‘I Didn’t Want to Lose My Identity’: 16,000 Readers Reflect on Their Surnames<br />Toronto said that I hadn’t only survived it, but it had defined me — as someone who was different yet proud of those differences, a survivor of childhood<br />bullying, a first-generation immigrant with a funny last name who had found her own skin and found her own opportunities and identity,<br />"I am deeply attached to my father’s family — my paternal grandmother was widowed during the Great<br />Depression with five children (and one in utero) to raise without family or financial assistance.<br />" she wrote. that When I was a child and a new immigrant in Canada, I longed for the day when I could get married and take someone else’s last name,<br />Both my mother and my husband’s mother still use their maiden names, as do our grandmothers, aunts, cousins,<br />and every other Chinese woman we know." Yue Zhou, 32, Chinese-American living in Singapore.<br />I think it’s kind of the first time in history where it is more acceptable in our society, or not a social faux pas, to keep your maiden name, which is amazing,<br />and I want to take part in the ability to have the choice to keep my name." Angeli Humilde, 26, lives in Canada and is recently engaged.<br />Ms. Yuk was one of more than 16,000 readers who responded when The New York Times asked<br />women around the world why they had kept or changed their surnames when they married.
