World News for Students of English

21-02-2022 07:00

In many countries in the world, women usually take their husbands’ last names after they get married. In other countries, women usually keep their own last names, and they add their husbands’, too.

Men do not usually take their wives’ last names. In the US, only about 3% of men do it. There is no similar term for ‘maiden name’ for men. The maiden name is the last name of a woman before she got married, and then she took her husband’s name.

In the US, it is happening more and more often that couples use a combination of their last names. For example, they make a word that starts with the first letters of the husband’s last name, and it ends with the woman’s first letters of her last name. It is unusual, and a court must approve the new last name.

Difficult words:  maiden (a girl or young woman who is not married), combination (a mixture of two or more things together), approve (to officially agree with something).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.