Maiden and married names

When a person assumes the family name of their spouse, in some countries and cultures that name replaces the person's previous surname, which in the case of the wife is called the maiden name, whereas a married name is a family name or surname adopted upon marriage.
In some jurisdictions, changing names requires a legal process. When people marry or divorce, the legal aspects of changing names may be simplified or included, so that the new name is established as part of the legal process of marrying or divorcing. Traditionally, in the Anglophone West, women are far more likely to change their surnames upon marriage than men, but in some instances men may change their last names upon marriage as well, including same-sex couples.
In this article, birth name, family name, surname, married name and maiden name refer to patrilineal surnames unless explicitly described as referring to matrilineal surnames.

Name changes upon marriage

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. Unless the statutes where the marriage occurred specify that a name change may occur at marriage, courts following common law officially recognize it as the right of a person to change their name. However, men encounter more difficulties in changing their last names.

Use husband's family name

In the past, a woman in England usually assumed her new husband's family name 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 and in other countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Gibraltar, Falkland Islands, India, Philippines, Canada, and the United States. Often there are variations of name adoption, including family name adoption. 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, as did Isambard Kingdom Brunel in Britain. Some even use the mother's maiden name as a first name, such as Spessard Holland, a former governor of Florida and former senator, whose mother's maiden name was Virginia Spessard.

Use wife's family name

and Jack White are examples of husbands who took their wife's name as their own.

Retain the birth name

Women who keep their own surname after marriage may do so for a number of reasons:

They see no reason to change their name, much like men often see no reason to change theirs.
Objection to the one-sidedness of this tradition.
Being the last member of their family with that surname.
To avoid the hassle of paperwork related to their change of name.
Wishing to retain their identity.
Preferring their last name to their spouse's last name.
To avoid professional ramifications.
Feminism

The feminist Lucy Stone made a national issue of a married woman's right to keep her own surname as part of her efforts for women's rights in the U.S. Because of her, women who choose not to use their husbands' surnames have been called "Lucy Stoners". The feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton took her husband's surname as part of her own, signing herself Elizabeth Cady Stanton or E. Cady Stanton, but she refused to be addressed as Mrs. Henry B. Stanton. She wrote in 1847 that "the custom of calling women Mrs. John This and Mrs. Tom That and colored men Sambo and Zip Coon, is founded on the principle that white men are lords of all." Later, when addressing the judiciary committee of the state legislature of New York in 1860 in a speech called "A Slave's Appeal", she stated in part, "The negro has no name. He is Cuffy Douglas or Cuffy Brooks, just whose Cuffy he may chance to be. The woman has no name. She is Mrs. Richard Roe or Mrs. John Doe, just whose Mrs. she may chance to be."
The feminist Jane Grant, co-founder of The New Yorker, wrote in 1943 of her efforts to keep her name despite her marriage, as well as other women's experiences with their maiden names regarding military service, passports, voting, and business. More recently, the feminist Jill Filipovic's opposition to name change for women who marry was published in The Guardian in 2013 as "Why should married women change their names? Let men change theirs", and cited as recommended reading on the theory of social construction of gender in Critical Encounters in Secondary English: Teaching Literacy Theory to Adolescents by Deborah Appleman. When Filipovic married in 2018, she kept her last name.

Join both names (hyphenation)

It is less common for women, especially in the United States and Canada, to add their spouse's name and their own birth name. There are examples of this, however, in U.S. senator Cindy Hyde-Smith and U.S. sitting congresswomen Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, as well as U.S. former congresswomen Lucille Roybal-Allard, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Former U.S. president Barack Obama's only maternal half-sibling is Maya Soetoro-Ng, formerly Maya Soetoro. Farrah Fawcett was known as Farrah Fawcett-Majors during her marriage to Lee Majors until their separation in 1979. Activist Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson was known as Ruby Doris Smith prior to her marriage.

Name blending

Although less common than name joining, a growing trend is the blending of two surnames upon marriage. This means adding parts of the two names. An example is Dawn O'Porter.

