Is there a tradition to adopt woman’s husband surname as their own surname in your country?

20 comments

1. Here it was the law until 1975, then, thanks to the reform of the civil code, wives were allowed to keep their maiden name, and by now this custom has also become established informally, but every now and then, I still hear someone referring to a woman with her husband’s surname.

2. Yes the traditional way in Austria is for the woman to adopt the husbands name. But it has changed in recent decades with a large minority of couples adopting a dual name comprised of both family names. Also very rarely the husband might adopt the wifes name. But I only saw that once when a guy married into a (formerly) noble family adopting the name of the noble house.

3. It is. It’s less common now than it used to be but still more common than not. Some will keep their own names, some will hyphenate, some will invent a new surname altogether. Sometimes people will change their minds at a later date (I know one woman who initially kept her name but then changed after her son was born).

   If we were to ever get married my partner has said she’d keep her own name. Married or not our plan for the child(ren) would be for them to take my name but use hers as a middle name.

4. Under Belgian law, marriage does not have any effect on the spouses’ surnames. You keep the surname that you had before you were married. This has always been the case.

   You can apply to get your surname changed, but the change is only granted if you have a valid reason. For example, many people with the surname Dutroux have changed their names, since they didn’t want to be associated with serial killer Marc Dutroux.

5. Yes, but legally four options are possible:

   – wife takes husband’s name
   – husband takes wife’s name
   – both keep their names
   – both take a double-barrelled name, like J. Kenji Lopez-Alt and his wife

6. It’s the traditional, and still the most common, way of doing it. However, it’s not the only alternative.

   There are basically four ways:

   – Both spouses keep their own surnames
   – One spouse takes the other’s surname
   – One or both spouses combine the surnames into a hyphenated surname
   – They take a completely new surname. All surnames are protected in Finland, so they can’t just take any surname they want, unless one of them has an ancestor with the name.

7. Nope, in Belgium it is nearly impossible to change your last name, usually only granted if you can prove that your current name causes you some kind of suffering. I don’t get the concept of changing your name, I am sure I could never get used to that and would feel so weird.

8. You don’t change your name when marrying but you can use your spouse name, either by itself or by hyphenating it.

   But tradition was that all women used their husband name anyway, so even if it wasn’t mandatory it’s what almost everyone did until recently.

   The official name is always the birth name though. On forms you usually have a “usual name” field and a “birth name” one (it was “maiden name” before… ).

   Nowadays it’s not unusual to keep your birth name or hyphenate.

9. Latvian tradition is to do so, and that’s still expected as Latvia is fairly traditional when it comes to gender roles (while at the same time scoring highly on multiple equality metrics, that’s an interesting subject in itself). So most women take the husband’s surname, though it has lately become socially acceptable to hyphenate. Simply keeping the original surname is still seen as an unconventional choice and a statement, even if it’s no longer outrageous. I know a woman who chose to keep her surname when marrying twenty years ago, she had to face a lot of shit for that – people claimed she doesn’t respect her husband, doesn’t mean to stay with him long, denies rights to any children they might have, etc.

10. Like in Belgium when you marry in the Netherlands your legal last name does not change. You gain the legal right to use and be addressed by your spouse’s last name or to hyphenate you and your spouse’s last name. Previously husband’s last name but these days it can go both ways.

    The original custom was that women would hyphenate their name. For example if Jan Jansen married Anna Smit the latter would now go through life as Anna Jansen-Smit. Letters would generally be addressed to Anna Jansen-Smit but in daily life she’d most likely be referred to as Anna Jansen because saying the full name is a bit long in most cases since most Dutch surnames are at least two or three syllables long. Like Jansen-Smit is still OK but saying for example Jansen-Van den Berg gets a bit tedious.

    These days it’s still common for women to hyphenate their names when they get married but a lot just continue to go by their own name.

11. Not a lot of women officially adopt their husband’s surname on account of what a pain in the ass it is to legally change it on all their documents (first and foremost the ID card which most would have had since birth).

    Sometimes they double barrel it on Facebook or put it in brackets.

12. Not possible in Spain.

    In Portugal, you can *add* your spouse’s surname (or surnames) to your own full name, but it can never replace your already existing surnames. My mom added my dad’s surname to hers, but she didn’t lose any of her already existing names.

13. No, in Spain we have two surnames and when you get married these don’t change.

    Children will have their father’s first surname and their mother’s first surname, usually in that order but not necessarily.

    Surnames indicate which families you come from, so they don’t change.

14. Pretty much norm here, although modern feminists are usually trying to fight against it, either not using typical OVA/OVÁ ending(example : Polák instead of Poláková) or they use their surname together with husband’s(example : Poláková Nováková).

15. I have family member that was married 2 times

    She adopted her 1st husband’s last name but later she decided to add her maiden last name (maiden-husband)

    Later she had divorce, but she kept her 2 last names

    When she married 2nd time she decided to have 1st husband’s and 2nd husband’s last name.

16. Until some years ago, the woman adopted the husbands surname by default, or could decide keep her maiden name if she forwarded “reasons”. She then had a double name with her own in front and the husband’s name after, without hyphen.

    Either, husband and wife, could always use a hyphenated name (“alliance name”) with the husband’s followed by the wife’s. The names with hyphen were never official, but could be put on IDs and used in legal proceedings.

    In 2013, the law is now that both bridespeople keep their own name, unless they sign a declaration that one adopts the other’s. If both keep their name, they also decide on one of their names as “family name” that all their children will have.

    It is still most common (80 %) that women adopt the husband’s name.

    The double names without hyphens are not posssible anymore (but you can keep it if you’ve got one). Hyphenated names are still possible and still unofficial.

    There are a handful of double names and hyphenated names that are historically one unit and get inherited and passed on as such.

17. It is considered the default for the wife to take her husband’s surname. However, nowadays more and more women keep their birth surnames. Some hyphenate both surnames and gain the right to go by either for convenience (but on official documents they must write all 4 names). Sometimes the suffix can be skipped, keeping the name in its male variant (for example, Ana Markov as opposed to Ana Markova) but I am unsure of the circumstances of that.

    Same sex marriage is not legal here so I don’t know how that might change our naming customs.

18. Used to be a tradition or using maiden name + husband’s last name was also pretty popular. In the past couple of years it also become quite normal that the man changed his last name if he liked the name of his wife.

19. In Hungary it’s complicated:

    Let’s say the wife is called KOVÁCS Anna, the husband is called NAGY István. (Surname is capitalized).

    The options are:

    1.) Nagy Istvánné (full name of the husband with -né, that indicates we’re talking about the wife, this is what my grandma uses, even years after the divorce)

    2.) Nagyné Kovács Anna (surname of the husband with -né and full name of the wife

    3.) Nagy Istvánné Kovács Anna (full name of the husband with -né and full name of the wife, my high school math teacher used this form, so her full legal name has 5 parts, as her husband has two given names)

    4.) Nagy Anna (taking only the surname, this is what my mom choose)

    5.) Nagy-Kovács Anna (hyphenated)

    6.) Kovács Anna (not changing it)

    Also, name changes by marriage are free of charge and you get your ID card renewed with the new name for free, but changing it after a divorce costs a lot of money and it’s a pain in the ass.

20. Yeah and it is still the most common choice although hyphenating is becoming more common I think.

    I only know one case where the husband took his wifes’ name.

    Personally I want to marry my girlfriend and take a last name from her ancestors, it’s protected and pretty badass; it’s the Swedish word for “dragon”.