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You certainly put a lot of effort into that, but to keep it simple, what I meant to convey was that it’s a custom to return to the name of the father because she’s ‘the daughter of’ and even the Maronites seem to follow that custom. I could quote cases of middle eastern women whose families have been in the West for a number of generations, and each time they have become a widow or divorced, she returns to what we call her maiden name. They are not muslim but all are arabs.

It’s a custom that has obsolutely nothing to do with SUBUD, which is what we were discussing; in which case someone in the cult has the authority to change the CHRISTIAN name of a new member. I’m guessing that has some connection to the fact that the founder was a sufi-muslim, and any CHRISTIAN name would be seen to be offensive to islam AND Subud. Deliana? Roger? Neither of them have biblical roots, and would be acceptable to SUBUD.

So there’s a difference between a middle eastern woman changing her ‘surname’ back to being the daughter of...and a Western girl changing her Christian and surname when she marries a muslim...and SUBUD taking away the CHRISTIAN name (first name) of a new follower. I won’t use the word convert, as the cult is not a religion.

I’ve saved the information from your research for future reference, although arab muslim names leave me quite perplexed.