Maiden name, married name

I had a quick email discussion with a friend who will soon be interviewed on this very blog, because I met her in the 1990s, when we were pen-pals and she was single – if you don't know what a pen-pal is, I'm old, just consider that there was something before email!

She was a writer with her own zine back then, so when I sent her my questions I asked her "How should I introduce you?". Since I met, her she sort of stopped writing and got married and started her own family – but I'm still poking her to get back to writing. Which, hopefully she will do one day. Except she hadn't considered the name question.

Fellow Creative Reviewer also wondered if using her maiden name, her married name or both as a writer, and my first editor used both names – but she had to drop her husband's name this year when her marriage ended. That's a little like actresses, who add their husband's name (Jada Pinkett Smith, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Robin Wright Penn, Joanna Walley Kilmer – the last two having dropped their husband's name after divorce). Or you can pick up a pen-name from the start, like I did.

But I did it because the law in this country is that women never really lose their maiden name. In Italy, if you're a woman you'll always be known as Maiden Name on official documents, unless you add "married Married Name" (or, at the time of my mum, it was Maiden Name in Married Name). So, as I don't like my maiden name (unlike Patricia! ), I immediately picked up a pen name. Even if I manage to find a foreign husband, change nationality and lose the maiden name, I guess I can stick to my pen name now!

I had a funny exchange with a female colleague because she opened an account for a foreigner and she said "it's him and his sister" and I told her "no, it's his wife" and she objected "but they have the same family name!" and I said "Exactly. In the UK you lose your maiden name when you get married." It's obviously not only in the UK, but in all English speaking countries and some more (I think it's the same in France), but it's a totally foreign concept in Italy.

Which baffles us when we travel: US tour with my mum in 1994. In one hotel we had that huge king bed because we had the same family name (OK, she dropped her maiden name in that case, haha!) while newlyweds always had two beds because they had given both names at the time of reservation, so the people at the hotel thought they were not a couple… Travel agencies who book honeymoons should tell their customers they better book under one name only, if they don't want to sleep in separate beds for the whole vacation…

So this is a question for women writers: if you're young and unmarried, what will happen when you get married? Will you add your husband's name? If you're already married, which name are you using? Just curious…