Sansa might want to have children, but she'd need to marry and they'd have their dad's name.
Arya doesn't seem like she wants kids.
Bran can't have kids.
Jon could use the Stark name as he has, and he is technically half Stark, but that isn't his true name.
"Sansa might want to have children, but she'd need to marry and they'd have their dad's name."
Says who? The children would have her last name. They would belong to her House (now royal). Cersei kept her last name Lannister, even though she married Robert. Their children belonged to the Royal house of Baratheon.
Queen Elizabeth's children have her name. Rules change when it's a queen. For example, a queen is the one who proposes.
It was established in the books that there was precedent for children taking the mother's name in circumstances like this.
Where if an old house was down to a female heir, she could marry some guy of inferior status, the children would have her family name and inherit her titles. GRRM did his prep work on this one, although BTW I don't think it strictly applied to Cersei. She just kept her name because she didn't like her husband.
"She just kept her name because she didn't like her husband."
A consort to a royal house maintains their last name. Margery was still a Tyrell. Elia was still a Martell. Cersei still a Lannister.
A woman changes her last name if she marries into a different noble house like Catelyn who became a Stark or her sister who became an Aryn.
You'd think it'd be the other way around. I don't think there was any real tradition of queens keeping their last names, I think these ladies just use their maiden names unofficially, to show that their primary loyalty was to their birth family, not their husband's family. And because they were queen, and what they said went.
Or maybe it's a situation like in 14th-15th century England, where there were so many Annes, Elizabeths, and Margaret that historians commonly use their maiden names to tell them apart.
British royals didn't use last names in the 14th-15th century. They were known by their House or country where they ruled. They began using last names in 1917.
Royal last names are also part of a title with certain royal privileges. A woman cannot become royalty by marrying a king (or prince) which is why she is referred to as a queen consort rather than a queen. If the King dies, then she's not entitled to rule. She keeps her maiden name.
King Henry's wives were known by their maiden names: Anne Boleyn; Catherine of Aragon. Sarah Ferguson, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle are still referred to by their maiden names although they're not supposed to use last names at all since marriage.
A noble woman would change her name to her husband's unless her House was higher socially.
In Europe there are exceptions and rules can be convoluted like the reason a woman is called Princess Michael of Kent (her husband is Prince Michael of Kent).
Lyanna Mormont had her mother's last name. So since precedent has been set, it wouldn't be totally out of the question for Sansa's children -- if she has any -- to have the last name Stark.
Also, we don't necessarily know that Arya won't ever have children. At the time the series ends, she doesn't seem interested in them, but she's only 18 by the end of the series. There's plenty of time for her to change her mind -- IF she so chooses.
Okay, thanks everyone for setting me straight. I have read the books, but only once, and a few years ago, and anyone who has read the books can understand missing a few details ;) Even though it's fiction, glad I was wrong
shareStark line is not going to die out. I think as long as Arya says "not today" to every death she'd met, she'll live forrevvveeeerrrrr...
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