My sense is that this can vary a lot based on the professional field of the woman. My friends in business changed their names without giving it a second thought. My friends who are physicians and professors agonized about it and most decided to stick with their maiden names.

I myself never planned on changing my name. I strongly identify as a feminist and changing my name felt too traditional gender role-y for me. But, then I got engaged and started to seriously plan to have a child. My desire to have the same name as my kid ended up out-weighing my desire to keep my name.

Hyphenating can be a good option, but both of our last names are very long and hard to pronounce, so doing that would be a disaster.

EJ