my gf said I should take her name if we get married

it's not the name itself but what it represents

for me specifically, i have quite strong family ties, in fact i am currently wearing a signet ring that gets given to every male in my family when they turn 18, and there is no way I'm breaking that tradition for any woman.

but even if that weren't true and i had your bog standard surname, smith or something. the desire to keep the name is still part of who i am, and if she can't accept that, then she can't accept me. I'm not saying i'd break up with her, but if we were going to get married we'd have to take my name.

perhaps it is a little irrational, and it is only a name, but it's important to me and evidently to many other men.

can you tell me more about the signet rings ? i never heard about them before im curious ! and what does it mean for your family and the way you said about not breaking tradition ? thanks

its a ring with a family insignia on it, varies per family, mine is a mailed glove holding an arrow, which normally sits on top of our family crest.

traditionally they were used to seal wax letters and imprint the design on the wax so you knew who the letter was from. obviously not much use for them that way now though lol

i guess its just something that binds us as a family,i have one, my brother will have one, my dad has one and so do all his brothers, and my grandad has one, and so on and so on. It would just be a shame to let it die out, i think you should be proud of your family and where you've come from.

hope that answered some of your questions

I was speaking about my double surname thread with her and she said she wanted her name to carry on. She said her surname in her branch of the family was going to die out because she only has sisters so she suggested maybe I should take her name. I dont want to take her name because im the only male in my family so my family name would be in as much trouble as hers is now if I dont pass it on. Im thinking of suggesting that the reason the mans name was passed on was because men were the head of the house in those days so im suggesting that who ever earns the least money at that point should take the others last name. I would also say that if we both agree to the least money system then the person on the bad end of that cant argue with it at the time.

I am right not to agree to do this because my name would be as bad as hers if I did it?
What do you think of the person who earns the least changes idea?

I don't think so. Why are some so overly aggressive about this? Assuming anyone would change their name is silly. But if they want to, I don't see the problem.

Because a man taking a woman's name defeats the object of portions of the wedding ceremony. The father of the bride gives his daughter away to the groom, acknowledging the fact that she will become part of the groom's family.

If the groom were to take the bride's name utter chaos would ensue!

Who has the coolest sounding sir name? Whichever one it is, pick that one.

Problem solved.

You could even let tsr decide!?

Fair enough. Though i don't see why you can't both keep your own names and your kid can double-barrel? or you combine names and double-barrel?

just a thought on the idea of the highest earning surname winning. I think that can seriously backfire and wouldn't opt for that. what if one year you're making the most so the first kid gets named after you, but in the following few years your potential wife beats you so those kids are named after her? might be confusing once they start asking how come some have yours and some their mom's name. "well son, you were born in the year of dad and your little brother in the year of mom". just seems like too much of a competition. :/