About 8 in 10 women in opposite-sex marriages say they took their husband’s last name

Pew Research ^ | September 4, 2023 | Luona Lin

[DoodleBob]

Marriage in the United States has been changing in many ways over the past several decades – but the tradition of women taking their husband’s last name is still going strong. In a new Pew Research Center survey, we asked married people whether they changed their last name after marriage.

How we did this

Pew Research Center asked 2,437 U.S. adults in opposite-sex marriages whether they changed or kept their last name when they got married. We also asked 955 U.S. adults who have never been married what they would do if they got married. The questions used in this analysis are part of a larger survey of 5,073 U.S. adults conducted April 10-16, 2023.

Everyone who took part in the survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. Address-based sampling ensures that nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.

Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology.

Most women in opposite-sex marriages (79%) say they took their spouse’s last name when they got married. Another 14% kept their last name, and 5% hyphenated both their name and their spouse’s name.

Among men in opposite-sex marriages, the vast majority (92%) say they kept their last name. Just 5% took their spouse’s last name, and less than 1% hyphenated both names.

The numbers of women and men in same-sex marriages in the sample are too small to analyze separately.

We also asked people of all sexual orientations who have never been married whether they would change their last name if they got married.

Women who have never been married have mixed views on this: 33% say they would take their spouse’s last name, 23% would keep their last name, 17% would hyphenate both names and 24% aren’t sure.

Among men, 73% say they would keep their last name, and 20% aren’t sure. Just 4% say they would hyphenate both names and 2% say they would take their spouse’s last name.

Which women are more likely to have kept their last name after marriage?

Some women in opposite-sex marriages are more likely than others to say they kept their last name after getting married. They include:

• Younger women: 20% of married women ages 18 to 49 say they kept their last name, compared with 9% of those ages 50 and older.

• Women with a postgraduate degree: 26% of married women with a postgraduate degree kept their last name, compared with 13% of those with a bachelor’s degree and 11% of those with some college or less education.

• Democratic women: Democratic and Democratic-leaning women are twice as likely as Republican and Republican-leaning women to say they kept their last name (20% vs. 10%). While moderates in each party are about equally likely to say they kept their last name, liberal Democratic women are the most likely to say this (25%), and conservative Republican women are the least likely (7%).

• Hispanic women: 30% of Hispanic women say they kept their last name, compared with 10% of White women and 9% of Black women. Black women are more likely than White women to say they hyphenated their and their spouse’s last names, and White women are the most likely to say they took their husband’s last name. (There aren’t enough married Asian women in the sample to analyze separately.)

For women who have never been married, the sample size is not large enough to look at demographic differences in what they say they would do.

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology.

[Socon-Econ]

Women with good marriages want others to know about it, especially when they attend reunions and mingle with extended family.

[Georgia Girl 2]

The only reason I didn’t change my name was because I had a long standing business of 17 years and it would have been a nightmare to change everything. Mr. GG2 never cared about it anyway. He also owns a business so he understood. Its never been a problem.

[RckyRaCoCo]

You can call it steak

It's still bologna

[Vermont Lt]

When I married my wife 37 years ago she worked in broadcasting. She was one of the news anchors you would listen to on your way to work in a couple of large New England markets.

She did not change her name on air. I had many people ask me how I felt about this. They seemed to think it was an insult to me.

She would tell people that she worked many years under her name and changing it now would confuse people professionally. She told me that she took my name on her license, our mortgage, and her paycheck.

Years later we worked in the same facility. I looked her up in the company directory. She was listed as Mary {radio name} {married name.}. I asked why that was...she hadn’t worked in radio in 15 years. She told me the HR person who input her name into the system had been a “big fan” and was very excited to meet her.

It appears that professionally, there was some value to a name.

[Vermont Lt]

See me #24.

I was on the other end of your situation. It never bothered me at all.

And...our kids had my name, so that was fine. (And they don’t even have that anymore because they both changed to their husband’s last name.)

[DoodleBob]

Mr. GG2

Ah, so HE changed his name.

(ducking)

[Georgia Girl 2]

😂😂

[TheWriterTX]

It’s not egomania.

If you have published works, patents, or other career accomplishments under your maiden name, you keep it on your resume or hyphenate your last name. You want those accomplishments tied to you and easier for a potential employer to track and verify.

It’s not a liberal/conservative issue.

I hyphenated my last name for a while because of this, and then dropped the hyphenation and moved over to my husband’s name after a few years as I now had new accomplishments under my married name.

Men don’t have this issue.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Don’t Hispanics keep all their maiden names... going back 6-10 generations?

[TalBlack]

née is still done here and there but back in the day a woman identified as someone’s wife was then listed by her maiden name. You can see it on old stones in the big NY cemeteries.

[MIchaelTArchangel]

And the other 20 percent did not. So they are very likely femi-Nazis. Good luck to the fools who married them.