Why does it bother me that my friend took her husband's name?

This is related to my first Fluther question (“How can I get over my crush on my married friend?”), but I felt like this should be a separate question (and I think it bothers me more).

In short, I’m 17, and I have a work friend who’s 23 and got married in private 3 months ago. I’m getting over a crush on her, which has largely dissipated since I attended a “wedding celebration picnic” this past weekend.

But one thing that still lingers in my mind is the fact that she changed her name when she got married. And I know I shouldn’t care, but I do.

It was a total surprise to us (her friends) that she got married. They never announced their engagement, and it was two weeks after the wedding that we found out. I found out when she changed her Facebook status to “married” and changed her last name.

I actually asked her at the picnic why she changed her name, and she wasn’t offended at all. She said it was because of something her mom told her when she was young: she liked being able to “choose” her name in a way that she couldn’t when she was born. I’m not sure I agree with that reasoning, but I tried to shrug it off.

Aside from my feelings for her, I think part of it is that I got to know her by her last name… there’s another girl at the office with her first name, and we would always use their last names to distinguish them in conversation. The fact that she changed her last name literally changed the way that I identify her.

think it’s also because it was so sudden. Her maiden name was on a bunch of things, and now they have to be changed around. Why would she go to all that trouble? It’s like she’s trying to change herself into a different person—even though, in every other respect, she’s exactly the same!

And I liked her maiden name better. It was alliterative with her first name, and it rolled off the tongue nicely. Her husband has an awkward-sounding, Romanian last name. I was talking with some friends a couple of weeks ago, and they agreed with me (I didn’t tell them I was crushing on her, though).

This is very distressing to me. Why am I worrying about something that seems to be so petty and inconsequential? No one else seems to really mind it, so why do I?

I have this deep, dark fantasy of telling her that it bothers me, but I realize this would be borderline insane and probably hurtful.