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I was reading through some articles on Wikipedia and long story short I ended up reading about 11th century dukes of France. I noticed that a lot of their wives had names such as, e.g. Adelaide of Aquitaine, in which Aquitaine is the duchy their father is from, and not their husband. That's fine I guess but wouldn't it have been confusing? If you told someone that a woman was Emma of Blois, how would they know who her husband was and what duchy she is a duchess of now that she's married. I know that nowadays a woman is her own person independent of her husband but back then that really wasn't the case, and I just found it really strange.

Tl:dr- Were women really named after their fathers, even in marriage, or were they named after their husbands and are now being "re-named" by historians?

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    Not an answer, but I'm not sure this is as strange as you suggest. The wife of Henry II of England (and Louis VII of France) is usually known as Eleanor of Aquitaine: Henry VIII's first wife as Katherine of Aragon. People who needed to just knew who they married, just as most Britons today know that Catherine Middleton is HRH The Duchess of Cambridge, wife of Prince William.
    – TheHonRose
    Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 1:44
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    PS no problem with your English, by the way! :-)
    – TheHonRose
    Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 1:48
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    That's fine I guess but wouldn't it have been confusing? Surely it would only have been confusing if people alternated between "x of [parent's]" and "x of [husband's]". In practice, the it is usually the former. Were women really named after their fathers, even in marriage, or were they named after their husbands Neither. Adelaide of Aquitaine's true name was just Adelaide (subject to spelling differences). Chroniclers added d'Aquitaine based on her presumed birthplace in order to distinguish her from all the other Adelaides. In life she would have been called Queen of the Franks.
    – Semaphore
    Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 8:31

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The French noblewomen usually were named based on where she was born, in the case of many Isabelle born in Burgundy, the first in line would be Isabelle of Burgundy, the second would be Isabelle of Dijon (or whatever town was the most populated by then/where she really was born) and so on.

In the case where one of them inherited a noble title and were left in power, like Mahaut d'Artois who became Mahaut Countess of Artois , they would use the title as long as they had it.

Most noblewomen in France were not hiding their lineage, especially to potential suitors, lying would serve no one and would most likely end in a royal decree cancelling the mariage, excommunication or worse. Most likely, they said "Emma of Blois, daughter of the Count of Blois" or stuff like that.

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