Why Chris Hemsworth's wife Elsa Pataky hasn't changed her surname

Chris Hemsworth has revealed why his wife, Elsa Pataky, hasn't changed her surname in the nine years they've been married.

Appearing on The Kyle & Jackie O Show on Monday morning, the actor said that it was more for convenience that the Spanish actress kept her maiden name. 

"I think that she wanted to [change it]. I think she still may," the 37-year-old actor said when asked by hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie 'O' Henderson. "I think it was when we were coming back from America. We were living in Europe and deciding where [to go]. It was a complication of passports and so on."

The conversation was steered in that direction when Sandilands brought up a previous broadcast in which Henderson said she wouldn't hesitate to change her surname if she ever married a Hemsworth. In the past, the radio host has also admitted that the Aussie actor was her "dream man". 

"Why didn't she change her name to Elsa Hemsworth? Ooh, I would if I was a Hemsworth. If I suddenly married a Hemsworth, I'd be going straight down to the RTA [now known as the Roads and Maritime Service]," Henderson admitted. "We'd have to rebrand everything. It would be [the] Kyle & Jackie Hemsworth [show]. I'm running that name."

It was last year that 43-year-old Pataky first revealed why her surname was important to her. Born Elsa Lafuente Medianu, the actress changed it to Pataky as a tribute to her grandmother, Rosa Pataky. 

"I thought, 'You have to have something that really sounds different,'" the actress told the Herald Sun. "My grandma's surname in Spanish was a little different, so I took it from her and I love it. Pataky — it's actually Hungarian but everybody thinks it's Greek.'

Hemsworth and Pataky have been married since December 2010 and share three children, seven-year-old daughter India and six-year-old twin boys Sasha and Tristan.