Quote:
Originally Posted by nittanyalum
And then there's the hispanic naming conventions where the children take both the father and the mother's surnames. Some women never drop those surnames as their "maiden name" and just add their husband's name with "de X" after their proper full surname.
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Right. This is actually indicative of the traditional (pre-18th century) practice of name conventions, which in Spain and its colonies never fully switched over to what we might call the English model (as France & Germany & et al did) in which a woman completely drops her maiden name in general use (although may retain it as a unused middle name).
I should also mention that England's earlier adoption of this naming convention is related to its particularly restrictive coverture, which severely limited women's legal personhood to a degree unseen on the continent.
In European countries before the naming shift of the 18th century, elite women (eg titled aristocrats, maybe 5% or less of the population) would take the noble adjective of their husband as you mention. In France (and I guess Spain) this would be "de" and in Germany "von." Originally such prefixes indicated nobility and was indicative of a royal style. So for example one of the nobles I've studied quite a bit was Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. In that case he had no "technical" last name (as indeed many European royality don't have last names to this day except for legal reasons) but the "von" indicated that he was "from" somewhere (his family's estate) and that he was a noble... Sort of like saying "duke of ......." would be today. Or you could think of George Gordon, who was Lord Byron. Byron wasn't his last name but rather the name of his house/title. A noble woman who married would consequently adopt her husband's royal name/style (eg Lady Byron). As time passed prefixes like "de" and "von" became less and less restricted to the nobility however.
Speaking of the Latin American model, I've seen a lot of professional women (mostly women in academia which is my field) who are now choosing to take their husband's name (as opposed to either keeping their name or hyphenating) but using their maiden name as a middle name for professional purposes. Using my earlier example this would be calling themselves "Jane Smith Doe" for all professional purposes but also having the flexibility outside of the professional world to be "Jane Doe". One of my friends has done this actually.