Did your mother keep or change her name when she got married?

[Indy Texas]

She kept using her maiden name for the first 5 years or so of their marriage and then changed it to my dad's last name due to a clerical error: when she applied to renew her passport, somehow they ended up putting my dad's last name on it and so she started using my dad's last name because she was afraid she'd get in trouble for having different names on different IDs.

[Indy Texas]

Here in Denmark it is increasingly common for the husband to take the wifes name, because it simply matters more for women than for men. Is this unheard of in the US? And would it be considered unmasculine if a guy did it?

Depending on the state, it can be a legal headache for a man to do this. While newly married women can do it in a few hours by bringing their marriage license to the driver's license center and Social Security office, men usually have to go through the same process that someone who just wanted to change their name would go through.

I heard about one case from the Mississippi Coast where several driver's license stations all refused to give a man a new driver's license with his new wife's last name on it because it was "wrong" for a man to do that. He eventually was able to get a judge to order it.

I don't even want to know how Mississippi would handle a man wanting a driver's license with his new husband's name on it once SCOTUS wills that to happen.