What’s in a name? Quite a lot, it transpires. Suddenly, a woman’s surname is a matter of interest in legal and administrative circles. And the absence of a law on the subject is leading to different interpretations.

Last week, the Bombay High Court restrained a woman from using her former husband’s surname because of alleged misuse. And last week again, the Maharashtra government said it would record a mother’s maiden name as her child’s middle name.

The issue is now gathering momentum, but a woman’s surname has often triggered legal discussions in the past. What surname should a woman use after divorce can be a contentious issue. Many revert to their maiden name after a divorce, but quite a few women stick to their former husband’s surname, often because their children bear the same name.

Matrimonial lawyers point out that there is a tendency for a divorced woman to go back to her maiden name. Take the case of Ethel da Costa, a single mother and writer in Goa. She plans on giving her surname to her children instead of that of her former husband who had walked out on her a decade ago.

Da Costa divorced her husband in 2005. As her children’s legal guardian, she has the right to decide for them till they are 18.

“It is easier for a woman to change her children’s surname to that of her own if she is their legal guardian than if she only has custodial rights to them,” explains Satish Sonak, an activist lawyer in Goa.

What is clear is that there is no uniform position in courts or governments when it comes to a woman’s surname. While the Bombay High Court judgement favours men who want their divorced wives to relinquish their right to their matrimonial name after a divorce, the Maharashtra government’s move, voiced in a resolution, underlines a mother’s right to be recognised as a natural guardian by making way for her name to be mentioned as the child’s middle name in school records. The move will be implemented in the coming academic session and is seen to benefit children raised by single mothers.

Women have different tales to relate when it comes to adopting — or relinquishing — a marital name. Shanti (not her real name) is a Chennai-based journalist and writer who was under pressure to change her married name. Her husband said he would consent to a divorce only if she gave up his surname.

But as Mridula Kadam, a family court lawyer in Mumbai, observes, now more and more divorced women are going back to using their maiden names. That, however, has its flip side, for it often means a divorced woman and her offspring have different names, which can confuse a child, says Kadam.

Vijay D’Souza (not his real name), an advertising professional in Goa, says he raised no objection to his former wife using his surname after their divorce, saying she was entitled to her personal choice. The wife explained that it was convenient for her to live in Goa under a Goan surname, rather than return to her non-Goan maiden name. “Even if she was misleading people about still being married to me, I could do nothing about it, but clear up the misunderstanding,” says D’Souza.

In recent times, the courts have been dealing with individual cases in a bid to clear some of the confusion. “Society is changing and children now prefer to use the mother’s name instead of the father’s name as their middle name,” read a Bombay High Court judgement, in support of a 19-year-old Mumbai girl’s petition to secure a passport, which was being denied to her as she was unable to mention her father’s name on the application form.

The girl’s biological father had deserted her and her mother, whom he had not married. Her stepfather could not adopt her since she was above 15 when he had married her mother. As per the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956, a child above the age of 15 cannot be adopted.

The High Court instructed the passport office to make an exception and issue her a passport, despite her refusal to fill in the mandatory requirement of her father’s name, thus making way for her to pursue mass media studies in the US. “Such a case should be considered a special circumstance,” the two-judge bench observed.

Some states have been ahead of others when it comes to a woman’s surname. In Goa, women have been using double barrelled names — connecting their maiden names with that of the husband’s with the Portuguese ‘e’ (meaning ‘and’) for over a century before it became fashionable or politically correct to do so in the rest of the country.

“As per the decree of marriage in Goa, passed in December 1910, a woman has the right to use the surname of her husband, and is entitled to continue with her maiden name,” says Justice (retd) Noronha Fereira, a former district court judge in Goa.

This was a big step away from the Portuguese Civil Code of 1867, which governed marriage in Goa (a Portuguese colony till December 19, 1961) till 1910, under which a woman was bound to take her husband’s name, adds Justice Fereira.

While Indian law is mum on the issue of names, thus making it a legal free for all, India can look at some practices elsewhere. In countries such as the Philippines, the law is more specific. Article 370 of the Philippines Civil Code reads: “A married woman may use her maiden first name and surname and add her husband’s surname; her maiden first name and her husband’s surname; or prefix her husband’s full name with a word indicating that she is his wife, like Mrs.”

Since there is no specific law in India that governs the issue of women’s surnames, the subject is open to heated debate. The point is, women are almost always under some kind of a directive when it comes to names — adopt this or relinquish that. And maybe we need a law that clarifies that women are free to carry whatever name they wish — a father’s or a husband’s or a former husband’s or indeed a name of her own choosing.