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What’s in a name? Maybe a happy marriage.
Spouses who don’t share a last name get divorced far more often than those who do — and they split up sooner, data reveals.
Married couples with different surnames call it quits at a 50% higher rate and make it an average of just eight to 10 years before filing for divorce, according to an analysis from the Institute for Family Studies.
By contrast, couples with the same last name stick together about 12 years before divorce on average, according to the report, which analyzed 2023 Pew Research Center data and Texas divorce records.
“Couples who hold more things in common — from names to money — are more likely to take a ‘team-first approach to marriage life’ that reinforces cooperation, trust, and a sense of a common future,” writes the report’s author, Lyman Stone.
He also cites elopements and shotgun weddings as a possible factor.
“Obviously couples who do not share a last name will include some very thoughtful partners who are philosophically opposed to taking the husband’s last name — but it will also include a lot of couples who got married on the spur of the moment and who couldn’t be bothered to get their paperwork in order,” he suggested.
“Non-shared names may partly select for hasty, ill-considered weddings to begin with.”
Some women, however, may simply be staying married to avoid the massive paperwork headache of changing back to their maiden names, the report notes.
“Bureaucratic hurdles shape divorce rates in powerful ways. Changing a legal name is a huge hassle,” it states. “It may be that the prospect of having to change back to a prior maiden name, to have one more set of papers to file, actually somewhat discourages couples with shared surnames from divorcing.”
Overall, the report found that roughly 75-80% of married couples share surnames nationwide, and that conservative, white, and older women were more likely to take their spouse’s name.
About 86% of women over the age of 50 ditched their maiden names, compared to 74% of women under age 29, according to the Institute for Family Studies analysis.
The analysis also found that less educated women are more likely to take a spouse’s last name — 85% of those who earned a high school diploma, compared to 76% of those who graduated from college.
The specific divorce rate for couples with different names versus the same names wasn’t clear from the report.
Stone and the Institute for Family Studies didn’t immediately return questions from The Post Wednesday.
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