Keeping Your Maiden Name

Jules

Jules

SF VIP
If you were considered socially acceptable 30, 40, 50+ years ago, do you wish you could have done it? Fifty years ago a few day after I got married, someone asked me if I’d kept my maiden name. I was mortified; it wasn’t even anything I’d ever heard of. My in-laws were disgusted when their company left. Hindsight, it would have been better. Nowadays, I wonder how many do.

Sometimes I look at hyphenated names and wonder what the next generation will do.

Men, would it matter to you?
 

Keeping a maiden name was not the norm 50 to 60 years ago. Divorced when my 3 children were still in school and kept my ex's name as I didn't want the children to have a different last name. I still retain my ex's name (2nd husband didn't voice an opinion).
 

It's very common here now for people to keep their maiden names and to be known as Susan Brown Wife of John Smith...

Given the same opportunity 50 years ago..I would have still taken my first husbands' name simply because I wanted to get rid of my father's surname which had been a blight all my life..

When I married the second time.. I took my husbands name.. but if there was to be a next time.. and there won't be.. I'd keep the name I have now..
 
How about the Spanish system, the lady Senora Anna Pavon Loches,
fictitious name, by me, then when she gets married, she has to add
more, her husband, José Sanchez, she will now be known as, Senora
Anna Pavon Loches de Sanchez, her children will have a surname of,
Sanchez Pavon, the first surname is the father, the second the mother.

Mike.
 
Jules said:
If you were considered socially acceptable 30, 40, 50+ years ago, do you wish you could have done it? Fifty years ago a few day after I got married, someone asked me if I’d kept my maiden name. I was mortified; it wasn’t even anything I’d ever heard of. My in-laws were disgusted when their company left. Hindsight, it would have been better. Nowadays, I wonder how many do.

Sometimes I look at hyphenated names and wonder what the next generation will do.

Men, would it matter to you?
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It wouldn't make any difference to me. I've always thought the woman changing her name was a pointless gesture. Among my married friends, the best marriage in the lot (I'm not sure why I keep track of this kind of thing, but I do) was one where the woman kept her name. I know one case is not a population sample, but it does support my personal feelings that a name change is not necessary.

Would I want to change my name? Hell, no.
 
My DIL hyphenated her name to include her maiden name. I like that she did that. It had a nice ring to it. My second husband was very patient because when we got married, I kept my first husband's last name, mainly to make things easier at work. I used my first initial, nickname and previous last name with theI several contacts I had at several different hospitals and agencies and did not feel like notifying them all of a name change. My second husband and I had a religious marriage, fully recognized in Islam, but was not "legal"; we did not get a state marriage license. After I retired (a couple of years after we married), I legally changed my name to an Islamic one, at which time I took my husband's last name. I kept my middle name to honor my birthmother.
 
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There's nothing wrong with my maiden name, but when I got married I was glad to take my husband's last name because my maiden name combined with my first name was kind of a tongue twister. I don't think my parents thought it through very well when they named me. :unsure:
 
People should do what they want. I have two daughters. One took her husband's name, the other kept her own for professional reasons.

The one who took her husband's name is divorced now, the one who kept her own is still married. What they chose to do about their names was their business.
 
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With many people getting married later, it is a PITA to change all the documentation and accounts. When I married by present wife, who was widowed, she kept her previous married name. It made things very simple.
 
When I was a kid, I can remember my grandmother clucking about a girl who was getting married to a man whose last name started with the same letter. Apparently, it was considered bad luck. The old ladies had a poem about the subject:

A change of the name
but not of the letter,
is a change for the worse
and not for the better.
 
Lewkat said:
My maiden name has been the same as my married name. That's what happens when you marry someone who has the same last name.
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Convenient, and you are in good company. Albert Einstein's second wife was born Elsa Einstein changed her name to that of her first husband, Löwenthal, and then back to Einstein when she married Albert. Eleanor Roosevelt was born a Roosevelt.

Had some friends, both named Chris, when they married she took his sir name giving both the same first and last names. Kind of a novelty, but confusing.
PeppermintPatty said:
I think people should do what’s best for themselves and not worry about what others think.
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Absolutely!
 

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