It wasn't even an issue when I married DH because my BS already had a different last name. Ex and I were never married and BS has his dad's last name.

I don't know if it was the age or that he was a boy or what but it was never a discussion.

When my mom married my SF I don't ever remember thinking anything about her not having the same last name as my sister and I.

No advice other then don't feed into it too much. Just tell her that is what married people do and leave it at that.

How old is your daughter? I vaguely remember my mom asking how I would feel about her changing her last name when she remarried at 18. I do recall that I was surprised she even asked because it's HER name. She can do with it as she pleases! 

I appreciate that you are considering her feelings, but do not give her power over this. Her feelings will change with the wind like all young ladies and your name isn't something that should be subjected to those whims. 

The whole "we won't be family anymore" *sniffle sniflle* line strikes me as manipulation.

My mom changed her name when she married my stepdad. I didn't really care I was 16 and I understood she wanted the same last name as her husband. We never had any issues or anything with it over the years.

I am getting married in a few month and I am debating my last name change period. I have had this name will be 33 years and people know me. At the same time, I like the idea of having the same last name as my SO and and SS. It will be easier to deal with things with SS with the same last name.

SS likes the idea of me having the same last name. My inner female pride is like why do I need to change my name, why can't my SO why are we still living in the old school world where it is assumed a girl take her husbands name. Do not really need to do that these days. I also get it is easier to all have the same name.

It is your personal choice only you can make for yourself. You need to decide what is best for you. Maybe go back to maiden name or take your SO's name who knows. Your daughter will understand in time and be ok with it. Do what makes you happy.

But she dealt with it because it's my name and I can use what I want.  She was 9.

That said, all our dogs have both her last name and DH's/mine, so she likes that.

My kids had one name which was their dad's, I had my name, SS has a hyphenated last name Biotch/DH, and DH has his last name.

Since our wedding, my kids have their dad's name, I have my husband's name, and we don't use biotch's portion of SS's name when we say it.

In my world, kids have their father's name, and wives can choose to take their husband's, or not.

It's just a name, nothing worth getting upset about.... if she really feels that strongly about it, she can get a legal name change when she's older.

In trying to explain to her why you are taking FDH's name, you confused her more because she is right, if a last name means unifying a family, you won't have the same last name as her, so....  We know that that is not true, a last name is not what makes family, but you kind of told her that is does and she just put some logic to it.

Frankly, I find the name change when getting married a little unnecessary but that's just me (I am not a very "traditional" person).

I have joked (but serious, at the same time) that DH should change his name to MY last name, as we get mail addressed to Mr & Mrs Hereiam. He won't do it!

I'm not saying you should give your daughter the say-so here, but the girl is being honest with you about her feelings and whatever you decide to do, I don't think her feelings should just be brushed aside. I think that is part of what creates big problems in step families. This apparently really means something to her.

People talk about "keeping an ex's name" but the fact is, that is your last name and if you want to hyphenate (which was apparently your first instinct), I don't see why your FDH should have a problem with it.

This is a decision you need to make for you as both BD and FDH are pulling in you different directions. What do you want? What feels right to you?? That is what you need to go with and smooth over the feelings of whoever's nose is out of joint about YOUR decision about YOUR OWN name.

When I married IPOD-H, I had already established myself career-wise under my surname which was that of my first husband. BS has the same surname too. I did not change my surname to Mrs IPOD-H and it didnt make me any less married to him.

Techically when I became Mrs First-Husband, I was taking a new surname which was mine. Not the "property or propriety right" of my  first husband. It is just a commonalty that you share the same last name / surname as your ex husband or current  husband  - it is not HIS surname. It is yours.

Further fun fact  technical title/surname explanation which people dont actually realise but has to do with the correct / old  way TITLES are supposed to work - MRS is a title. :
Correctly, you are MRS (Husband's Name) Surname.  Not MRS (Your Name) Surname.   

You can be  (Your name) His Surname , with a title that  could be Miss or Ms.  But the Correct form of address for a MRS is under the husband's name for surname. Its just common  practice (though incorrect)  to address someone as MRS (Your name) Surname.  So even if you do not change your name, it would still be correct to address you as MRS (Husband's Name) Surname.
Example: Catherine, Duchess of Cornwall is not  Duchess Catherine of Cornwall. She is Princess William of Wales, Not Princess Catherine of Wales.
Old and quaint rules, but MRS is a title and therefore attached to your husband.

One time my mother and I were talking about last names. My best friends mother found out she had a 'Baron" in her ancestry and was parading it around. My mother said God only knows us by our first name because He doesn't care what our last names are. It has somewhat always made sense to me.

Maybe tell your daughter that it makes it easier travelling and buying cars and houses. And anyway you could change your last name to Unicorn-Stardust and no one can stop you. I know a woman who was born on Dec 25th. Her parents called her Mary. She changed her name in her adulthood to Merry Christmas. Maybe play a game thinking up the craziest last names. Point out many celebrities change their names. You've got this Mrs Unicorn-Stardust!

So if this has been discussed already my apologies. Your name change is your decision, along with FDH. It is your marriage. Children adapt to divorce, at least we hope, a name change does not affect your relationship with your kids. One day maybe your daughter will change her last name, that does not make you less her mom. That needs to be explained if you do decide to change your last name. Children should never be given the power in adult decisions like this, it only leads to a false sense of authority in a childs mind. Of course this is IMO>

Good luck

When ex and I divorced, I went back to my maiden name. I didn't take DH's name when I married him. Kinda hurt DH's feelings I think. I was pretty well established in my professional field and didn't want to fool with a name change, and I didn't want to have the same last name as skids but not my own DD. Never told DH about both reasons--just the professional one.

