Survey: Women don't need to take their husbands' last name

The wedding of Amal Alamuddin to George Clooney in Venice has been one of the most talked about events of 2014. Amal, who is a prominent human rights lawyer in the UK, caused a certain amount of controversy due to her decision to take Clooney’s last name as her own. Furthermore, unlike many women with professional careers, she will also professionally be known as ‘Amal Clooney’ instead of ‘Amal Alamuddin’.

Research conducted by YouGov shows that most Americans don’t think that women should feel they need to take their husband’s last name. Overall, most Americans (57%) think that a woman should take whichever name she wants after she gets married, while 31% think that she should take her husband’s last name. 6% think that hyphenation is the way to go, while 3% think women ought to keep their own names. Opinions on whether or not a woman should take her husband’s last name are fairly consistent regardless of demographic grouping.

There is variation along party lines. Only 18% of Democrats say that women should take their husband’s last names, while 65% think that she should do whatever she wants and 15% support either hyphenation or her keeping the original name. Among Republican voters, however, support for saying that women should take their husband’s last names is far higher. 47% of Republicans think that a newly married woman should change her name to her husband’s, the exact same percentage who say that a woman should take whichever name she wants (47%).