A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name.
The term "maiden name" is rarely applied to the change of family names by men, or by either sex other than in connection with marriage. Nevertheless, the French and English-adopted term "née" (; French: ), meaning "born as," can be applied to a woman's family name at birth that has been replaced for any reason. The French masculine inflection corresponding to née is "né"; while less readily recognized by non-French-speakers, it is likewise applied to family names changed for any reason. (The diacritics are sometimes omitted.)
The term "birth name" is sometimes used specifically as a gender-neutral (or male only) substitute for "maiden name", but it is also applied to mean the family name of the mother of a child adopted at birth, and is thus likely to be used with more flexibility than the loan-words née and né, accepting it even when the name being referred to was acquired by adoption (at or long after birth), or made in connection with a change of nationality, or changed in any of the variety of other, rarer circumstances.
Normally, changing one's name requires a legal procedure, as further described in name change; however in some jurisdictions anyone who either marries or divorces may change their name if he or she wishes. Traditionally in the Anglophone West, only women do so, but sometimes men as well change their last names upon marriage. In the United States, only seven states allow a man to change his family name after marriage without the formal legal process mandated for any name change, which is not required of women.
In the remainder of this article birth name, family name, surname, married name and maiden name always are patrilineal surnames unless explicitly stated to be matrilineal surnames.
With the exception of Quebec, either spouse, though usually the wife, has the right to change their last name after marriage. Their marriage certificate is considered proof of their new name.
One of Canada's chief values is multiculturalism. As such it is not uncommon to see names that follow patterns differing from the English and French naming conventions.
Chinese women generally do not change their surnames after marriage. While their legal names are left unmodified, it is not uncommon for them to be addressed in a similar fashion to Western custom as 'Mrs. (husband's family name)'. During the imperial times, some women assumed the husband's surname, which either replaced the woman's maiden name or is simply prefixed to her original name. However, most notable women of those times did not change surnames after marriage, for example, Cai Wenji (蔡文姬), Wu Zetian (Empress, 武則天), Yang Yuhuan (楊玉環), Li Qingzhao (Poet, 李清照).
In addition to this, a more dated practice among poorer females existed, as many did not have personal names and were simply called by their family names suffixed with shi (氏); in this case, the husband's surname is added before the maiden name after marriage. (氏) in older transliterations may be written shee, while the modern official pinyin is shi, fourth tone. Women with personal names may also have been referred to with the title 氏. Mrs. Li-Wu (i.e. Li née Wu) could be addressed Li Wu Shi (李武氏) without mentioning her personal name. This tradition is no longer commonly practiced in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Macau. Only a few women (usually 40 years of age or above) in Taiwan and Hong Kong still have their husband's surname prefixed to their original name. For example, the maiden name of Chan Fung Fu-chun (aka Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General) is Fung, and Chan is her husband's surname.
In Scotland, until the 20th century, married women kept their maiden names, but today the practice of changing to the husband's family name is the norm.
Usually, the children of these marriages are given their father's surname. Some families have a custom of using the mother's maiden name as a middle name for one of the children—Franklin Delano Roosevelt received his middle name in this way.
For many, the decision whether to keep or change their birth name is a difficult one. This process is expedited for newly married persons in that their marriage certificate in combination with identification using their married name is usually accepted as evidence of the change, due to the widespread custom, but the process still requires approaching every contact who uses the old name and asking them to use the new. Unless the statutes where the marriage occurred specify that a name change may occur at marriage (in which case the marriage certificate indicates the new name), the courts have officially recognized that such a change is a result of the common law right of a person (man, woman, and sometimes child) to change their name. Men, however, encounter more difficulties in changing their last names. There were some early cases which held that under the common law, a woman was required (in the U.S.) to take her husband's name, but newer cases overturned those.
The American suffragist and abolitionist Lucy Stone (1818–1893), made a national issue of the right to keep one's own surname as part of her efforts for women's rights in the U.S. Women who choose not to use their husbands' surnames have been called "Lucy Stoners" ever since.
Persons retaining their birth name after marriage may encounter difficulties with having people correctly use their name. Many people who know of the marriage will simply assume that the married person has the same surname as his or her spouse and will use that name to introduce and address him or her. Alternatively, people who are aware that a couple has different surnames may not realise that they are married.
