What's in a name?

Twinkle Khanna’s recent rebuttal and statement — ‘one gets married, not branded’, on social media may have sent out a strong message to her ‘advisor’, but it has opened up the age old debate about whether or not women should retain their maiden names post marriage.

We spoke to a few celebrities and asked them what they felt about the issue: When Namrata Shirodkar married Tollywood superstar Mahesh Babu, people speculated that she would change her name, but she retained it instead. Her reasons were practical. “It was my name for so many years,” she says.

Namrata elaborates, “It’s a personal preference. Not every woman wants to drop her last name after marriage. It’s about what you want and not what others want. In any relationship, these things hardly matter. You are not going to prove anything by changing your surname. I totally agree with Tina (Twinkle).”
For many women, says TRS MP Kalvakuntla Kavitha, keeping their maiden name is seen as a feminist act.

“For me, it was more of a compulsion. I was working in the US and got my visa on my maiden name. So it was too much of a hassle to change it again. The best part is my husband, Devanapalli Anil Kumar never asked me to change my name. At the end of the day, it’s a personal choice. Now that people know me by my name, I don’t want to change it at all,” she says.

“I haven’t changed my name either. I have my own identity. I don’t need to take anybody’s name to make me feel secure. I married for love, not his name,” says Lakshmi Manchu, who is married to a businessman, Anand “Andy” Srinivasan.

“My father’s family belongs to the royal family of Cochin. I am extremely proud of my culture, who I am, where I come from — and my name was a link to all that; something that I wasn’t willing to let go of. My husband, Aditya Hitkari, and I didn’t think it was necessary to change my name. We think one becomes family because they want to and not otherwise. And really, love doesn’t see all this, right?,” says Divya Palat, theatre producer and director.

Life coach Khyati Birla sums it up by saying, “Celebrities are in the public eye. They have already built an image for themselves, an identity that they get attached to — and it is this image that they have difficulty letting go of. Rekha remains Rekha even after getting married; Madonna stays Madonna after getting married twice.

Women live with their maiden names for 23-25 years and after that long, if they don’t want to change their name, it should be okay. Changing one’s maiden name is a choice that some women want to go with and some don’t.
From a personal perspective, it is not going to affect your relationship, but if you think it is a deciding factor, discuss it.”

—With inputs from Pooja Salvi