Birth name as middle name

Examples include Amy Coney Barrett, Maryanne Trump Barry, Maud Gage Baum, Shirley Temple Black, Vera Cahalan Bushfield, Marguerite Stitt Church, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Cindy Parlow Cone, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Katherine Gudger Langley, Ruth Hanna McCormick, Nelle Wilson Reagan, Edith Nourse Rogers, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Margaret Chase Smith, and Jada Pinkett Smith. During their respective marriages, Kim Kardashian and Robin Wright were known as Kim Kardashian West and Robin Wright Penn. Politician Nikki Haley is sometimes referred to as Nikki R. Haley; the "R" stands for Randhawa, her birth surname.

Spouse's surname as middle name

Examples include Brooklyn Peltz Beckham and John Ono Lennon and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. When British author Neil Gaiman married American musician Amanda Palmer, he added his wife's middle name to his, becoming Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman.

New name

Some couples will create an entirely new surname for themselves upon marriage, with no ties to either's original surname. This practice is less common than name blending.

North America

Canada

In most of Canada, either partner may informally assume the spouse's surname after marriage, so long as it is not for the purposes of fraud. The same is true for people in common-law relationships, in some provinces. This is not considered a legal name change in most provinces, excluding British Columbia. For federal purposes, such as a Canadian passport, Canadians may also assume their partner's surname if they are in a common-law relationship. In the province of British Columbia, people have to undergo a legal name change if they want to use a combined surname after marriage. Their marriage certificate is considered proof of their new name.
The custom in Québec was similar to the one in France until 1981. Women would traditionally go by their husband's surname in daily life, but their maiden name remained their legal name. Since the passage of a 1981 provincial law intended to promote gender equality, as outlined in the Québec Charter of Rights, no change may be made to a person's name without the authorization of the registrar of civil status or the authorization of the court. Married individuals who wish to change their names upon marriage must therefore go through the same procedure as those changing their names for other reasons. The registrar of civil status may authorize a name change if:

the name the person generally uses does not correspond to the name on their birth certificate,
the name is of foreign origin or too difficult to pronounce or write in its original form, or
the name invites ridicule or has become infamous.

Marriage by itself is not considered to be an acceptable reason for a legal name change and a person may be required to show documentation that keeping their maiden name would cause psychological harm. This law has been criticized as taking away a woman's choice in choosing her name. Women married outside of Quebec are also expected to use their birth name as their legal name if they reside in the province.

United States

There were some early cases in the United States that held that under common law, a woman was required to take her husband's name, but newer cases overturned that. Currently, American women do not have to change their names by law. Lindon v. First National Bank, 10 F. 894, is one of the very earliest precedent-setting US federal court cases involving common law name change. A woman who had changed her last name to one that was not her husband's original surname was trying to claim control over her inheritance. The court ruled in her favor. This set forth many things. By common law, one may lawfully change their name and be "known and recognized" by that new name. Also, one may enter into any kinds of contracts in their new adopted name. Contracts include employment, and one can be recognized legally in court in their new name. In 1967 in Erie Exchange v. Lane, 246 Md. 55 the Maryland Court of Appeals held that a married woman can lawfully adopt an assumed name, even if it is not her birth name or the name of her lawful husband, without legal proceedings. In the United States, only eight states provide for an official name change for a man as part of their marriage process, and in others a man may petition a court or—where not prohibited—change his name without a legal procedure. The practice remains popular in the 21st century. 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. On the other hand, 92% of all men in these marriages kept their last names.
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. 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. As a result of the lawsuit, the Name Equality Act of 2007 was passed to allow either spouse to change their name, using their marriage license as the means of the change; the law took effect in 2009.
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."
In Massachusetts, a Harvard study in 2004 found that about 87% of college-educated women take their husbands' name on marriage, down from a peak before 1975 of over 90%, but up from about 80% in 1990. The same study found women with a college degree were "two to four times more likely to retain their surname" than those without a college degree.