Although the name-letter task is one of the most frequently used measures of implicit self-esteem, no research has examined whether the name-letter effect emerges for new last name initials and abandoned birth name initials in the context of marriage. Additionally, no systematic investigation has examined the robustness of the name-letter effect across age cohorts. In a large heterogeneous sample (N = 1,380), reliable letter preferences were found for new last name initials and for abandoned

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... th name initials, even after 20 years of marriage. In addition, robust name-letter effects emerged across all assessed age cohorts. Implications for the implicit self-esteem literature regarding the robustness of the name-letter task for married and nonmarried individuals of all post-pubescent ages are discussed. The name letter task (NLT) is based on the pioneering work of Nuttin (1985) who first discovered the name-letter effect, which is the tendency for people to prefer the letters included in their own names more than letters not included in their names. Remarkably, the name-letter effect has been shown to be quite robust cross-culturally and has been used successfully as an index of implicit self-esteem, which has been linked to many important self-esteem related phenomena. However, no research has examined whether the name-letter effect emerges for new and abandoned birth name initials in the context of name-change via marriage. In addition, no systematic investigation has examined whether the name-letter effect generalizes across different age cohorts. The current research aimed to fill these gaps in the literature.