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The most appropriate choice I've ever heard of doesn't fall into either of these choices but instead would actually fall under the category of Switch AND Keep.

A co-worker I once had was a quiet woman who was hard to get to know. The rest of us were a boisterous group that spent a lot of our after work hours socializing with each other. A few of us decided a good way to get to know the quiet woman would be to invite her out on one of our get togethers. The next time a large group of us were having dinner we made sure to include her and during the course of the evening somebody decided we'd play a round of "five things you don't know about me". If you haven't played the game it follows a simple set of rules. Each person takes a turn and lists five things they think no one else knows about them and the things you list have to be true. It's a great way to learn things about people you know well or not so well whatever the case may be.

When we came to the quiet woman's turn the very first thing she said about herself was the most interesting thing we'd heard from anyone at the table that night. Her first true fact about herself was that her last name was a combination of her last name and her husband's last name. It was her husband's wedding gift to her. He wanted her to know from the very beginning of their marriage that she would always be his equal partner in every possible way. In the nearly 20 years that they'd been married every single moment has been based on that principle. Maybe it's because of the circles of people I've associated with but I'd never heard of this before let alone met someone who'd done something like that.

While I realize there are probably a number of men that may not be as enlightened as my friends husband, some combinations of names may not be suitable no matter how hard you try to fit them together, and there's likely a number of women eager to unload their current last names altogether, I can't help but think that it's a viable alternative to the age-old standard of picking one or the other.

Of course there are a number of other factors to consider when your navigating the waters of equal partnerships in marriage, but what better way to show your spouse that you truly mean it when you say your marriage will be an equal partnership than by combining your last names together to form one equal name that's shared by both partners?

Learn more about this author, Anella Harmeyer.
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