I don’t know if they are married now or still engaged but when Maggie Gyllenhaal was/is engaged to Peter Saarsgard and they were having a baby together someone pointed out that if Maggie hyphenated her name then passed that to the baby it would be a long life ahead of her as Gyllenhaal-Saarsgard
I don’t think that would cause anger in any reasonable or semi-reasonable human being, but it makes it easier for the letter carrier to read if you’re not trying to cram longer names onto a single line, and that might aid in delivery.
Ferret Herder got it. (Sorry. I shouldn’ta posted and run like that.)
San Francisco has a huge Asian population, and often, Asians will adopt an “American” name once they’re here. So their original name will be in Chinese characters, and then there’s the phonetic equivalent (say, “Xiyan Yu”) and then the American name (“Robert Yu”).
But inevitably, this person will submit stuff with the names “Yu Xiyan,” “Xiyan Bob Yu,”, “Robert X Yu,” etc. and if they forget their medical record number (which everyone does) their stuff ends up in five different folders.
Actually, your name on one line, his on one line is not “correct” when the couple is married. Here is a link to the Emily Post website, which gives guidelines for addressing envelopes. If a couple is unmarried & living together, they each get a line:
Ms. Mary Smith
Mr. Bob Jones
If they are married & have different last names, they go on the same line:
Ms. Mary Smith and Mr. Bob Jones (or, in your case, it would be Ms. Mary Smith-Jones and Mr. Bob Jones)
It says that the unmarrieds living together are not linked with an “and,” and if the married couple don’t fit on one line, you drop to the next line, indent, and still use the “and.”
Not that any of that matters much, but that IS the rule, and I follow it unless I know for a fact the person prefers it another way, so please don’t get offended if you get a card addressed that way…the person means no harm, I’m sure. 
I have a hyphenated name. My mom hyphenated my dad’s name onto hers when she got married, and that’s my last name, too. It wasn’t my idea, it’s been my name my entire life. (And it doesn’t sound the slightest bit upper-class British, btw.)
Frankly, it’s a pain in the ass. And dropping half isn’t really an option; no matter what, one parent would have their feelings terribly hurt.
P.S. I know you think you’re being clever when you ask if I would hyphenate another name on if I got married, but trust me, you’re not.
As someone who has a first name that is spelled slightly different than the common spelling of that name (ends with a “c” not a “k”) I have gone my entire life with many people (including family) misspelling my name at times. It’s no big deal. I recognize that my name does not conform to the norm and while it would be nice if people spelled it right every time, it’s too much to expect that it will happen. This is especially true when someone spells it wrong due to an obvious oversight. So Ms. Hyphenated name should suck it up and cut you some slack.
What will you likely do if you get married?
I very briefly considered dropping my middle name and putting my exotic surname as my new middle name, but that lasted about a minute.
That’s what I did. It doesn’t cause much trouble as a middle name, and I don’t use it very often, but I like to know it’s there. 
Yes, I think Mary-Jane is a jerk.
Having been married twice and wanting to keep my maiden name, I am sure I cause many problems.
When I married initially, I moved my maiden name to my middle name and dropped my middle name altogether. So when I married I was: Mary Jones Smith. No problem. Then I divorced and got remarried. I did not want to lose my married name as I had a son and an established professional reputation that went along with it so I decided to become Mary Jones Smith-Brown. My second husband was surprisingly accepting of my keeping my first husband’s name.
That being said, I have no problem being addressed as Mary Jones, Mary Smith, Mary Brown, Mary Smith-Brown or any combination of the three. Currently I am separated from Mr Brown but will keep the Brown because we have a Brown daughter. The biggest problem comes in with filing records as someone mentioned above. I can’t even recall how many times I have had to say “Try Jones, Try Smith, Try Brown” I feel bad about that so try to only use Mary Brown on anything that does not require a legal name.
Re: inflexible name-and-address software…
Try entering records for people who live in a town whose name has an official apostrophe. I refer to L’Amable, Ontario. That’s the way it’s spelt on the road signs and in the Canada Post directory.
Not only that, but there are two L’Amables in Ontario. In the same region of Ontario, even. One is on Highway 60 and the other is on Highway 62. But at least only the one on Highway 62 has an actual post office under that name.
I think they use the ‘shovel’ method.
Heck, maybe they could make it easier for (generic) you and give all the kids the same FIRST name too. Save you all that tsouris.
Really, why is it reasonable to expect you to remember different first names but not different surnames? What about blended families with stepkids and so on with surnames from previous partners? How do you ever keep nicknames straight?
It just seems to me a basic act of courtesy toward someone, especially if you are in a position of sending them personal greetings, to know what their name is. That’s what (at the very least) address books are for.
(Most of the “envelope morons” in my circle are my own damn family. After we got married, I made a point of using return address labels with both of our names clearly spelled out. So between not being able to remember the name I was born with and used for 23 years before I was married and repeatedly mangling Mr. S’s unusual-but-not-hard-to-spell surname, yes I get peeved. I don’t express it to them, I just get peeved, until I throw the envelope away a few moments later. They never know.)
Really, on a board where we value good spelling and grammar, I don’t get all the hate for expecting people to get names of friends and family right.
As an sort of unrelated aside to this response, shortly after we got married my sister sent us a holiday card addressed to “The Hishernames” – an amalgamation of both of our names. It has a whimsical sound, and we stated putting it on the bottoms of our potluck dishes, using it in informal situations, etc. Now my business name is the equivalent of Hishername Publishing Services, our Web domain is www .hishername. com (with corresponding e-mail addresses), and many friends greet us with “The Hishernames!”
