Facebook Enhancement – Maiden Names for Married Women
April 24th, 2008 | by Ben LeDonni |
With the increasing number of users on facebook, and the average user age increasing, one fact is left untouched. How do you reconnect with someone you used to know under a different name? Many of my good friends from childhood are probably married now. They are very likely to have updated their facebook pages to have their new name. Married women are accustomed to updating their records as they go through life. If their husbands are anything like me, then hyphenating, even on Facebook, is “OUT OF THE QUESTION”. For a tool that is built to allow people to reconnect with one another, Facebook should allow users to enter previous names (i.e. maiden
names, aliases) so that when I, as a potential friend, am trying to reconnect and determine if I know this person (but limited to a 2 by 2 thumbnail and a name), the system can show me the name(s) by which I might have known the person. Click more for an update May 2nd, 2008…
Message to Facebook Support______
Maiden Names…Since the point of FB is to reconnect with friends and the community of users is getting older, I am finding it tough to find people I went to school with that may have changed their names. I have no idea of knowing what their married name is. I would think that my wife’s friends may not even know that she got married as they could have not spoken in a while.
Response from Facebook Support_____
Hi Ben, Please note that users are able to include their maiden or former names. You are able to do this by going to ”edit’ next to the ‘Profile’ tab. From here, you will be able to add your maiden name under the ‘Relationships’ tab in the ‘Former Name’ section. Please let me know if you have any further questions. Thanks for contacting Facebook.
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Did you know this? The question now is does this show up in search results? If not, then what’s the point?
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4 Responses to “Facebook Enhancement – Maiden Names for Married Women”
By Al Ibrahim on Jun 4, 2008 | Reply
Oh! Perfect job!
Very good and useful post.
Thx, your blog in my Google reader now
By Annette on Feb 6, 2009 | Reply
But what if you invite a friend and they don’t know who you are by your married name? Here’s the easy way to add a maiden name without hypenating. It’s searchable and easily identifies you by both last names.
Put your maiden name as your middle name in your profile information. This displays your full name in search, on your page and everywhere else.
By Ben LeDonni on Feb 6, 2009 | Reply
@Annette Good Point.
However, I think there is a bit of confusion in that, since women nowadays choose to hyphenate, take their maiden name as their middle name and do all sorts of things with the kids name.
I think that facebook would be smart to just expose this field on the short profile of married women (the one you see when you are not friends or in their network).