Why Alexa PenaVega & Husband Carlos PenaVega Created Unique Last Name

“We looked at each other and we just wrote it down,” she added, “not knowing if it would work, because there was no hyphen, nothing. We just made it one word.”

Once the pair—who share sons Ocean, 6, and Kingston, 5, as well as daughter Rio, 3—received their “stamp of approval,” they updated “everything,” including their social security and passport. But another change they didn’t expect was having to educate people on how to pronounce their newly-formed name. 

“‘Pay-nuh-Vay-guh,’” she sounded out. “There’s no tilde. Everybody thinks it’s ‘Penya-Vay-guh,’ and nope. ‘Pay-nuh-Vay-guh.”

And joining their last names wasn’t the only area where Alexa and Carlos combined their lives. They also launched Good for You Entertainment, the production company behind their new film, which premieres Dec. 14 on Great American Family and at the Great American Family Christmas Festival at The Northwell Park at UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y.

“We elevate each other,” Alexa said about working so closely with Carlos. “He brings out the best in me, I bring out the best in him. Don't get me wrong, we're a couple, so there are days where you are totally frustrated with one another and you just gotta play it cool on set. But we're both so professional, and at the end of the day, we've never been in a fight that was so big that we become inoperable.”

As for the key to the PenaVegas’ success together, both on set and in life? Alexa said it’s communication.

“We're big communicators,” she explained. “I always tell people, ‘When you get in a relationship, just make sure you're both running in the same race.’ If you're both in different races, then you aren't going to get to the finish line together. You need to have that same goal in mind, or else the relationship will fall apart because you'll be running in different directions.”

Read on for more stars that have ditched their former last names for new ones.