Surname law matronym from the name of a parent or parent-in-law; these possibilities are not necessarily open to native Icelanders. Reza Shah Pahlavi ordered Iranians to adopt Western style surnames in place of old Islamic names and titles during his reign. A law in Japan dating from 1896 requires a married couple to have a common surname. Most commonly it was the wife who took her husband's name. In 2011, this law was challenged as unconstitutional on gender equality grounds, but the Supreme Court of Japan upheld the law in 2015. Prussia tasked the implementation of surnames to E. T. A. Hoffmann.
Maiden and married names There is a widespread, though not universal, custom for a newly married wife to adopt the husband's family name. However, as Russia is not a common law country, any name change requires a formal procedure including an official application to the civil acts registrar. As the same registrar also records marriages, for the convenience sake it is often done during the marriage proceedings, as governed by the Federal Law #143-FZ "On Civil State Acts", and the couple's marriage certificate has an option of having one common family name, or both spouses going by their original surname. However, the law is