Once considered a feminist political act in the 1970s, women keeping their maiden name after marriage is a trend that's once again on the rise. But based on one New York Times writer's research, the motivations for doing so are different this time around.
"There are still some people who do it for feminist reasons and for political reasons, but more and more, the women I talked to were doing it for convenience," said Claire Cain Miller, a writer for the New York Times.
Coinciding with the feminist movement of the '70s, as women began to increasingly enroll into college, launch professional careers and marry and have children later in life, they also began keeping their birth names, said Cain Miller. She said approximately 17 percent of women kept their maiden name in the late 1970s.
"Part in parcel of the feminist movement was the notion that changing your name to your husband’s name was part of a patriarchal tradition that they were trying to reject. That’s when keeping your name really started," she said.
At that time, there were still state laws that required women to change their name to get a passport or open a bank account, making the idea of keeping a maiden name "sort of a revolutionary concept," said Cain Miller.
The trend declined to about 14 percent during the ‘80s and ‘90s, according to The New York Times' analysis. However, in recent years, about 20 percent of women are keeping their birth name.
For both women who change their name and who keep their name, convenience seems to play a major role in their decision. Women who changed their name told Cain Miller that it's "easier in terms of hotel reservations and things like that." Many of them also said that they wanted everyone in the family, including children, have the same last name.
"When women keep their name, they also tend to talk about convenience" said Cain Miller. "They say things like, ‘How is anyone going to find me on social media if I change my name?’ Or, ‘I have business relationships with people and they recognize my email address, so it would be very confusing if all of a sudden I had a different last name.’"
Cain Miller's article found that overall, religious women tend to change their names more often, with the women exception being Jewish women. It also found that women are more likely to keep their name if they are older, have children from a previous marriage, or have advanced degrees or established careers.