Some people retain use of their own surname for particular situations, and use their spouse's surname in others. This is particularly common among people who have a professional career in which advancement depends on work associated with their name, such as an academic career. These people do not want to risk having their pre-marriage work no longer associated with them and may use their birth name as their surname in professional dealings but use their spouse's surname in social contexts. Many people, celebrities in particular, are so associated with their birth name in the public that they continue to use it professionally even if they have changed it legally.
There are many countries where it is customary for people to keep their own names. In Civil Law countries people keep their own names for official purposes, but what name they use for social purposes varies.
In some cases, the combined last name is not hyphenated; however both names are considered to be part of the last name (as opposed to either one being a second middle name). In the above example, she might become "Hannah Kelly Watson Errick", where "Watson Errick" is the last name, and "Kelly" is the only middle name.
The hyphenated surname has the advantage of enabling the tracing back of both parental lines. However, it requires the next generation, who have the surnames of all four grandparents, to make a decision about the surname(s) for their own children. One solution some couples have used when both parents had hyphenated last names is for the mother to contribute her mother's name and the father his father's to form a new hyphenated last name for themselves and their children. In Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries, the children receive the surname of both of their grandfathers in this order: first of their paternal grandfather, second of their maternal grandfather, so that in reality, the surnames do always descend from the men in the family and not from the women.
In the United States, some states or areas have laws that restrict what surname a child may have. For example, Tennessee allows a child to be given a surname that does not include that of the father only upon "the concurrent submission of a sworn application to that effect signed by both parents."
A married person who wishes to formally append a spouse's name to his or her birth name may do so through a simple administrative procedure. In recent years, this trend has gained popularity, especially among upper class women and among women who received a university diploma (MD, PhD) under their maiden name. For example, President Nicolas Sarkozy's wife is called Madame Bruni-Sarkozy, in which "Bruni" is her birth name and "Sarkozy" her husband's name. Some husbands append their wife's last name to their birth name, although this remains rare.
In some cases, it has been noted that the children of famous parents and their spouses decide to have a common hyphenated surname. For example, Marie and Pierre Curie's daughter, Irene, and her chemical engineer husband, Frederick Joliot, decided to hyphenate their surnames to Joliot-Curie.
There is a wide range of selection of a married name. In the past (up to about the 18th century) noble women kept their names at marriage and children received their father's name. (Non-nobles rarely had a last name at all as it became compulsory only under the reign of Joseph II.) When Hungary was under Habsburg rule and became influenced by Western European traditions, women became known by their husbands' names, e.g. Szendrey Júlia, marrying Petőfi Sándor, became Petőfi Sándorné (the -né suffix approximately means "wife of", this is the Hungarian equivalent of "Mrs. John Smith"). This was both law and tradition until the 1950s. During the Communist era of Hungary, great emphasis was put upon the equality of women and men, and, from that time, women could choose to keep their birth names or take that of their husbands in the aforementioned form. Still, most women took their husbands' names; most of the exceptions were artists.
Currently, the alternatives for a woman when she marries are the following (using the example of Szendrey Júlia and Petőfi Sándor – Júlia and Sándor are their given names, respectively):
Since January 1, 2004, there is one more possibility: the hyphenation of names; also, now men can take their wives' surname too, since the law which gave this opportunity only to women was declared sexist and thus unconstitutional. (Men still have fewer alternatives to choose from, though.) Thus Júlia can become either Petőfi-Szendrey Júlia or Szendrey-Petőfi Júlia while Sándor either keeps his own name or hyphenates in either order. Sándor can also become Petőfi-Szendrey Sándor, Szendrey-Petőfi Sándor or Szendrey Sándor, while Júlia either keeps her name or hyphenates, but changing names to each other's names (e.g. Petőfi Sándor and Szendrey Júlia become Szendrey Sándor and Petőfi Júlia) is not allowed.
The law that one can have a maximum of two last names still applies; if one or both of the partners already have a hyphenated name, they have to choose a maximum of two names or keep their birth names.
Both the bride and the bridegroom has to declare before the wedding which name they will use and which surname their children will get (this can be changed up until the birth of their first child). Children can get either parent's surname if that parent kept her or his surname in the marriage, but children born in the same marriage must have the same surname. Since 2004 they can also get a hyphenated name, but only if both parents kept their birth names at least as a part of their new name (e.g. if they kept their own names, or if one or both of them have hyphenated). Currently children usually get their father's surname; hyphenating names is a rising trend.
