facebook influencing naming conventions?

[flea]

Many married women I know have themselves listed on Facebook as Firstname Maidenname Lastname. In many cases that I know of, they use just Firstname Lastname in real life - including both socially and professionally - but use both last names on Facebook presumably to make it easier to connect with old friends from high school, etc.

Where do you stand? Do you think this Facebook naming practice will influence the way women change (or don't) their names upon marriage in the real world, too?

(Note, I didn't change my name on marrying, and never considered it. The kids have mr. flea's last name, and I didn't argue for mine or give them mine as a middle. Just the way it turned out for us. Myname MrFlea'sLastName would be pretty hilarious, based on sound, even if I had considered changing.)

Comments

[ste-noni.livejournal.com]

Like you said above, I use my maiden name on FB so that old friends can find me. For a while, after I graduated from law school, I used both last names (I think that's what it says on my law school diploma), but it just got too long and complicated. I got tired of always writing both and truthfully, I haven't felt like Stephanie Smith (maiden name) in years. Plus, while I respect other people's decisions, it was important to me that we have a "family" last name.

Living in PR opened my eyes quite a bit. Women there do not change their names when they get married. I didn't meet a single woman who had changed her name, unless she and her husband had lived in the States for a while. However, very few women made a point of correcting people when someone assumed that they and their children had the same last name.