It really irks me!

We tend to lose our original surnames completely if we take our husband's name on marriage, whereas American women seem to keep both names just tagging on the husband's name at the end of theirs, and then sometimes after a series of divorces and remarriages, they end up with a whole string of names.

The Daily Mail constantly referring to Kate Middleton really annoys me, it's so disrespectful.

I prefer my ex-husband's name to my maiden name - not to mention that it's my pen name! - so am very happy to keep it

This is legally incorrect!

This is incorrect.Ms is a similar title to Mr in that a person’s marital status is not revealed by it.

Well certainly in the case of Megan Markle she is an arch feminist so would or should be more than happy to keep her maiden name unless, of course, using her married name or her title of Duchess of Sussex made her more $$$. ?

When I was young Ms did not exist and women were pleased to use their husbands name after marriage.

Ali08

Alegrias1,
Ms./Mizz. was always used as a reference, on letters at least, to refer to a divorced woman. That what I was taught at the schools I attended, and by post office staff!
Whether YOU are married or single does not bother me in the least.

well I have no idea where your schools (or the post office) got that idea from.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms.

Ali08 - so many hidden value judgments in your post and your comments.

Let's just get the facts out there. A 'maiden' is an unmarried celibate female - hence, the term 'maiden name' relates to something that in this day and age should have no meaning as considered logically this would mean it conveys personal information about a woman. The term 'Ms' does not denote a divorced woman - it is used to allow women who do not want to divulge information about their marital status to all and sundry. It would be far better for us to use the term 'birth name' because this is neutral - using the term 'family name' has connotations that a person belongs to one family rather than another with all the prestige or baggage that brings. People can decide what gender they want to convey, what biological sex they want to be, so being able to decide what they want to be called and what title they use is hardly important to anyone but them unless they call themselves something which they're not and give the impression they are professionally qualified to do something they cannot. There needs to be much more education about the whole name/title issue and more acceptance of the diversity of personal wishes in this respect.

I've never heard the association of 'Ms' with divorce. My understanding was that it began to be widely used in the 1970s when many women felt that they didn't want to have to disclose their marital status every time they said their name. (And there was a backlash with objectors making the claim that it was unpronounceable.) And around the same time, a lot of women just didn't see why they should take their husband's name. I never have done, although we've been married for a very long time.

Bijou

When I was young Ms did not exist and women were pleased to use their husbands name after marriage.

From Wikipedia: Like Miss and Mrs., the term Ms. has its origins in the female English title once used for all women, Mistress. It originated in the 17th century.

i wish i had reverted to my maiden name after my divorce, especially as i was the last one with the family name.

While waiting on my divorce papers to arrive, I had the forms filled in and waiting to get posted to get back to my maiden name. We had no children so straightforward enough. I find when chatting to friends we still use other friends maiden names when talking about them, especially ones from our school days as we sometimes don't know their married surnames.

Ali08

Ms. is the shortened version of Mizz which notifies the woman is divorced!
Or, at least it did originally!!
So many things have been changed to suit new generations.

It never did. It has always - in the UK at least - been a halfway house between Miss, for an unmarried woman, and Mrs, for a married one, who didn’t necessarily want people to know their marital status, and/considered it nobody’s business but their own. This was particularly true in the 1970s, when getting married could actually still get you fired

Although I divorced about 15 years ago I am still ‘Mrs’. I didn’t think ‘Miss’ was appropriate, and I detest ‘Ms’.

Someone I knew married a foreigner with whose name was difficult to pronounce. He changed his name by deed poll to hers, children known by her name. I felt terribly sorry for him. Reminds me of Prince Philip.

Hate the term 'maiden name' for starters! Ms refers to anyone who chooses to use it. My unmarried daughter uses it and I (married for 39 years) am perfectly OK with it being used for me. I did take my husband's name - it was the done thing then but if I was young now, no way would I do so. It historically signifies transferring ownership from father to husband. Probably would have gone double barrelled. I find it very strange that so many young women with successful careers, change their name on marriage still.

Regarding the royals, it always irked me the way the tabloid media always referred to the Princess of Wales as Lady Di! Right until the end of her life when she was by then Diana, Princess if Wales.
Now they do it with the Duchesses of Cambridge and Sussex. I don’t believe it’s a choice on behalf of the duchesses.
They don’t do it with the Countess of Wessex, can’t even remember what her maiden name was.

I have always been 'Ms' as I don't like being referred to as Mistress (Mrs). Neither of my D-in-Ls have taken their husbands surnames. Neither would I if I had my time over again.

media rudeness is not new. This was written in 1935

"She heard no news of Shrewsbury College in the interval, except that one day in the Michaelmas Term there was a paragraph in one of the more foolish London dailies about an ‘Undergraduettes’ Rag,’ informing the world that somebody had made a bonfire of gowns in Shrewsbury Quad and that the ‘Lady Head’ was said to be taking disciplinary measures. Women, of course, were always news. Harriet wrote a tart letter to the paper, pointing out that either ‘undergraduate’ or ‘woman student’ would be seemlier English than ‘undergraduette,’ and that the correct method of describing Dr. Baring was ‘the Warden.’ The only result of this was to provoke a correspondence headed ‘Lady Undergrads,’ and a reference to ‘sweet girl-graduates.’ She informed Wimsey – who happened to be the nearest male person handy for scarifying – that this kind of vulgarity was typical of the average man’s attitude to women’s intellectual interests. He replied that bad manners always made him sick; but was it any worse than headlining foreign monarchs by their Christian names, untitled?"

Sayers, Dorothy L.. Gaudy Night: Lord Peter Wimsey Book 12 (Lord Peter Wimsey Series) (pp. 83-84). Hodder & Stoughton. Kindle Edition.

Ali08

Ms. is the shortened version of Mizz which notifies the woman is divorced!
Or, at least it did originally!!
So many things have been changed to suit new generations.

No. In the UK, Ms was originally used for written correspondence only, and where it was not known if someone was Miss or Mrs.

I love my maiden name and dislike my married name. I wish we gone double barrelled but it wasn't the norm in the seventies. It irks me when trying to trace old friends its nearly impossible as the women have married and changed their names. Surely this is an outdated concept nowadays.

My goodness, these discussions always throw up a lot of old fashioned stuffiness and 'in my day' answers that only serve to perpetuate some very patriarchal ideas.

It may well be incorrect to call her The Duchess of Cambridge by her maiden name, but the fact remains that she is easily identifiable by that name and it has a certain familiarity to it that rings with the media. I suspect this is a name more widely used in the tabloid press and by American news outlets anyway.

As for 'Ms' it has absolutely no connection to marital status and as many above have pointed out is derived from Mistress. I think the confusion has arisen over this term, because it was adopted as a feminist banner in the 1970s, when women did not want to be defined by their marital status. The idea that a woman would suddenly be required to change her title to Ms when divorced is absurd.

Call yourself whatever you want... no one really cares about such things these days, and it has very little bearing on who you are as a person.

I was never a chattel of my husband. I kept my maiden name. Damn ridiculous to change name to husbands... old fashioned and outdated.

I have never heard of Ms being associated with divorce.

Prior to the middle of the 18th century, women were usually addressed as Mrs, regardless of marital status, and girls were Miss. (Like boys used to be called Master - something that you rarely hear these days.) Gradually, Miss came to denote a single woman. Around 1900, it was suggested that there should be a term for women that was neutral about their marital status, but Ms wasn't popularised until the rise of feminism in the 1960s. It is another derivation of Mistress, obviously. Maybe we should go back to the original terms of address. I would rather like to be known as Mistress.