The marriage of same-sex partners is not allowed in Hungary, so they cannot legally use each other's names, unless going through the formal name change process.
Several Hindu communities in Kerala, the most notable being Nairs, are matrilineal, and in these groups the woman keeps her name even after marriage. Furthermore, her children will take her family name, rather than their father's. In Kerala, amongst Muslims, the husband's name and surname are added to the wife's name. In example, if Jameela Khader Elongavan marries Habeeb Syed Pokakilath, she would change her name to Jameela Habeeb Pokakilath. One notable exception is the Tamil Muslim community where women continue to use their maiden names after marriage, as the concept of surname is non-existent; this also serves as a precaution against discrimination of converts based on their pre-Islamic caste identities.
Christians generally follow the Western customs. Hindu women normally keep their birth names, but in the new generation, adding the husband's name is also observed. In some communities , the bride's first name is also changed after marriage. In these cases, the family she's married into selects the first name. This practice is quite rare today.
For many of an Indian woman's official documents, the husband's name or father's name has to be mentioned as a legal guardian (e.g. applying for a passport, bank account, etc.). This is irrespective of whether the woman is considered a minor or an adult.
In the state of Meghalaya, the practice of changing names after marriage is not prevalent at all. Everyone is known by the birth name for life. The birth first name is the name the parents choose for their child and the last name is, by default, the mother's last name.
In the Japanese language, it is common to avoid second and third person pronouns and instead refer to persons in conversation by their surname plus a title such as san, which indicate the relative rank, profession, or gender of the person but not his or her marriage status. Many women who have well-established careers or circles of friends may wish to continue to be referred to by their maiden name after they marry in order to maintain continuity at work or among their acquaintances. However, this is an informal practice not recognized by law, and a wife and husband may not use variant surnames in official settings. (It is possible to establish the maiden name, or another variant name, as a legal alias, which can then be used officially.) Although women's rights groups have attempted to introduce legislation that would allow married couples to maintain individual surnames, a practice which in Japanese is referred to as , such legislation has not yet been enacted.
However, some women either choose or are legally expected to carry their husbands' family name. This is the case in Egypt and the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan), where Islam is not the official state religion or Islamic sharia'a (law) is not the sole basis of the civil law of the country (although Egypt considers Islam as the main source of law). In these cases, women carry their husbands' family name while keeping their original family name as a middle name, so a woman would be known as "[First Name] [Original Family Name] [Husband's Family Name]". Examples of famous women who adopted their husband's family names: Jehan Sadat, wife of former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, Suzanne Mubarak, wife of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Asma al-Assad, wife of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan.
Prior to the birth or adoption of a first child, married parents may choose by which surname the child will go (mother's or father's but not both). If no choice is made, the child automatically obtains the father's surname. Any further children will also go by this name. If the parents of the child are not married, the children will automatically obtain their mother's name unless otherwise indicated.
Currently, the middle name is usually, though not always, the mother's maiden name, which is followed by the father's surname. This is the opposite of what is done in Spanish-speaking countries and is similar to the way surnames are done in Portugal and Brazil.
When a woman marries, she usually adopts the surname of her husband and uses her father's surname (her maiden surname) as her middle name, dropping her mother's maiden name (her former middle name). When a woman whose full maiden name is María Santos Cojuangco (where her mother's maiden surname is "Santos", and her father's is "Cojuangco") marries a man by the name of Juan López Agbayani, her full name would become María Cojuangco Agbayani. For the sake of brevity, she would be usually known at the very least as María Agbayani; her maiden name is usually not mentioned or it may simply be abbreviated as an initial (i.e. Maria C. Agbayani). In many cases, her maiden name may be mentioned. Consequently, her children will have Cojuangco as a middle name. (ex. their child, Rafael Dominic, will have a full name of Rafael Dominic Cojuangco Agbayani or Rafael Dominic C. Agbayani). Up until the middle of the 20th century, it was common for married Filipino women to insert the particle "de" ("of") in between the maiden surname and husband's surname (as in María Cojuangco de Agbayani or Maria C. de Agbayani), another common Spanish naming custom. However, this practice is no longer common.
