Why is this a problem??

Today we went to the city hall to set up our Familienbuch, something we didn't do when we got married, because we had to flee to Denmark to escape the german bureacracy. I'm not really sure what the purpose of the Familienbuch is, other than to record your marriage and children in one central place. Except that since Nico was already married and has kids, he actually has two family books, which then defeats the purpose of having things in a central place. But anyway...

When we went last time to get my new visa (I'm now allowed to stay for three years and, theoretically, can work), we asked them what we were allowed to name our child. What we want to do is give him Perucci as a last name and Lindenau as a middle name. Using a family name as a middle name is pretty common in the States, but here it is just barely acceptable. She felt that it would cause a lot of confusion for the poor little guy and she suggested that I just simply take my husband's name for myself.

Um...no!

Then today when she was explaining the family book to us, she told me that I still had the option in the future to change my name to Lindenau, if I changed my mind about keeping my own name.

I don't get it! Why is this so complicated? Why is it something I would change my mind about? Why should I stop being Christina Perucci and become Christina Lindenau??? It's so funny that this country has a female chancelor, but their gender politics are so backwards...