A name is not just a word. It is history, memory, identity,a scar, a flag, a footprint in time. It is whispered in boardrooms and shouted on playgrounds, printed on certificates and sewn into legacies.

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Legal and bureaucratic hurdles in Western and African contexts.

And changing that name, whether in Abuja or Atlanta, can come at a steep price,legally, professionally, and emotionally. In the United States, for instance, reverting to a maiden name post-divorce often involves court proceedings, legal fees, and a maze of paperwork. In Nigeria, it’s the seemingly endless ritual of changing passports, BVN, bank documents, academic records, publishing in National Newspapers and even INEC data. And yet, when a woman walks away from a marriage, she is expected to shed that name like a skin she has outgrown. As if the years she carried it were borrowed. As if a name could belong more to a man than to the woman who bore it in love, in pain, in labor, and in triumph.

But names are not wedding rings. They are not jewelry to be slipped off after the ceremony is over. They are stitched into the fabric of one’s life. For many divorced women, keeping a married surname is not about clinging to a man,it is about holding on to the empire they built while wearing that name. It is about continuity, not sentimentality. Survival, not nostalgia.

Tina Turner knew this. She didn’t keep “Turner” because she loved Ike, she kept it because she had fought too hard to become Tina Turner. That name had sweat on it. It had music and power and global recognition. Changing it would have meant amputating part of her legacy. So she chose to keep it,and reclaim it.

Fashion designer Diane von Fürstenberg did the same. Her marriage ended, but the name stayed. Not for the man, but for the brand. For the billions who saw the label and saw strength. For the women who wore her dresses and whispered her name like a spell. Gayle King, Connie Ferguson, Jacqueline Kennedy, they all knew the same truth. Some names are not borrowed. They are conquered.

Across Africa, this truth carries even more weight. In societies where names are not just identifiers but statements of place, class, and belonging, a woman’s decision to keep her ex-husband’s name can be a form of quiet rebellion,or sheer necessity. Nigerian journalist Kikelomo Akanda built her entire career on a name that wasn’t hers by birth. To drop it would be to erase decades of credibility, bylines, networks. South African actress Connie Ferguson kept her surname after her husband’s name because his name had fused into her public identity. Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, even post-divorce, held onto the name that carried her to global leadership, because it had long outgrown the marriage that birthed it.

In Nigeria, women like Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Folorunsho Alakija stand as emblems of how names evolve into institutions. Whether kept or changed, their decisions are deeply personal, strategic, and layered. Yet society continues to reduce such choices to mere sentiment. As though the identity of a woman is perpetually on lease.

And then, there are the children.

A woman should not have to explain, at every school gate or hospital front desk, why she no longer shares a surname with her own child. Names bind families long after marriages end. For many mothers, keeping the married name is a shield against bureaucracy and a gesture of stability in a world already cracked by divorce.

Angelina Jolie knew this. So did Kim Kardashian, who held on to “West” for a time not for Kanye, but for North, Saint, Chicago, and Psalm. Princess Diana, long after her fairy tale shattered, remained “Diana, Princess of Wales.” Because that name was her armour. Because her boys, William and Harry, carried it in their blood.

In the United States, changing a name post-divorce can be a bureaucratic maze requiring court orders, legal fees, and months of documentation,a deterrent many women rightly avoid.

Let us be honest,changing a name is not a clean break. It is a bureaucratic crucifixion. Passports, licenses, bank documents, legal records, academic degrees,it is an administrative nightmare, often expensive and entirely unnecessary. Why should a woman, already navigating the emotional labyrinth of divorce, be forced to perform an identity burial?

A Nigerian university lecturer who has published academic work under her married name may lose professional credibility by reverting to her maiden name.

The deeper question is not why she keeps the name, but why the world insists on asking.

Cultural pressure compounds the cruelty. In many African communities, a woman’s identity is expected to bend permanently with marriage. Even after divorce, reverting to a maiden name is read as rebellion. As if her life must remain a reflection of the marriage that once was. As if letting go of a man requires surrendering the self.

This thinking is not only archaic it is violent in its subtlety. It says a woman cannot be whole without perpetual permission from the past. It says her achievements, her reputation, her social currency are invalid unless she renounces them along with the man who left or whom she left.

But identity is not a house you can burn down just because the builder walked away. It is not scaffolding. It is stone.

And names? Names are the chisels.

Hillary Clinton kept her married name even when it became political baggage. She did not because she owed it to Bill, but because “Clinton” had become part of the machinery she used to break glass ceilings. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, fully aware of the power of names, never took her husband’s. And that too is a decision worthy of respect.

Because this is not a debate. It is not about tradition or feminism or etiquette. It is about agency.

Some women choose to reclaim their maiden names, and that is a powerful act of rebirth. Others choose to keep the name they once shared with someone they no longer love, and that too is a powerful act of resistance. Of preservation. Of identity.

Both are valid. Both are sacred.

What’s in a name?

Everything.

Legacy. Labour. Loss. Love.

And most of all, choice.

And that choice above all else deserves to be left unchallenged, unmocked, and unquestioned.

If she keeps the name, she’s judged. If she discards it, she’s called rebellious. Either way, the world finds a way to question her choice.

Because if a woman has survived marriage, motherhood, divorce, and the madness in between, then the very least society can do is respect the name she chooses to rise in.

Because a name is not a chain. It’s a claim to one’s history, one’s achievements, and most of all, one’s right to choose.

And yet, for many women, the name has outgrown the marriage. Take Amal Clooney, whose global legal career benefits from the recognizability of her surname a name now tied to power, not just partnership. Or J.K. Rowling, who didn’t take a husband’s name but used initials to gain credibility in a biased publishing world. Names, therefore, are not just familial labels they are instruments of strategy, survival, and stature.

A name is not a wound and to strip a woman of that name, or shame her for wearing it still, is to erase chapters of her story. 

“A name is not a wound to be stitched shut with divorce papers. It is a legacy earned, worn, and owned by the woman who made it mean something.”

For some women, keeping the name is not sentiment,it’s strategy. For others, it’s survival. And for a few, it is an act of quiet rebellion in a world that still wants women to disappear once their titles change.

In societies where her only claim to space is what she’s built, we must stop asking women to undo themselves just to appease tradition.

In a world increasingly conscious of identity, autonomy, and the weight of names, perhaps it’s time we recognized that holding on to a name isn’t always about clinging to the past,it can be a bold claim to the future.

Vanguard News