I have two last names in Mexico. The first in order comes from my father and the second one is inherited from my mother’s family. It has created some issues with my children because in this country nobody “recognizes” the mother’s last name therefore I currently do not share any surname with them.
There was an old custom in my country -now becoming obsolete, of using the husband’s name after the first and last name attached to the word “de” as if automatically the husband would be in possession of the wife (i.e. Maria Lopez de Tejeda would literally mean Tejeda’s Maria Lopez)
I never used it because I concluded that I was nobody’s property and I had the right, at the very least, to own my whole name. Sadly, after I went through a lot of thinking and research, what I considered once a female surname is only an illusion because there are none within a patriarchal society.
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