a year you’re not considered a newlywed anymore (a lot of you said so at least!) so maybe that’s a good time to just make other people figure it out?
What do you think?
I think it’s what you’re comfortable with – everyone is different ya know? I actually had my name legally changed right away and never used my maiden name until Facebook and Linkedin came along. The main reason for that is since it’s to connect with people who only knew me before I was married. I’m at the point where my maiden name sounds foreign to me!
I think a lot of it depends on what you’ve built with your maiden name. Age, field, and where you are in building your career all play a factor. And maybe the kind of community you live in. In our town everyone will still know who I am once I get married because my fiancé and I have bee together since high school and it’s such a small town. Professionally, however, few people have even met him. Yet in my position at this point it would only be people within my company needing to adjust until I move up. Someone getting married at 30 or so, after spending so much more time with their maiden name, might need longer to get everyone used to the switch.
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