UMM My “children” are all middle aged, the youngest just turned 54. I have a total of 8 people on my friends list, I am not in a contest to have the most friends. My friends and family know the name I use and have used in the past for other things like listing our phone. You have to pay to unlist a phone you do not if you give them another name, and it is legal. And it is unsafe to put yours or your childrens pictures on any internet site. My picture on facebook is actually a cat that we once had. My picture has never been on the internet, nor have I ever put anyones picture on the internet. I have been around a long time and know better than to be that trusting.
Since you were so offended though I must ask did you plaster your children’s pictures on the internet? You know there are pedophiles out there looking for kids pictures and some claim it is easy to find where people live, and people who decide they don’t like you and would wish to do you harm?
“Maiden name” is conventionally the name women used to be known by, not your current name aka the name you changed to upon marriage. June’s maiden name is Bronson, but her friends, family, neighbors all know her as June Cleaver. The implication being that using a “maiden name” on Facebook is not name they go by in daily life. If you’re currently using your unchanged name in daily life, it’s not a maiden name, it’s just a name. His own example confirms this – Michelle is not known by Robinson in daily life. It is her maiden name, not the name she uses.
Whenever I might marry, I won’t have a maiden name because I’ll still be using the name I have. Calling it “maiden” assumes that it is or should be the name I used as a maiden (single) and the name I use as a matron (married) is or should be different.
The first poll option is basically “on Facebook I use the name my old grade school friends will recognize, not the name I’m using now.” If he wasn’t expecting a difference in how people handle Facebook naming conventions versus real space, there’s no need to ask about what you do on Facebook at all, and you can just ask if and how women changed their name after marriage.
I’d say the same thing except the percentage would be much lower, though it’s still common. It makes perfect sense to me if they’re using Facebook to find and keep in touch with old friends, acquaintances, classmates, etc. from back before they were married—which, admittedly, not everyone does, but many do.
I used to say that when I got married no way in hell was I going to change my last name, I would hyphenate - until I really did get married. My husband gave me my dream wedding and literally the life I’ve always dreamed of (no kids, comfortable income, ability to travel) and all he ever asked of me is that I take his last name. No problem-o, honey.
But in a discussion like this, you need to distinguish different surnames somehow. There wouldn’t be much point in a poll that just asked women if they used their name. And asking “did you keep your maiden name?” is simpler than asking “did you keep the surname you had from the time when you were born up to and perhaps past the time when you got married?”
Same thing about saying Obama is the First Lady’s “married name”. Well, okay, that implies that she was supposed to change her name when she got married. But what else are you going to call it? Her husband’s name? That’s even worse. The surname she may or may not have adopted when she got married which was her husband’s name prior to their wedding but which is now equally hers?
I think the use of terms like maiden name and married name is just a matter of convenience rather than an attempt to imply one is more correct than the other.
It’s just “maiden name” is “the name you discarded”. A single woman doesn’t “use her maiden name”, she just has a name. A person that has discarded the name they were born with but still uses it under certain circumstances “uses her maiden name”. A woman who changed her name upon marriage refers to her discarded name as her “maiden name”. I don’t use my “maiden name”. I use my name.
I didn’t think the OP was being political or anything, I honestly just thought it didn’t occur to him that some women keep their name. If that’s not what he meant, it’s because there is some ambiguity in the choice of language.
Of course I know that some women don’t change their name.
To me, “Maiden Name” is simply the dictionary term for “the name a woman is born with, whether she changes it upon marriage or not.”
If a girl named Michelle Robinson marries a guy named Barack Obama and continues going by Michelle Robinson, AFAIAC she’s using her “maiden name.” That’s not a political or social statement. It’s just… a statement. If Michelle Robinson decides to change her name legally to Michelle Obama and use “Obama” in her personal and/or professional life, she’s using her “married name.” Again, not a political or social statement; just a statement, plain and simple.
I get that this conversation uses archaic and, in some ways, outdated concepts. But I certainly meant no offense by suggesting “maiden name” meant something beyond “the name you’re born with.”
I didn’t take offence. But I think that there are a couple different meanings to the term, and that it’s quite possible for reasonable people to read what you wrote the way I originally did.
This option would have been my choice. (I don’t refer to my name as my “maiden name.” That term has more baggage to me that it apparently does to HeyHomie.)
Like several others, I picked “Maiden name only” because I didn’t change my last name when I got married – at least not this time. I took my first husband’s last name many many years ago, but when we divorced, and since there were no children, I took back my maiden name. At that point, I decided that enough was enough and I was not going to change my name again. When I got married for the second time, about 20 years later, I saw no reason to change my mind or my name. If we get mail addressed to Mr. and Mrs., I don’t mind – especially since sometimes it’s “Mr. and Mrs. Hislastname” and sometimes it’s “Mr. and Mrs. Mylastname.” A few years back, as people at my work place were preparing for an annual yard sale, a few co-workers who only knew my first name addressed him as “Mister Ruby.” He got a good laugh out of that and actually likes it when people call him that. So to get back on topic, I use my own last name/maiden name for everything but neither of us mind being addressed by the other’s name, either first or last.
Men don’t have “maiden names.” They just have names, because there is no cultural expectation that they will ever change them.
But if a woman doesn’t change her name, her original last name shouldn’t be called a maiden name either IMO. There was no way I was changing my name when I got married. Why on earth should I, just to satisfy an outdated cultural convention that is never imposed on men? No, thank you very much. So I think the terms of the poll don’t really take into account the many women who choose to retain their own names, as others on the thread have pointed out.
And I think I win the award for the number of times I have repeated the word “name” in a relatively short post.