Is there a set convention for which name (maiden name or married name) a female married mathematician should use?
While this question addresses women's maiden name it applies equally to men's maiden name when it differs from their married name. The question seeks for an advice for the dilemma: whether to use the maiden name or the new married name.
For example, Fan Chung is married to Ron Graham, but she publishes under "Fan Chung." Vera T. Sós is another married woman who continued to use her maiden name, but the T. stands for Turán. Yet, I'm pretty sure that Emma Lehmer (née Trotskaia) published under her married name.
Does it have something to do with the name under which the woman first publishes or the name under which name she receives her Ph.D.?
Best Answer
Like all questions involving names and marriage, there is no set convention (at least in the US). I know a male mathematician who publishes under his wife's last name which he took at marriage and I know people who have started publishing under a new name before they took it legally. As Ben says, there's also no rules for names that don't involve marriage: not only do people pick whether they use their full first name or a nickname, some people use initials, and some people use nicknames which are not related to their legal first name.
Although there are no set rules or conventions, most people seem to agree that early on in your career it's unwise to change the name that you are publishing under. Your name is your brand and diluting it is likely to hurt you professionally. Thus there's a strong tendency for people to publish under a fixed name. Nonetheless this is not a fixed rule, a particularly striking example is a theorem that's changed names: Nichols-Richmond nee Nichols-Zoeller.