Married Filipino women who are professionals may choose to hyphenate their surnames (i.e. María Cojuangco-Agbayani, instead of simply María Agbayani or María C. Agbayani), at least in professional use, and use it socially even if legal documents follow the above naming pattern.
According to the law, upon marrying the couple chooses names for husband, wife and (future) children. Any of those three can be groom's, bride's or double-barrelled combination of both (tripple-barreled names are not possible). Most often the bride forgoes her name and adopts her husband's.
The custom of a woman changing her name upon marriage is recent. It spread in the late 19th century in the upper classes, under French influence, and in the 20th century, particularly during the Estado Novo, it became socially almost obligatory. Nowadays, fewer women adopt, even officially, their husbands' names, and among those who do so officially, it is quite common not to use it either in their professional or informal life.
Until the end of the nineteenth century it was common for women, especially those from a very poor background, not to have a surname and so to be known only by her first name. She would then adopt her husband's full surname after marriage. With the advent of republicanism in Brazil and Portugal, along with the institution of civil registries, all children have surnames so this situation no longer occurs.
For the children, it is common to bear only the last surnames of the parents. For example, Carlos da Silva Gonçalves and Ana Luísa de Albuquerque Pereira (Gonçalves) (in case she adopted her husband's name after marriage) would have a child named Lucas Pereira Gonçalves. However, the child may have any other combination of the parents' surnames, according to euphony, social significance or other reasons.
The second grammatical way of creating the feminine version of the husband's surname concerns names that are or resemble adjectives and end with "-y" or "-i". In that case the feminine version follows the rules for adjectives and "y" or "i" is replaced with "a" (in Russian "-aya"). So Sklodowskiy's wife will become Sklodovskaya, Ostrovskiy's wife will become Ostrovskaya. There is one further option - some surnames do not change and do not follow any grammatical rules at all, as for example the names in Ukrainian and Polish ending with "-ko", or in Serbian the surnames ending with "-ić". Bondarenko's wife will remain Bondarenko, and Milošević will remain Milošević. In Czech these are the surnames ending with "-u" or "-í". Martinů's wife will remain Martinů and Kočí's wife will be Kočí.
In fact, in most cases the wife and the husband never have identical surnames, which sometimes creates translation problems into most western languages. While Putin's wife is Putina, it is normal to refer to the couple as "Mr and Mrs Putin", or "the Putins". On the other hand, the surname makes clear whether the person is a man or a woman. Another case in point is Anna Karenina. Karenina was her own surname, and her husband's was Karenin. Because the novel is principally about her, her surname has traditionally been used in the translation of the title. Recent editions, however, have rendered it as Anna Karenin.
Usually, female surnames of foreign origin are not modified. One exception is the Slovak Republic, where modification of foreign female surnames is required by language laws. For instance, Nicole Kidman would become Nicole Kidmanová in Slovak. This practice is also common in the Czech Republic. More recently, this controversial regulation is being abandoned, as many celebrities with a surname of foreign origin are using it in original form.
In Spain, especially Catalonia, the paternal and maternal surnames are often combined using y (Spanish) or i (in Catalan), see for example the economist Xavier Sala-i-Martin or Salvador Dalí i Domènech.
In Spain, a woman does not ever change her legal surnames when she marries. In some Spanish-speaking countries (those in Latin America), a woman marrying a man may drop her mother's surname and add her husband's surname to her father's surname using the "de" (of) preposition. For example, if "Clara Reyes Alba" were to marry "Alberto Gómez Rodriguez", the wife could use "Clara Reyes de Gómez" as her name (or "Clara Reyes Gómez", or, rarely, "Clara Gómez Reyes". She can be addressed as Sra. de Gómez corresponding to "Mrs Gómez"). In some countries, this form may be mainly social and not an official name change, i.e., legally, her name would still be her birth name. This custom of adding the husband's surname is slowly fading.
Any children a couple have together take both surnames, so if the couple above had two children named "Andrés" and "Ana", then their names would be "Andrés Gómez Reyes" and "Ana Gómez Reyes". In Spain, a 1995 reform in the law allows the parents to choose whether the father's or the mother's surname goes first, although this order must be the same for all their children. For instance, the son of the couple in the example above would be "Andrés Gómez Reyes" or "Andrés Reyes Gómez". Sometimes, for single mothers or when the father would or could not recognize the child, the mother's surname has been used twice: for example, "Ana Reyes Reyes". In Spain, however, children with just one parent receive both surnames of that parent, although the order may also be changed. In 1973 in Chile, the law was changed to avoid stigmatizing illegitimate children with the maternal surname repeated.
