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The Quiet Rebellion of Celebrity Women Taking Their Husband’s Name
- TheSwishCompany
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
For years, the cultural idea of a woman keeping her maiden name after marriage has represented independence, autonomy, and a rejection of the traditional norms that were branded as imprisonment in marriage. Keeping one’s father's name post-nuptials or hyphenating it with her husband’s was supposed to be a way to bring marriage into the twenty-first century. But in the last few months, celebrities seem to be flipping the script and recognizing the benefits of taking their husband’s surname in a radically different approach.
After 11 years of marriage, Ashley Tisdale is now officially Ashley French. The High School Musical actress announced on TikTok earlier this month that while she is called by her husband’s name in her personal life, she is finally taking the step to publicly change her name so that “people could know the real me”. The mother of two has already named her beauty brand after her marital name, Frenshe, but she’s now combining her name in business and at home, as she was “inspired by [her] husband when [they] got married”.
Actress Millie Bobby Brown, too, is now “Millie Bon Bon” or more officially Millie Bonnie Bongiovi after her marriage to Jake Bongiovi, as she revealed this week during promotions for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things. After welcoming her daughter earlier this year and since the wedding to famed singer Jon Bongiovi’s son in May 2024, she’s described her life as “endless joy” and her husband as the “most amazing dad”.
Famously, Hailey Baldwin is now Hailey Bieber after her marriage to Justin Bieber in 2018, with their son taking the family name as Jack Blues Bieber. Meghan Markle shared in her Netflix special earlier this year, which was met with public criticism, that her family name is Sussex and that she shares that name meaningfully with her husband and children. While Sussex is technically their dukedom, and not their legal last name of Mountbatten-Windsor, the sentiment remains for the desire for a unified name for their family unit.
Historically, celebrity women have often used the name of their well-known spouse primarily when they are leveling up in business (again, i.e., Meghan Markle) or in the case of Lauren Sanchez Bezos. However, this new move for more famous women to change their names to those of their lesser-known husbands is striking. While the shift often happens privately rather than publicly — as with actress Jenna Fischer of The Office fame, who goes by Jenna Kirk in her personal life — many business ventures, companies, and licenses remain tied to the professional identity, reinforcing a distinction between the celebrity and the woman behind the scenes. For the viewers and fans, we are understandably left with the impression that the celebrity we see in public has rejected her husband's name, tradition, and is striving to be independent and autonomous as a 21st-century woman. It is increasingly apparent that we are following a facade.
What we’re watching unfold in Hollywood is not a regression to an outdated norm but a reconsideration of what independence truly means. For decades, the cultural script insisted that strength required separation, that autonomy meant maintaining one’s maiden or chosen name, and that a woman’s identity must stand distinctly apart from her husband’s to thrive. But as more women tell their own stories instead of the stories culture prescribed for them, a different picture is emerging.
A shared historical family name once signified unity, protection, and shared purpose. Taking a husband’s surname linked a woman to a lineage and a mission, something larger than either spouse alone. Over time, that meaning eroded, replaced by the idea that partnership would diminish a woman’s individuality. Yet today, in a cultural moment when the girlboss archetype feels hollow and exhausted, women appear ready to reclaim what earlier generations understood, that a strong family unit amplifies, rather than suppresses personal identity.
This renewed embrace of a shared name is not about erasing the woman, as is often argued by women like Selena Gomez, who shared in a 2024 article that she would reject her husband's name because, “I always want to be myself”. Rather, choosing to use her husband's name is about integrating the whole of a woman’s life. It signals a merging of public and private selves, a refusal to live fragmented, and a desire to build something cohesive and enduring. It is an act of clarity in a world obsessed with personal branding. For many of these women, the name change becomes a way of grounding themselves in reality, in a marriage covenant, belonging, and shared vision with their husbands, rather than in the fleeting maintenance of a celebrity persona.
As we continue to watch the evolution and fall of the twenty-first-century celebrity, this strikes a chord with viewers desiring organic and authentic influences. It remains to be seen if women like Selena Gomez or Taylor Swift will recognize this opportunity as they become wives.
Perhaps what we’re truly seeing is a shift in how women understand agency. Independence is no longer defined as distance from others but as the freedom to choose the life that aligns with their deepest commitments. In choosing their husband’s name, they are not surrendering who they are, but reinforcing who they have chosen to be as part of a family with a mission, a legacy, and a unified story. For women like Priyanka Chopra, that meant adding her husband Nick Jonas’s family name to hers to maintain her public persona and honor him.
In an age hungry for authenticity, these women are doing something quietly radical by embracing tradition not as constraint, but as an identity. And maybe that is why this change feels so striking right now. They are returning to the family name not because they must, but because it tells the truth about the world they are building. We look forward to more celebrities following suit.
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