When I got married, I changed my name. It surprised my husband, my colleagues, many of my friends, and, to some extent, me.

I didn’t really have a vocal opinion about changing my name before I was married, but I was embedded in my career, I had published under my old name, and I was proud of being an independent Fine woman. When the choice was in front of me, the decision was more than merely an intellectual debate. And I realized it was a choice. For the first time in my life I could choose my name. That felt empowering, even if critics told me my so-called choice was really based on a patriarchal tradition. So in early 2004, I changed my full name from Allison Price Fine to Allison Fine Kingsley.

On a purely aesthetic level, I liked my married name (Kingsley) better than my maiden name (Fine), and I wasn’t particularly attached to my middle name (Price). At a deeper level, I loved the idea of wedding two families together by virtue of changing my name. I kept Fine to honor my family and gained Kingsley to honor my husband’s. Most importantly, I wanted to share the same last name with my husband and our children.

Could I have asked my husband to take my name or change his middle name to my maiden name? Certainly. Could I have hyphenated my name? Of course. Could we still be a family without changing our names? Definitely. Do I thank all those women who fought for the right to keep their maiden name?  You bet.  But the simplicity of choosing one name for one family made sense to me. And I have no regrets that my name changed to accommodate that.

Sure, there were transaction costs – like reprinting business cards and legal documents, or answering my phone with my entire name until clients or colleagues settled into the change, or even getting used to my new name’s sound when I introduced myself. But those changes were minor, faded after a few months, and pale in comparison to the joy it brings me to be called Allison Fine Kingsley. With that name, I’ve built a life filled with the people I love – the Fines, the Kingsleys, my husband, and our precious children – and I’ve continued to build my career.

In the end, some things aren’t about politics or movements. Just the freedom to make a choice that makes you happy.