To hyphenate or not

Ah the "to hyphenate or not to hyphenate" debate. One of my favourite blogs that I follow, A CUP OF JO, recently did an entry about hyphenating last names. This blog is awesome because she is fantastically stylish and smart and also has a baby in the city.

So to hyphenate or not... Lowell and I have been talking about it a lot lately. The problem is, he's pretty easy-going and will go either way. We're pretty sure that if and when we ever get married in the future, I will keep my own last name. Lowell and I both grew up with different last names as our Mothers so it never seemed like a strange or unusual concept. His Mom decided to keep her maiden name after marriage and my parents were unmarried. However, now that the realization that I'm going to be a Mother has really sunk in, I realize that I quite like the idea of sharing a last name as my child. I never knew my Dad or anyone on his side of the family, so while I like my last name, I have no real attachment to it. I personally think it's a pretty cool sounding last name.... but I don't know one single other person with the same name!

Lowell's family has a cool sounding last name as well. I like the idea of our baby having his last name, but what if I feel left out later on? So in comes the whole hyphenating debate. I'm not opposed to the idea at all, but I don't think that our last names hyphenate particularly well. Both of our last names are pronounced like adjectives, though spelled differently from the actual adjectives. Either way we arrange it, the hyphenated last name winds up sounding like a description... a slightly pretentious description at that!

Man, and I thought coming up with a first name was hard enough!! Now we're waffling on the last name issue too! We really should just call her Kittenheart, one word, no first or last name and call it a day. I'm sure she'd love us for that one when she grows up!

Well, we still have about 69 days to decide. :D