Trending: Maiden Names Are On The Rise

A New York Times article suggests that there is a new trend among women – maiden names!

There are many practical reasons why a woman would choose to keep her maiden name. Let’s face it changing bank information, your license and other important documents are not fun tasks to complete.

A Google Consumer Survey conducted by The Upshot found that approximately 20 percent of women married in recent years have kept their maiden name.

Donna Suh got married in September and chose to keep her orginal name. Suh insists that her reasons are not for political purposes; rather she appreciates the practicality of it.

“It’s not necessarily a feminist reason, but it’s just my name for 33 years of my life,” Suh says. “And on social media I thought it might be harder to find me.”

When a married woman keeps her maiden name it may be taken as a solid sign of independence or as an act of feminism, but sociologists determine that this is not the case. Experts speculate that maiden names have made a comeback for several unrelated reasons, one being living together before marriage.

“When they do get around to marrying, they’ve already lived in a household with two names, so maybe it seems normal to them,” says Laurie Scheuble, who teaches sociology at Penn State and studies marital naming.

Scheuble also reveals that there is still pressure from society to take on your husband’s last name, revealing it “is the strongest gendered social norm that we enforce and expect.”

Despite the pressure, many women are embracing their maiden names and are leaving traditional views in the past.

Americans have been eliminating traditional values and creating their own norms: People marry less and later in life; women are having children in their late 30s and 40s and out of wedlock; and now same-sex marriage is legal nationwide.

There is no doubt that this name trend is rising, but who knows, this could become the new normal.

Additional reporting by Victoria Meneses