Maiden and married names
Women changing their own last name after marriage encounter little difficulty in doing so when the opportunity is included in the legal process of marrying.[3] In the past, a woman in England usually assumed her new husband's family name (or surname) after marriage; often she was compelled to do so under coverture laws.Assuming the husband's surname remains common practice today in the United Kingdom (although there is no law that states the name must be changed) and in other countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Gibraltar, Falkland Islands, India, Philippines, the English-speaking provinces of Canada and the United States.[18] Examples include Amy Coney Barrett, Maryanne Trump Barry, Vera Cahalan Bushfield,[19] Marguerite Stitt Church,[20] Hillary Rodham Clinton (dropped maiden name in 2007),[21] Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Katherine Gudger Langley,[22] Ruth Hanna McCormick,[23] Nelle Wilson Reagan, Edith Nourse Rogers,[24] Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Margaret Chase Smith,[25] and Jada Pinkett Smith.[29] In the province of British Columbia, people have to undergo a legal name change if they want to use a combined surname after marriage.According to a Pew Research Center survey published in September 2023, nearly 4 out of every 5 women in heterosexual marriages in the United States changed their last names to those of their husbands.[41] 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 the ACLU, the obstacles facing a husband who wishes to adopt his wife's last name violated the equal protection clause provided by the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.[42] At the time of the lawsuit, only the states of Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Massachusetts, New York and North Dakota explicitly allowed a man to change his name through marriage with the same ease as a woman.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.However, as Russia is not a common law country, any name change requires a formal procedure including an official application to the civil acts registrar.The law also recognizes the couple's right to use the combined family name, and for the either of the spouses to reclaim their original surname in the case the marriage is dissolved.Law 11/1981 in Spain, enacted in 1981, declared among other things that children, on turning 18, now had a legal option to choose whether their father's or mother's surname came first.[60] Also 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.[61] In some Spanish-American countries it is customary for women to unofficially add the husband's first surname after her own, for social purposes such as invitation letters or event announcements.[62] Previously, the Turkish Code of Civil Law, Article 187, required a married woman to use her husband's surname; or else to use her birth name in front of her husband's name by giving a written application to the marriage officer or the civil registry office.In 2014, the Constitutional Court ruled that prohibiting married women from retaining only maiden names is a violation of their rights.[63] Traditionally, unlike in Anglophone Western countries, a married woman keeps her name unchanged, without adopting her husband's surname.Amongst the Chinese diaspora overseas, especially in Southeast Asia, women rarely legally adopt their spouse's surname.Due to British influence, some people in Hong Kong have also adopted the tradition of women changing their English last name, or prepending their husband's Chinese surname to their own in official occasions or business cards but rarely on resident identification or travel documents.[68] In 2024, six couples recognized International Women's Day by suing the government of Japan for the right of a wife and husband to have different last names.[72] Nevertheless, this caused confusion among some people, leading them to believe that the Civil Code required women to change their surnames, when it wasn't actually the case.[73] On 21 March 2023, the House of Representatives passed a bill to revise the Civil Code to explicitly declare that a woman can keep her surname.This allows them to be identified as married, and keep track of their professional achievements without being confused for any similarly named individuals.An older scheme based on Spanish naming customs add the particle de ("of") between the maiden and married surnames.