[On changing surnames on marriage] We wrangled back and forth over this – he would have been happy to take my surname, but already had a friend with … - Laura Bates

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[On changing surnames on marriage] We wrangled back and forth over this – he would have been happy to take my surname, but already had a friend with the identical name. Would that be weird? We dismissed double barrels. We considered the new trend for combining the two names into a hybrid – this worked for friends with the surnames Sand and Smith (giving them the magical-sounding Sandsmith). But neither Baylor nor Tates has quite the same romantic ring. Of course, the simple thing is to keep one's own name and get on with it. But for me there was something meaningful about making a shift in our official identities. Eventually, my fiance came up with a simple solution: we'd each take the other's surname as an extra middle name, leaving our surnames unchanged. Problem solved. (Until, as my mum pointed out, we might have to think about what surname to use for any children, but hey, we'll need something to talk about once we're married.)