I didn't discuss any of those decision with my DD, who was 12 when her dad and I divorced. Just did it. If she had any issues with it, she didn't ever say so, and she's 30 now.

What bugs me is that your stbDH was upset you wanted to hyphenate your name.  If YOUR DH had to change HIS name, I am sure he would think differently.

This post would be totally different if I was posting.  I wouldn't even be bringing up my daughter.  I would be saying, "Can you believe my husband is pissed I want to hyphenate my name so that I have HIS name AND my kids' name?  What an A-hole."  

I am traditional too.  My kids and DH are my world.  But if something happend to DH and I remarried, my name would get hyphenated so that my kids felt connected to me still.  My kids will always be my priority (probably why I will not be getting remarried if something happens to my DH).

Please put the relationship before the child and ignore DD's opinion on your name. She doesn't have a say.
My mom remarried when I was 13. I actually assumed she had changed her name for years and then I found out years later she had hyphenated it. Clearly not a huge concern for me, and either way, really none of my business.
My stepmother did something weird. She originally took the last name of her first husband, kept it when she divorced, then took my last name when she married my dad, and then hyphenated my last name with her maiden name when they divorced.

While I totally agree you should take your DH"s last name if you want to, I would just caution you to be sensitive about emphasizing your DH's last name as the "family" name. When BM remarried, she changed her last name to her new DH's last name. Sometime after that, she put a sign in the front window that said, "The [her new DH's last name] Family." In the yard, she put a garden flag with the initial of her DH's last name. While I am sure she wanted to erase all thoughts of my DH and I understand that, I thought this was totally insensitive to the SSs, who also lived there and did NOT have that last name, so they were NOT part of the "[BM's DH's last name] Family."

BM's thinking about that negatively impacted them because youngest SS [age 6 at the time] informed us his last name was now BM's new DH's last name! My DH had to explain to him that was not correct, that he was his son and would always have his last name. Then when the SSs were baptized, BM had the SSs' last names in the church bulletin as BM's new DH's last name hyphenated with DH's last name! My DH happened to see an advance copy of the bulletin online and was livid! He instructed BM to change it so it was correct and she did. Had he not seen it, it would have been printed like that for the whole world to see. All that because BM has always thought it was more important to get a dig at DH even if her children suffered from it.

Why would your Dd change her name?  It is such an antiquated tradition and so few women I know still do it.

honestly, I would reconsider not having the same last name as your children.  I get why she is upset.

I don't have bio kids, but I hope you don't mind me weighing in.

I think a better approach to your daughter being upset might be to tell her that choosing a name is every adult woman's right. It doesn't mean you're not family because she also MIGHT choose to change her name someday, but she doesn't have to. Women don't get much in this world without taking it with both hands and pulling hard.

I'm saying couch it as something positive that you're doing as an adult woman with free will and something she'll also someday have the right to do or not do...like voting or driving. Maybe that will take the personal out of it (as if a name is anything BUT personal!) and she'll see it a little differently.

I didn't change my name when I married. There were already too many Mrs. Marblefawns (his ex, his mother, his daughter). There was only one me and I like it that way.

You are encouraging your daughter to change her name when she marries.  This is incredibly sexist.  You should be encouraging her to have a career and establish herself professionally with her own identity.  Once you do that, changing your name becomes a very big deal.  

a potential husband expecting a woman to change her name should be a deal breaker.  That doesn’t mean you can’t both have the same last name if you choose, but it should be a choice freely made without pouting.  A man who complains over a last name is not worthy of being a husband.  

when my mother changed her name. But she had gone on and on and one my whole life about how she regretted changing her name when she got married and often considered changing it back, just never did. She even asked me if I minded if she changed her name back to her maiden name when I was 10ish and I said I didn't care. She then asked me if I would change my name to a hyphenated version of her surname and my dad's and I said I wouldn't and she got really cross with me. I did use her name when I lived in a Spanish speaking country as that was the thing they do there, but I never legally changed my name. 

She and my dad were separated-ish for a long time as a limbo-land kind of thing and she swore she'd never get divorced or remarried, because it wasn't Biblical. She then got in a relationship with my SF and he threw a fit and insisted she changed her name when they got married and I was pretty pissed off (I was 18-ish) because she'd gone on and one about wanting her maiden name back my whole childhood. I couldn't understand why she didn't just change her name back to her maiden name?

Of course, I now realise my mother is full of shit and likes to yank people's chains. 

I never changed my name when I got married. I gave my son my surname as a second middle name. It's hard to spell so I had no desire to burden him with an awkward hyphenation. But it turned out to be a genius move when travelling because obviously we both have an unusual name on our passports. 

My ex got all huffy about it from time to time. Once he was going on about it and I said "If it bothers you that much to have a wife with a different surname to yours, we can fix that."  He never said another word. 

I will be getting married again. My SO asked me to marry him. I said yes and then he said "You can't change your name!" I said "Don't worry - I had no intention of doing so." Of course, in fact, it is MY name and I can change it if I want to to whatever I want to. But I don't.