Maiden and Married Names 👰 U.S. Culture with Jennifer, Rachel & Vanessa

What are some of the biggest decisions people make in life? Would you agree with this list of my top five?

One. Going to college: Should I go? Where to go? What to study?

Two. Getting a job: What to do? Where to work?

Three. Deciding where to live: the location, the type of housing.

Four. Getting married: Should I get married? Who should I marry? When to marry?

Five. Having kids:

Should I have kids? How many?

When?

Of course each major decision leads to more decisions, perhaps smaller ones, but still important ones.

Take for example getting married. There are a lot of decisions to make about the wedding.

But for women, there's also the matter of whether or not to change our last name.

At least this is a big decision for women in the U.S.

A woman's maiden name is the last name she has before getting married.

One's married name, obviously, is the last name one has after getting married.

As a woman, you're allowed to keep your maiden name after getting married.

But past generations have followed the tradition of taking the husband's family name.

I'm only one woman, and I'm happy to share my experience with you.

But for this lesson on American culture, I brought in reinforcements.

Do you know what that means?

If you bring in reinforcements or call for reinforcements, you're requesting backup.

That's additional support or help.

In my case, I need the help of other women, and not just any women.

Other American women who are married and who happen to be online English teachers like me.

You're going to hear from two wonderful ladies who do amazing work on their own YouTube channels.

I bet many of you know them already.

Rachel of Rachel's English and Teacher Vanessa of Speak English with Vanessa.

If you haven't subscribed to their channels already, then take the time to visit them and check out their lessons.

I'll put the links in the video description.

Together the three of us women will tell you all of the different options a married woman has today in the U.S.,

and we'll each tell you what we personally decided and why.

Rachel will go first. Listen carefully. Try to hear the answers to these questions.

Did she change her name after getting married?

What was her husband's opinion about this choice?

What did her female friends and relatives decide after getting married?

Hi Jennifer. So when I got married four years ago, I decided to keep my name and not change anything about it.

So I have kept my maiden name. My husband didn't mind at all.

In fact, he also kind of wanted me to keep my own name.

I don't know why. That's just what felt right to both of us.

I do have lots of friends who have changed their name when they got married.

And I have a few friends who not just

hyphenated their names, but took both last names and stuck them together in one word with no space.

Actually, my cousin, her last name ends in an L.

Her husband's last name begins in an L, and they stuck that together into one word and joined them with just a single a single letter L.

So there are lots of ways to do it.

So Rachel decided to keep her maiden name and her husband was perfectly fine with that.

I think that's how a lot of American men feel today.

They're understanding and supportive of the wife's decision.

Rachel said, "It's just what felt right to both of us."

Rachel also listed a number of choices American women make,

including changing their last name and

joining the two last names together with or without a hyphen.

I rather like the idea that Rachel's cousin came up with.

Imagine having a very musical name, like

Hallee

Neillang

Mitchellawrence

Now you'll hear from Vanessa. Listen carefully and be ready to answer these questions.

Did she make the same decision as Rachel and keep her last name? Why or why not?

What does Vanessa say that most American women decide to do?

I'd say that the majority of women in the U.S. who get married decide to take their husband's last name, and that's what I did.

It was kind of a hassle at the beginning because I had to change my license, change my passport...

But after I got through all of that, it's pretty cool.

How many times in your life do you get to change your name? Some people feel really strongly about it.

They feel like their name is such a part of their identity that they don't want to change their name.

But I didn't really care. I'm still me even though my last name has changed.

So some people might decide to hyphenate their last name with their maiden name and then their husband's last name.

Or maybe they decide to keep their maiden name and rarely

maybe the husband takes the wife's last name. But for me, I just wanted to keep it simple and take his last name. Pretty cool.

So what did Vanessa decide to do?

She changed her name. And why? Because she viewed the

possibility of changing her name as a cool opportunity in life.

For her, her maiden name was not strongly attached to her sense of identity.

But as she said, other woman can feel differently.

Vanessa said that the majority of women in the U.S. decide to take their husband's last name.

She also correctly noted that changing your name on all your documents can be a hassle.

In other words, it causes problems and it can be a little annoying to deal with.

Did you catch one other possibility?

It's something that a man could do after getting married.

Vanessa said that the husband could take the wife's last name.

It's rare, but it could happen.

Now what about me?

My name is Jennifer Lebedev. As you likely know, I'm not Russian,

but my husband is. He really didn't care one way or the other.

So it was my decision to follow tradition and changed my last name.

It's what my mother, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother all did so the choice felt natural.

However, I didn't exactly give up my maiden name. My maiden name became one of my middle names.

So I felt it was symbolic. I'm still me, but I added on another layer.

Speaking of hassles, I decided to break the Russian tradition of writing my last name with an A at the end.

That's what Russian women do. On our Russian marriage license, I'm Jennifer Lebedeva.

But I knew that the two different spellings of the last name would cause problems down the line for me and any future children.

So here in the U.S. I'm Jennifer Lebedev and we are the Lebedev family.

Incidentally, our children have my maiden name as their middle name.

So, what's the tradition in your culture? Is the practice changing?

Do you have an opinion one way or the other about a wife's last name?

Do you like the idea of following tradition or breaking tradition? Post your thoughts in the comments.

Please like this video if you enjoyed hearing from three different teachers.

Subscribe to all our channels.

I'll put the links to Rachel's English and Speak English with Vanessa in the video description.

A very special thank you to Rachel and Vanessa for all their help in making this video.

As always, thanks for watching and happy studies!

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