Behold, she is bethrothed to you, but not to your name. The past two years have seen a 50percent increase in the number of married women who keep their maiden name. In addition, Interior Ministry data indicate that hundreds of men have taken their wife’s name, or added it as a second name.
According to these statistics, between 50-60 percent of woman who marry are giving up their maiden name and taking their husband’s name, while the others have not changed their names at all, or have added their husband’s name to their own. There are also couples who choose an entirely new name.
This is very different from ten years ago, when over 90 percent of women getting married took their husband’s name. In many other countries, including the US, England, Germany, France, and Finland, over 80% of married women take their husband’s name.
Until 1996 Interior Ministry regulations dictated that if a woman did not officially ask to keep her name during her first year of marriage, her name would automatically be changed to that of her husband. In 1996 MK Dedi Zucker initiated an amendment to the law stating that members of a couple are entitled to decide what to do about their names.
Among the couples deciding to take a new name are Dorit Lahat and Raz Tzigal, who changed their name to Almog. Dorit notes that for seven years she and Raz did not get married partly because she refused to be called Tzigal, which is a diaspora name, not a Hebrew name. One evening Dorit and Raz were speaking with Raz’s brother, who was about to get married, and they opened a Hebrew dictionary and started looking for a new name. They came up with “Almog,” and two of Raz’s three brothers decided to adopt it as well. When Raz’s parents got divorced his mother also took “Almog” as her last name, as did Raz’s uncles.
Michal Romm, a doctoral student in gender studies at Bar Ilan University, is studying the issue of last names. According to Romm, while women today do not automatically take their husband’s name, the children take the father’s name even if the mother has not changed hers.
Most women who want to keep their maiden name do it because they are known by that name professionally or privately, and then they will at most add their husband’s name to their own, says Romm. In most cases where a couple changes their name together it is because either the husband or the wife has a problem with the husband’s name because it is a diaspora name or it isn’t a nice name. Names with ethnic connotations are also frequently changed.