When a person (traditionally the wife in many cultures) assumes the family name of their spouse, in some countries and cultures that name replaces the person's previous surname, which in the case of the wife is called the maiden name ("birth name" is also used as a gender-neutral or masculine substitute for maiden name), whereas a married name is a family name or surname adopted upon marriage.

In some jurisdictions, changing names requires a legal process. When people marry or divorce, the legal aspects of changing names may be simplified or included, so that the new name is established as part of the legal process of marrying or divorcing. Traditionally, in the Anglophone West, women are far more likely to change their surnames upon marriage than men, but in some instances men may change their last names upon marriage as well, including same-sex couples.

In this article, birth name, family name, surname, married name and maiden name refer to patrilineal surnames unless explicitly described as referring to matrilineal surnames.

Women changing their own last name after marriage encounter little difficulty in doing so when the opportunity is included in the legal process of marrying. Unless the statutes where the marriage occurred specify that a name change may occur at marriage (in which case the marriage certificate indicates the new name), courts following common law officially recognize it as the right of a person (man, woman, and sometimes child) to change their name. However, men encounter more difficulties in changing their last names.

In the past, a woman in England usually assumed her new husband's family name (or surname) after marriage; often she was compelled to do so under coverture laws. Assuming the husband's surname remains common practice today in the United Kingdom (although there is no law that states the name must be changed) and in other countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Gibraltar, Falkland Islands, India, Philippines, Canada (excluding Quebec), and the United States. Often there are variations of name adoption, including family name adoption. Usually, the children of these marriages are given their father's surname.

Some families (mainly in the US) have a custom of using the mother's maiden name as a middle name for one of the children—Franklin Delano Roosevelt received his middle name in this way, as did Isambard Kingdom Brunel in Britain. Some even use the mother's maiden name as a first name, such as Spessard Holland, a former governor of Florida and former senator, whose mother's maiden name was Virginia Spessard.

Women who keep their own surname after marriage may do so for a number of reasons:

The feminist Lucy Stone (1818–1893) made a national issue of a married woman's right to keep her own surname (as she herself did upon marriage) as part of her efforts for women's rights in the U.S. Because of her, women who choose not to use their husbands' surnames have been called "Lucy Stoners". The feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton took her husband's surname as part of her own, signing herself Elizabeth Cady Stanton or E. Cady Stanton, but she refused to be addressed as Mrs. Henry B. Stanton. She wrote in 1847 that "the custom of calling women Mrs. John This and Mrs. Tom That and colored men Sambo and Zip Coon, is founded on the principle that white men are lords of all." Later, when addressing the judiciary committee of the state legislature of New York in 1860 in a speech called "A Slave's Appeal", she stated in part, "The negro [slave] has no name. He is Cuffy Douglas or Cuffy Brooks, just whose Cuffy he may chance to be. The woman has no name. She is Mrs. Richard Roe or Mrs. John Doe, just whose Mrs. she may chance to be."