Tying the Knot in a Meaningful and Memorable Way (Without Losing
Our Savings or Sanity)  Thursday, November 24, 2011  Hyphenated
Last Names and What to Do About Them  This article in the
NYTimes about the dilemma of hyphenated last names really rubs
me the wrong way. It doesn't provide any real solutions about
how to balance conflicting perspectives and needs.  For example,
figuring out the last name dilemma was easy when I got married.
I kept my last name and Matt kept his. However, the struggle
came when our son, Henry, joined our family. I really didn't
want to hyphenate because of the logistical hardship of having a
cumbersome last name, but I also wanted his name to embody the
idea that he came from both of us. I wasn't comfortable
relegating my last name to his middle name, since middle names
are rarely ever shared (for aesthetic reasons, it sounds better
when my name comes first, which is why we didn't even consider
using Matt's last name for Henry's middle name).  For us, we
really had no other choice