More and more women in generation Z choose to keep their family name or opt for a compound name, refusing to take the husband’s name.
Many women in Genz refuse to take the husband’s name after marriage photo archive
A new study on marriage name options shows that only about one third of British women between the ages of 18 and 34 would change the last name when they get married, according to Euronews.
According to the research, conducted by YouGov UK, who interviewed 2,192 British adults, showed that this practice is becoming less popular among women of millennial generations and GEN Z.
Instead, more and more women choose to keep their family names or opt for the variant of a compound family name.
In the UK, only 35% of women between the ages of 18 and 34 said they would respect tradition, while 24% of young women said they would prefer both partners to keep their original family names – more than twice as much as men of similar age.
The survey also shows that 17% of men and 20% of women between the ages of 18 and 34 are favorable to the compound family names or for men to take their wife’s name.
Although the tradition for the woman to take the husband’s last name remains the choice of the majority for all age groups – a favorite tradition of 56% of men and 51% of women – almost a third of men between the ages of 18 and 34 “feel positive” to the idea that a man takes his wife’s name.
Tradition is still considered normal for most heterosexual couples in many European countries-although it is noteworthy that women in Spain and Iceland tend to keep their birth name when they get married, while Greece has made a legal requirement for spouses to keep their names all their lives.
A recent American study on this topic found that most women are still choosing to take the husband’s last name, with about 80% of women interviewed in 2023 by opting for their husband, compared to 14% who keep their family name and 5% who choose the variant of the composed family.
