“Oh, you still haven’t taken your husband’s last name?”

“Marriage certificate mein toh change karogi na?”

It’s not even been a month since I got married and people around me have already started bombarding me with these questions. Right now, I have just one answer: “I want to keep my name.”

We claim to be a progressive society in several aspects, but people still raise an eyebrow when they learn a woman will continue using her name even after marriage. There is widespread discrimination too.

Why do we just assume that a woman will be ready to change her name or why should a woman have to change her name at all?

My partner and I were on the same page with respect to the kind of wedding we wanted, our careers, finances, etc. We did not talk about changing my name because I did not think it was important enough.

But the topic came up a few months before our wedding. I explained it to him that it’s not something I would want to do.

To make things clear, I have nothing against women who happily change their names after marriage. It’s a personal choice. It’s just that I have my own reasons.

I’m 30 and I have lived with my name for all these years. Changing my name doesn’t come to me naturally and I feel it would mean giving up a big part of myself. Honestly, I’m not prepared for that.

Everyone is born with a certain name and identifies strongly with it as who they are. It connects them with their culture, family and values and it’s not easy and unnecessary to expect them to change it all.

This doesn’t mean that a woman will lose her identity if she decides to change her name. Neither am I trying to say that men should also change their names. Why does anyone need to change their name?

As far as the practical reasons are concerned, there are many.

I do not want to get into the hassles of paperwork. From Aadhaar card to passport and bank accounts, there are a lot of documents to change and processes to go through to make that happen.

We all know how tedious it is to get a new identity document, whether in India or anywhere else in the world.

Then there’s my email address, all my social media accounts, and so much more.

Professionally, I am a writer and I don’t want to change my byline. Yeah, because people know me by that name. It matters to me.

Even if I were not a writer, I would have kept my name because I love it and moreover because it’s my name.

At times people have also told me that you’ve got your name from your father, so ‘patriarchy’. But let me tell you no matter where I got my name from, it’s the name I answered to first in KG. It’s the name that got printed in newspapers when I topped my board exams. It’s the name I associate my achievements, struggles and failures with.

And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

I am pursuing the same career, leading the same life as I used to, haven’t changed after marriage. When people don’t change after marriage why do they need to change their names?

For those who say that this will be a major inconvenience while naming your baby, the change begins right here.