Do you think the tradition of a woman taking a man's name when getting married is going to die away?

Yes. In the West, anyway. There is no need for it anymore. If the newlywed woman has one or more professional licenses, it can be a real pain in the ass. Just having to have certs, passports and even drivers licenses changed over is a pain. And keeping their original surnames would make tracking female individuals much easier for a history hobbyist like myself. I believe one of the reasons many great women are lost to history is because of this custom. I like the way the Spaniards do it. They’re family lines are much easier to track. I’d like that to become customary.

I think it’s a slow movement for women to keep their original names. I’d say it started in the 1960s and sort of inches along at a couple of percentage points every year. Except that back in the 60s and 70s it was a big think and worth remarking over. Now, it’s pretty commonplace and no one remarks on it any more.

With the divorce rate at around 50%, why would anyone take a husband’s name?

Anyway, maybe in a century or two, it will more common for women to NOT take her spouse’s name. But I don’t see it happening any sooner. Too much tradition.

It seems to wax and wane. A number of the newly married young women I know have taken their husband’s name. It surprises me that this is still so common and these are educated working women. Some people seem to feel that we are living in a “post-feminist” world just as we are living in a “post-racial” world. Now that I have my birth name back I would never change it again.

Unlikely. No man is smart enough to suffer the paperwork of changing everything.

I don’t think it will…I have seen instances where they keep both family names.

Not any time soon. Most of my female friends have taken their husband’s last name. A smaller percent have hyphenated their names.

There’s nothing wrong with a gay couple choosing one or the other person’s name. Why would you “not allow” it? George Takei’s husband took his name. I know a gay couple who combined their names into a completely new name. I have heard of others hyphenating their names, just like straight couples. It’s completely up to the individual couple whether they are gay or straight.

I know more women around my age (31) who hyphenate more than just keep their own, but I do know some who have both kept their own and taken their husband’s. I think as we progress as a society less and less women will keep taking their husband’s name. It really isn’t necessary and in my opinion, it would be a huge hassle to change all of the paperwork. I myself would probably hyphenate or just keep my own. However, my last name wasn’t ever technically legal since my grandfather was bought by a pedo, so… I might have no problem changing it, either. Or maybe I’d just change it back to my grandfather’s blood name. I really don’t know. Even marriage itself isn’t that important to me, so I’m flexible. lol

My niece’s husband took her last name to the considerable irritation of the groom’s mom.

I don’t know about the West, but the tradition is completely unheard of here. The married wife doesn’t need to change any part of her name and everyone is cool with that. In fact changing names is what everyone is not cool with. It’s considered a disgrace to the parents.

Since most women got their birth name from their father, i doesn’t make sense to “keep” it or not. In California, people can use any name they want, as long as it isn’t for fraud.

@NerdyKeith Being married is a big part of my identity. Am I more maiden name or married name? My life is with my husband. If we had kids we would be the nuclear family within our extended family. We are the central unit for our life together. Is it very odd to have the same name when you look at it that way? Maybe it started as a symbol of the women joining the husband’s family or being his property, but it doesn’t have to mean that.

Having said that, I do think women will change their names less and less, and I think it’s absolutely fine to keep your maiden name or change your name or whatever the woman or man wants to do.

I wish it was easy to use both, but now with all the security measures you really have to use your ID name.

Taking on a husband’s name is a sort of a peculiar tradition and only practiced in some Western countries. It’s never been done in Quebec for example. There are a number of European countries where it’s never been done and where they have more sensible naming practices all round (Spain and Norway come to mind quickly).

I don’t understand the upside of changing your name.

It will never cease to exist. Considering that a large population of people on the other parts of the world still uphold traditional value, many women (especially the ones that are financially dependant on their husbands) will be more than happy to change their last name just to receive a part of their husbands’ monthly income.

My SIL really regretted taking her husband’s name. She always said in her country women don’t do it. Then she got divorced and she got sort of talked into keeping her married name, because she had young children and lived in the US. I told her to keep her married name and so did her lawyer, maybe other people did too. Then, she married another man years later, when the kids were at the end of their high school career. I thought for sure she would go back to her maiden name. Nope, the second husband really cared about her taking his name, so she did. She was not thrilled about it.

At one point I told her I regretted not supporting her when she was divorcing the first husband. I told her I knew how much she wanted her name, her birth surname, and she said she no, that it was better she had kept the name her children had, and her kids who were at the table when we were talking about immediately said it would have been awful if she had changed her name back when they got divorced.

Mind you, in her country, when you marry, you drop your mom’s surname, keep your dad’s surname, and then add “de husband’s surname.” So, Ana Perez Jimenez becomes Ana Perez de Estrada. Now, when Ana writes her full married name everyone knows she is married, because the de signifies she is married. But, a lot of people don’t bother writing the whole thing out. When I write my name, no one knows it is my husband’s name, except to say I don’t really “look” like my married surname.

I don’t think it will disappear, but I think it will continue to decline. I haven’t taken my husband’s name. I know quite a few people who have married and have changed their name.

@Espiritus_Corvus “_ I like the way the Spaniards do it. They’re family lines are much easier to track. I’d like that to become customary._”

Indeed. My wife’s sister kept her maiden name upon getting married, and her daughter carry both her and her husband’s last names. In the last couple of years I’ve given thought to adding my mother’s maiden name to my own, hyphenating it with my paternal family name.

^^Don’t hyphenate. Americans can’t handle it. Just put your mom’s name in the middle somewhere.

The mom’s name gets lost in those countries that use the mother’s surname, just it’s lost one generation later.

Like I said Ana Perez Jimenez gets married to Ramon Mizrahi Gindi and has babies and the babies are Samuel Mizrahi Perez and Raquel Mizrahi Perez. The Jimenez and Gindi names are basically gone (the two grandmothers).

It’s nice still. I like that her children have her name.

I gave my two sons my birth name as a middle name but, as @JLeslie, it is gone in the next generation. However, I am pleased that they have it in their name. I thought of hyphenating but it would have been too cumbersome with our two names.

It’s worth saying that I am trying to find some cousins and if the girls that would be first cousins with my father had been given their mother’s maiden name, I probably would have an easier time trying to find the trail maybe?

Oddly enough, a variant of this thread came up in conversation at the dance studio tonight. People were talking about their children’s names. One woman’s daughter has her maiden name as her last name, her step-daughter has her mother’s maiden name as her last name, her sons have her husband’s last name. She uses her first husband’s last name professionally. When they travel together and check into a hotel, they have four different last names when it’s her, her husband and their kids.

It actually use to be fairly common, at least in America, for children (both boys and girls) to be given the mother’s maiden name as a middle name. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is one notable example.

^^Thats interesting. I always think of it as a European thing, but if I remember correctly FDR’s family had been here for generations. Although, back then I think there was still more connection to the old country, especially among the wealthy. Which is somewhat ironic considering it was so much harder to travel across the Atlantic then than now. Maybe it’s more the part of Europe? Meaning maybe particular groups of Americans did it depending where their families were from.