It should be noted that some Hispanic people, after leaving their country, drop their maternal surname (even if not formally), so as to better fit into the English-speaking or non-Hispanic society they live or work in. Dropping the paternal surname is not so unusual when it is a very common one. For instance, painter Pablo Ruiz Picasso and Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero are known by their maternal surnames as "Picasso" and "Zapatero".
In some churches, such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where the family structure is emphasized, as well as legal marriage, the wife is referred to as "hermana" [sister] plus the surname of her husband. And most records of the church follow that structure as well.
A new trend in the United States for Hispanics is to hyphenate their father's and mother's last names. This is done because American born English-speakers are not aware of the Hispanic custom of using two last names and thus mistake the first last name of the individual for a middle name. In doing so they would, for example, mistakenly refer to Esteban Alvarez Cobos as Esteban A. Cobos. Such confusion can be particularly troublesome in official matters. To avoid such mistakes, Esteban Alvarez Cobos, would become Esteban Alvarez-Cobos, in order to clarify that both are last names.
When Eva Duarte married Juan Domingo Perón, she could be addressed as Eva Duarte de Perón, but the preferred style was Eva Perón, or the familiar and affectionate Evita (little Eva). Combined names come from old traditional families and are considered one last name, but are rare. This is due to the fact that although Argentina is a Spanish speaking country, it is also composed of other varied European influences, such as Italian, French, Russian, German, etc.
Children typically use their father's last name only. Some state offices have started to use both last names, in the traditional father then mother order, to reduce the risk of a person being mistaken for others using the same name combinations, e.g. if Eva Duarte and Juan Perón had a child named Juan, he might be misidentified if he were called Juan Perón, but not if he was known as Juan Perón Duarte.
In early 2008, some new legislation is under consideration that will place the mother's last name ahead the father's last name, as it is done in Portuguese-speaking countries, despite Argentina being a Spanish-speaking country.
Children will always bear the surname of the father followed by that of the mother, but if there is no known father and the mother is single, the Children can bear either both of her mother's surnames or the mother's first surname followed by any of the surnames of the mother's parents or grandparents, or the child may bear the mother's first surname twice in a row.
The most common Swedish surnames end with "-sson", which means "son of" in English. Until recently, surnames ending with "-sdotter" ("daughter of" in English) were not so common, but recent legislation allows any daughter to take either parent's name and add "-sdotter" as a surname. A daughter of Sven can thus take the name "Svensdotter" meaning "daughter of Sven". The same rules apply to sons, who can take the name "Svensson" meaning "son of Sven", or (very uncommon so far but allowed) their mother's name ending with "-sson", like "Mariasson" if their mother's name is Maria. This is very similar to the system used in Iceland but applied to a greater extent. However, very few people take surnames like this in Sweden. Most people use the traditional structure.
Thai wifes with husband's surname, due to the old law, also can change back to use her original surname.
Public and legal acknowledgment of same-sex marriage is well established in some regions, though still uncommon due to its illegality in most regions. Trends in the nuptial naming practices associated with same-sex marriage have not yet been observed. LGBT people may make such decisions on an individual basis. In some civil law jurisdictions like the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, same-sex spouses or registered partners have the same legal options as heterosexual spouses to acquire, or—in the case of the Netherlands—use, the other partner's surname.
In 2007, Michael Buday and Diana Bijon enlisted the American Civil Liberties Union and filed a discrimination lawsuit against the state of California. According to ACLU, the obstacles facing a husband who wishes to adopt his wife's last name violate the equal protection clause provided by the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. At the time of the lawsuit, only the states of Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Massachusetts, New York and North Dakota explicitly allow a man to change his name through marriage with the same ease as a woman. As a result of the lawsuit, a California state lawmaker introduced a bill to put a space on the marriage license for either spouse to change names.
Category:Surnames Category:Marriage
da:Pigenavn (efternavn) es:Nombres de nacimiento y de matrimonio fr:Nom de jeune fille pl:Nazwisko rodowe ru:Девичья фамилия simple:Married and maiden names sv:Flicknamn zh:女性姓名This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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