[IowaHawkeye]

i guess i'm a good person to answer this one... my mom kept her last name for professional purposes - she's a doctor and she earned her degree under her name, saw patients under her name prior to marrying my dad and just decided that it would be best if she stayed who she's always been known as... as for my sisters and i.. i am technically Nicole *****-###### - so yeah i have two last names (and a middle name and a confirmation name b/c i'm catholic, you should have heard mother growing up - NICOLE MARIE ELIZABETH *****-###### get down here right now!) - but my parents told us we could use both names, pick one to use - whatever. This by the way, has never been a problem in my family, my parents never argued over who would get which name... On all legal documents i have two names, but I usually use my mom's b/c its simple and my dad's is italian and everyone usually pronounces it wrong anyway, lol.

when i get married what am i going to do? definitely not have 3 last names, that would be far too much for me ;-) I might take my mom's name as my middle name and hyphenate my dad's last name and my husbands... haven't decided yet - but i'll definitely keep my names.