Maiden name

A woman's maiden name (sometimes maiden surname) is the surname she bore before she took her husband's surname on their marriage. It used to be nearly universal for a wedding to mean that a wife 'took her husband's name' before the pair began life together, but this is no longer as common. It is common for bureaucratic forms to ask for a maiden name to be able to trace a person's life history, but it is becoming more usual to ask, in some form of words or other, for 'any surname previously held'.