More women now prefer to keep their maiden name after marriage, a new study on Facebook has found.
Experts believe the trend is a sign that the younger generation is increasingly embracing feminism.
Researchers found that older women are more likely to have taken on their husband's name after they marry and women are often concerned about causing confusion if their children have different surnames from their parents, The Telegraph reported.
"The discussion has opened up slightly, but the norm of name-changing is still prevalent and there remains cultural and social pressure on women to change names," Rachel Thwaites, of the University of York, who has carried out research into marital name-changing, said.
"Women who resist this pressure are often doing so as a feminist decision or a move for equality in their relationship," said Thwaites.
The study was carried out by social networking site Facebook and involved analysing the names of women on the site who said they were married and had husbands who also had profiles on the site.
Researchers found as many as 62 per cent of married women in their twenties took on their spouse's surname, while 74 per cent did in their thirties and 88 per cent did in their sixties.
"The generation now in their 30s were too easily swayed by the complex backlash against feminism but we are now seeing a kind of uprising among younger women," Angela McRobbie, professor of communications at Goldsmiths, University of London told the Sunday Times.
