What's In A Name?

Miss Mox and I now have the same last name.  No, she didn't take mine, or rather, she didn't just take mine.  We took each other's.  We combined them, and share them. 

Hyphenated names have been around awhile; the first I noticed were as a kid in high school.  It seemed a fair way of changing names when people got married.  Only the women did it though, which seemed odd.  Before my brother got married he and his fiancee  talked about joining theirs but eventually passed, probably due to the complexity.  A woman's name can become the man's almost automatically; hyphenating hers is slightly harder; changing the man's is harder still.  But things are getting easier, and more fair.  We both had to fill out forms and go to court.  The forms were a pain, the hearing was short and sweet (noticing a trend?) and the magistrate was very cool.

It ain't cheap, and there are lots of life details that need updated (taxes, banks, etc.)  But it's worth it.  We're individuals, and connected.  Our name reflects that.  I certainly wasn't going to ask her to give up her name (it's a cool one,) and when she said she would hyphenate them, I said I would too.  Why not?  The combination flows.  They go together, just like us.  And as it turns out, my initials don't change- the initials of our last name are the same as for my old first and last name.  Now I need to work on making my signature readable...