DEAR ABBY: I was always taught that when a girl marries, she drops her middle name and her last name, and then becomes: her first name, maiden name, married name.
My daughter is being married soon, and she tells me that her friends say I am wrong. She says she has been told that the girl's name would be: first name, middle name, married name.
Would you please settle this argument for us? Thank you. -- SHIRLEY B., ROSWELL, N.M.
DEAR SHIRLEY B.: According to "The New Emily Post's Etiquette," by Elizabeth L. Post (Funk and Wagnalls, New York): "A woman's legal name consists of her given name, her maiden name and her husband's name."
However, time marches on, and during the last 15 years or so, many women have chosen to hyphenate their maiden names and married names: given name, middle name, maiden name-married name (Mary Margaret Jones-Smith).