Well, for them it wasn’t an issue. The kids where given the hyphenated name. I supposed it could be a problem sometime, but right now they are at about 35 years together.
Their boy did get married and his wife just took the hyphenated name as her last name.
Their daughter has a professional career and uses her maiden name there because that’s what her degree is and she took her husbands name for everyday. (I think that is not uncommon)
For me personally it was easy, my maiden name is common, my husband’s last name is not. I dropped my middle name which I can not stand and made my maiden name my middle name (I think that is pretty common as well).
A friend of our family, came from a family of five kids and they all have different last names, not different fathers just last names. Her mom told me there are lots of really interesting last names so why not use them.
I agree a single last name shows unity.
A coworker of my husband remarried after her husband died and she just made that last name her middle name.
I ok, those are all the scenarios I know, you are also correct it could be so complicate your head could explode.
“A coworker of my husband remarried after her husband died and she just made that last name her middle name.”
As you are probably aware, my grand parents recently adopted a boy and girl. The girls name was Amber Nicole Lindsey, she wanted to keep Lindsey as a middle name and drop the Nicole, becoming Amber Lindsey (redacted), which is a fine middle name but gramps was very specific - NO hyphen between Lindsey and (redacted) or his lawyer would pay whatever it cost to get rid of the hyphen.
No birth certificates yet but they have been applied for. Got to give them time, after all, this is Illinois government they are dealing with and it’s only been 4 months since it was applied for.