Maiden name

[StuckOnTheM1]

Just why are we still referring to having a maiden name? It's just your name. So archaic.

Honestly I've recently faced how archaic women's names truly are. Even now. I divorced my exdh so considering changing my name (considering as not sure due to wanting partly to have the same last name as dc) but to go back , I'm going back to fathers name. Neither of those names are mine , they are both the respective male names.feels acutely chattel like.

Just changing the term for the name doesn't mean anything other than semantics. The traditional system is still incredibly sexist and I'm not usually one to bang the drum. But at 41 I am no longer my fathers responsibility nor my ex husbands.

I'm debating picking a whole new name.

I chose my mother's mother's maiden name after I got divorced. But it was still my grandmother's father's name.

Hmmmm!

Well who is the "we" who uses the term? I never use it. I haven't changed my name but if I need to refer to someone's birth name that's what I call it (like the term nee (sorry don't know how to do accents) which means born.)

I usually say name/married name instead of name/maiden name

I haven't changed my name either.
I massively mind when anyone asks my 'maiden name'. I say xxxx is my name.
So annoying!

When I got divorced I seriously considered taking my mum's maiden name. I was closer to her than my dad but decided I wanted to "make peace" with the name I'd grown up with. I kind of regret that decision, although yes it would have been just taking another man's name.

Honestly, all the crap going on in the world and this is what you are worried about!

You must have a charmed life.

Skiing I always feel sorry for people who are only capable of worrying about one thing at a time, it must be so limiting

Why do you think your birth surname belongs to anyone other than you? Most of us (not all obviously) got given the family surname, why is it you think the males own their names but females don't? I wish I'd kept my birth surname, I changed it when I got married, it's a regret but hey ho. I do think both surnames I've ever had have been mine though, I've never thought of them as belonging to someone else.

I don't mind it and use the term. I didn't know it was a thing to get worked up over!

I hugely regretted taking my husbands name when we married. We're now divorcing after 6yrs and instead of waiting about I've changed my surname by deed poll back to my birth surname.

(Yes it's my dad's family name however it's also my name. I'm practically the only one left with the surname due to male relatives passing away and female relatives changing name when they married. It makes me so happy to have my name back )

The only thing worse than ‘maiden’ name is women who refer to their husband’s name as ‘his’ but their name as their ‘father’s’.

Totally illogical. A man can own the name he gets from his father but a woman can’t?

Time to have a good hard think why you believe your name belongs to your dad, but your married name is your husband’s (not your father-in-law’s).

My birth name was MY name before I got married. My married name is now also MY name as it is the one I have chosen to be known by.

That is how I look at it. I don't consider that my Dad or my husband owned the rights to those names, any more than they owned the rights to me either.

@AlwaysLatte

I don't mind it and use the term. I didn't know it was a thing to get worked up over!

Same. I use it because it is my maiden name.

Maybe I'm being stupid - but I always presumed it was maiden as in the maiden voyage of a ship? I thought it just meant "first" name ... is this not the case?

@ShopTattsyrup I think the "maiden " part refers to young women, ie maids (girls I guess for us). Once a girl married she was no longer a maid (virgin/young) but a wife and therefore considered an adult...

I have two friends who, when they got divorced, picked entirely new surnames - just ones they liked with no connotations attached. Maybe that’s the way forward

It’s maddening isn’t it.

First marriage I didn’t change my surname. Our Ds was double barrelled.

Second marriage I married the sort of twat who foot stomped about it. So I sort of changed it. Driving licience and bank (he stood there while I did it to make sure). But I refuse to change my passport. We’ve had two dc and I insisted my name on their birth certs was my ‘maiden name’.

My dds have my maiden name as middle name.

I hate the whole fucking thing.

It’s like transferring ownership of a woman, like the ownership of a fucking car. It makes me so depressed at times. I have Dh name so I’m “his”. That’s how he sees it.

After my divorce I'm going to change to my grandfathers name, only because he was the greatest person I ever knew and he inspires me to be a better person although he is long since passed.

I don't want my exH or my waste of space 'fathers' name.

It's a ridulously outdated term