A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage, and in speaking of the many cultures where the practice is traditional for women, the maiden name is the family name that the married name replaces.
The term "maiden name" is only rarely applied in the traditionally rarer changes of family name by men, or by either sex other than in connection with marriage. Nevertheless, the French and English-adopted term "née" (pronounced /ˈneɪ̯/ ("nay") in English, [ˈne] in French), meaning "born," can be applied to a woman's family-name at birth that has been replaced for any reason. The French masculine inflection corresponding to née is "né"; while less readily recognized by non-French-speakers, it is likewise applied to family names changed for any reason.[1] (The diacritics are sometimes omitted.)
The term "birth name" is sometimes used specifically as a gender-neutral (or male only) substitute for "maiden name", but it is also applied to mean the family name of the mother of a child adopted at birth, and is thus likely to be used with more flexibility than the loan-words née and né, accepting it even when the name being referred to was acquired by adoption (at or long after birth), or made in connection with a change of nationality, or changed in any of the variety of other, rarer circumstances. Another distinction is that while "birth name" can refer to either a family name, a full name, or presumably a given name considered in isolation, née or né is considered correct only when immediately preceded by the new family name and immediately followed by the old: e.g. "Margaret Hilda Thatcher née Roberts". The maiden name can also be expressed parenthetically, e.g. "Margaret Hilda (Roberts) Thatcher"[citation needed].
Normally, a name change requires a legal procedure;[vague][citation needed] however in some jurisdictions anyone who either marries or divorces may change their name if he or she wishes. Traditionally in the Anglophone West, only women do so, but sometimes men as well change their last names upon marriage.[2]
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Thirty years ago, she said, her mother immigrated under her maiden name . Then she had a hard time obtaining permission to bring three other children from ...
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away from hyphenating their names when they get married leading some to use their maiden names as first names for their children she added That might explain some of the Logans and Ryans
