Spanish-speaking world
In Spain and in most Spanish-speaking countries, the practice is for people to have two surnames. The first surname comes from the father and the second from the mother. A child's first surname will usually be their father's first surname whilst the child's second surname will usually be the mother's first surname. For example, if Señor Smith Adams and Señora Jones Roberts had a child named Paul, then his full name would be Paul Smith Jones. One family member's relationship to another's can often be identified by the various combinations and permutations of surnames.
In Spain, especially
Catalonia, the paternal and maternal surnames are often combined using y (
Spanish) or i (in
Catalan), see for example the economist
Xavier Sala-i-Martin or
Salvador Dalí i Domènech.
In Spain, a woman does not ever change her legal surnames when she marries. In some Spanish-speaking countries (those in
Latin America), a woman marrying a man may drop her mother's surname and add her husband's surname to her father's surname using the
"de" (of) preposition. For example, if "Clara Reyes Alba" were to marry "Alberto Gómez Rodriguez", the wife could use "Clara Reyes
de Gómez" as her name (or "Clara Reyes Gómez", or, rarely, "Clara Gómez Reyes". She can be addressed as
Sra. de Gómez corresponding to "Mrs Gómez"). In some countries, this form may be mainly social and not an official name change, i.e., legally, her name would still be her birth name. This custom of adding the husband's surname is slowly fading.
Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_name#Portuguese-speaking_world