--- title: How American Women Fought to Keep Their Maiden Names description: The highest court in Japan upheld a law that requires married couples to share the same last name on Wednesday canonical: https://time.com/4153417/how-american-women-fought-to-keep-their-maiden-names-after-marriage/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-17T18:08:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T13:27:58.801Z article:section: Health og:title: How American Women Fought to Keep Their Maiden Names After Marriage og:description: In Japan, married couples must share the same surname og:url: https://time.com/4153417/how-american-women-fought-to-keep-their-maiden-names-after-marriage/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt858e54ecf6fd590a/698875e30a4a2268c19c790a/frances-perkins-american-social-reformer.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3534 og:image:height: 1988 og:image:alt: Frances Perkins og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How American Women Fought to Keep Their Maiden Names After Marriage twitter:description: In Japan, married couples must share the same surname twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt858e54ecf6fd590a/698875e30a4a2268c19c790a/frances-perkins-american-social-reformer.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How American Women Fought to Keep Their Maiden Names After Marriage > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Dec 17, 2015 6:08 PM UTC  American social reformer and politician Frances Perkins aboard US liner Washington bound for a conference in Geneva in 1938. American social reformer and politician Frances Perkins aboard US liner Washington bound for a conference in Geneva in 1938. London Express/Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Dec 17, 2015 6:08 PM UTC The highest court in Japan upheld a law that requires married couples to share the same last name on Wednesday, the New York _Times_ [reports](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/17/world/asia/japan-court-ruling-women-surnames.html), denying Japanese women a right that’s long been appreciated in America. In the United States, the number of women who keep their maiden names has risen, though the majority still take their husband’s surname. In June, the _Times_ [reported](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/upshot/maiden-names-on-the-rise-again.html) that 30% of women in recent years have kept their maiden names in some way. Around 20% of women keep their last name in full and 10% do something a bit different, like hyphenate their two names. While it wasn’t necessarily illegal in the past for women to keep their maiden name in the U.S., many women ran into legal issues when they did, with employers refusing to comply or women not being allowed to use their maiden name when they voted. In the 1850s. Lucy Stone, a suffragette in Massachusetts spurred the start of the movement for women to retain their birth names when in 1855 she married and refused to use her husband’s name. In doing so, she was denied the right to vote in an 1879 Massachusetts school board election, according to a [Marquette Law Review](http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2239&context=mulr). Another notable figure in the fight to keep maiden names was Frances Perkins, the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. In 1913, Perkins married Paul Caldwell Wilson, and chose to keep her maiden name for career reasons. In _The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance_, author Kirstin Downey writes that the move spurred resentment from social conservatives, and it became a public news story. “I suppose I had been somewhat touched by feminist ideas and that one of the reasons that I kept my maiden name,” Perkins [once said in an interview](http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/collections/nny/perkinsf/introduction.html). “My whole generation was, I suppose, the first generation that openly and actively asserted – at least some of us did – the separateness of women and their personal independence in the family relationship. There was always talk about, should a man support his wife, or should he say,” In 1924, [TIME reported](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,846505,00.html) on a case that involved Comptroller General John R. McCarl. A hospital wanted to change the name of a nurse to her new husband’s name on her payroll, but the nurse refused. McCarl was asked to give his opinion on the matter, who concluded the woman should have to use her husband’s last name. He said: --- > “” --- Several cases went to court, and the Marquette Law Review reports that Hawaii was the last state to have a statutory provision that required women to take their husbands’ surnames. Today, women in the U.S. do not typically run into legal hiccups over their choice of last name. While it remains common for a woman to change her last name to her husband’s, if trends continue, more women may be keeping their last name in the future. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4153417/how-american-women-fought-to-keep-their-maiden-names-after-marriage/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4153417/how-american-women-fought-to-keep-their-maiden-names-after-marriage/"},"headline":"How American Women Fought to Keep Their Maiden Names After Marriage","datePublished":"2015-12-17T18:08:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:27:58.801Z","description":"In Japan, married couples must share the same surname","url":"https://time.com/4153417/how-american-women-fought-to-keep-their-maiden-names-after-marriage/","keywords":["Civil Rights","women","Japan"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt858e54ecf6fd590a/698875e30a4a2268c19c790a/frances-perkins-american-social-reformer.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt858e54ecf6fd590a/698875e30a4a2268c19c790a/frances-perkins-american-social-reformer.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Frances Perkins","caption":"Frances Perkins","creditText":"London Express/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/civil-rights/","name":"Civil Rights"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4153417/how-american-women-fought-to-keep-their-maiden-names-after-marriage/","name":"How American Women Fought to Keep Their Maiden Names After Marriage"}}]}] ```