Legal Question in Family Law in California

Interesting question. I think the simplest solution, however, is to hyphenate on the marriage certificate and then just drop the hypen and maternal surname in general usage. When you go in to change your name on your driver's license, they won't ask to see the marriage license (at least they didn't used to). You can put down whatever you want. I changed my last name from Beer (yes, Beer) to McCormick around the time I married a woman named Ginger (yup, she would have been Ginger Beer, true story, I swear). I didn't get the legal name change finished before the wedding. But Ginger had no trouble going into the DMV right after the wedding and changing her last name to McCormick, even before I did. Once you have the driver's licnese in the name you want to use, Social Security will accept the name change, and once you have your SSI card in your chosen name, everyone else will accept it. There is nothing illegal about using whatever name you want, as long as it is not used to commit fraud or to avoid legal obligations.