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More women are keeping their maiden names after marriage as a trend that has gone up and down over the years begins to tick up once again.
In a study done by The New York Times' Upshot blog, the analysis found that more women are electing to keep their maiden name than in the past few years. Stats showed that the trend is starting to move upward after a decline in the 1980s and 1990s.
Sociologists added that keeping the maiden name is now a way for women to define their independence and is a symbolic, feminist act.
According to a Google Consumer Survey, around 20 percent of women who married last year kept their name. The survey added that another 10 percent elected to hyphenate their name or legally change it while still using their birth name professionally.
The New York Times compares this to the stats from previous decades including the fact that “about 17 percent of women who married for the first time in the 1970s kept their names.” This number would fall in the 1980s to 14 percent and go back up a bit in the 1990s to 18 percent.
The recent trend with women to keep their maiden name probably comes from the fact that they are marrying later, which means they are establishing more of a career beforehand. A study by Harvard University found that "the most important predictor was whether a woman 'made a name' for herself before marriage."
The study also found that children of divorce decided to keep their birth name out of fear of getting a divorce and having to change again.
Read more at The New York Times.
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