Should You Keep Your Maiden Name in the Digital Age?

The debate over whether to take your husband’s name is not new, but it continues to get trickier because of digital branding. By the time many women get married, they have made quite a name for themselves professionally. Particularly if they are in a career that involves online publishing, they have likely built up a digital brand. Google searches won’t have the same power with a new name.

To resolve this, a woman has a few options, such as having two last names, or separating her legal name from her professional name. Joan Indiana Rigdon chose the latter option and wrote about it for Forbes.com. It would be a seemingly perfect solution, except work and personal lives, as we know, are not easily divided in the digital age. Aside from figuring out how to resolve her taxes and pay stubs, Rigdon also had to decide which name to use on Facebook and her e-mail (so which is professional and which is personal?).

As you can see, the debate is post-feminism and far transcends the "old" debate over whether taking a man’s name is submitting to patriarchy. A lot of Gen Y women (much to the chagrin of feminists before us) are “over” the need to prove ourselves equal, and willing to embrace traditions at times. And yet, one of the products of feminism is that we earned more of a place in the workplace—and that has led to our name being more important—and that has led us to question the tradition of taking our husband’s name for pragmatic reasons.

On a side note, my friends are getting hitched right and left (and I'm in two weddings next month); as far as I know, none have kept their maiden names or are planning to do so.

Luckily digital tools might evolve more to solve the conundrum. I created a profile on Google and was able to give it alternate spellings of my names (such as “Ellen,” my full name). That could be handy for married women as well.