I have one of those first names that is typically spelled with a c, while I use a k. 30% of the time when I tell them it is a k, they just add it so that my name ends in ck!
The rest of the time, they drop a line through the c. I joke that is how you make a k - you write a c and add a vertical line to it!
My last name is also confusing, since it can be used as a first name. This results in going by my last name on a regular basis. This was fine in the military, where everyone goes by their last name.
I just deal with it all. It does not matter to me until there is paperwork to be done.
Algher,
I was “Add-a-line” briefly in college, after a silly dinner out where all of us ended up with brand new nicknames.
I don’t think I personally suggested any hate. Instead, I simply expressed my personal opinion that I consider certain naming practices to be silly and/or stupid.
I guess I am enough of an asshole that there is a mighty short list of people for whom I will make any effort to remember and comply with their quirks. I certainly do not object to anyone conducting themselves in any way they wish, but I will not make even the most minimal effort to remember or comply with their peculiarities. I have a bad enough memory for first names, most often I don’t make any attempt to remember unconventional last names.
My SOP would probably be to vaguely remember that person X and their family have some goofy practice regarding their names. So unless they were one of maybe 20 people closest to me - namely my immediate family and very few closest friends - I would simply find the easiest way to deal with them that didn’t require that I keep track of their preference.
To avoid having someone bitch me out for not getting close enough to whatever they prefer to be called, I’d just fall back upon many methods for avoiding calling them any proper name at all. In person, I might use any number of phrases instead of proper names: Hey you, big guy, etc. In communication, I might use one guy’s name for the envelope, and then have my salutation use both of their first names. Or - as with the harridan in the OP - I might just use it as an excuse to prune my x-mas list.
I just don’t like enough people enough to be bothered. Again, my personal opinion, nothing more or less. Doesn’t give me heartburn (nor does the use of Yiddish.)
Nothing new to add here except my opinions.
I think it’s silly that women are expected to change their last names to match their husband’s last names. And I’ve met many people that still expect that (either that the wife should change her name, or else that both spouses need to have the same name and that it makes more sense for the wife to change her name.) I think both people should keep their original names. If you don’t like your name, why wait until you’re married to change it?
When I get married, my wife first suggested combining our names (pretend her last name is Stauffacher, she thought it would be clever if we both changed our names to Stauffelried). I hated that idea. I like my last name. I don’t care for hyphenated names. It seems too complicated especially for when the offspring get married. I told her that she should keep her last name, I keep mine, and the kids can have different names (girls take her name and boys take my name - I see this idea was already mentioned in the thread.) She hated that. No one except me seemed to like that idea. Eventually she changed her last name to my last name. I admit that it does make life much easier when everyone in a family has a last name. There is a lady at my church with a family like this: husband Mr. A, wife Ms. B, son has a hyphenated last name C-D. It was a long time before I connected young Mr. C-D with his mother Ms. B.
Resolved:
marriage announcements should always contain the person’s full name, and the name after the marriage. e.g.
You are invited to the wedding of Jane Doe (soon to be Jane Doe-Smith) and John Smith
or
You are invited to the wedding of Jane Doe and John Smith (soon to be John Doe)
or
You are invited to the wedding of Jane Doe and John Smith
and then after the wedding, mention in a follow-up letter, e.g. the thank you card for the wedding gift,
P.S. I am remaining Jane Doe and he is remaining John Smith
birth announcements should always contain the baby’s full name, e.g.
John Doe and Jane Doe are proud to announce the birth of baby Mike Doe
When two people are unmarried, their names belong on a different line on the address label, but they belong on the same line when they’re married? I’ve never done this and only heard of it in this thread.
I am also an opponent of the idea of picking an “american” name when you come to the USA. This is a country of immigrants for crying out loud! Just as easy for me to remember Xiao Ning as it is to remember Cindy.
To the OP - I don’t think the woman is rude. She thanked you for the card and reminded you that she likes her name to be spelled correctly. Sounds OK to me. I always try to make sure I spell names correctly. I’ll point out that hyphenated first names are common in French, especially with the first part of the hyphenated name being Jean, i.e. Jean-Pierre, Jean-Paul, Jean-Jacques.
I swear I didn’t make it up…I remember reading it in Miss Manners, and my link to Emily Post confirmed it.
It’s not so much that I’m a stickler for other people to use these kinds of etiquette rules, it’s that I personally like to know what they are, to default to if I don’t know what a person prefers. I respondend to Ferret Herder by citing that rule because she claimed that one name on each line was the rule, and I was trying to show that if a person didn’t do it that way, it might be because they understood the rule to be something different (because they read Emily Post, for instance), or didn’t have any idea what the rule might be…not because they are trying to be obnoxious.
I could not waiiiiiiiit to get rid of my maiden name. I hated it. It wasn’t absurd or porny or even snickerlicious, I just hated it. Think Claus Von Bulow or Ludwig Von B. It was just so very irritating to me.
So, finally I married a man with a good god damned fine anglo saxon name. Problem solved. I never again had to hear: “Is that two words”? “Do you have two last names”?. Yeah, anglo names are cool, man. Right.
So, my husband’s last name is the name of a friggin Mayflower traveller, for Og’s sake, and people still can’t get it right. That’s okay, I don’t mind. At least it’s one word. I still like having a common name(it is common) but I feel guilty about hating my birth name. My sister always thought it sounded cosmopolitan and loved it, but it was not her name.
I can never understand this feeling. If you couldn’t wait, why did you wait until you got married? Why not do it before?
Any number of possible reasons:
-would piss off the family
-would confuse friends, and maybe get them to wondering about her
-would hasten the hassle of changing vital documents
-would remove the delicious frisson of submission to the patriarchy