Naturally my HS French teacher was called “Madame X” by her French students. Everyone called her “Mrs X” and that’s what appeared on school paper. One class I asked her (in French) what her maiden name and she said “X”. This was surprising, since she used “Mrs”. Her husban’s name was “Y” and kept her maiden name when she married, but people kept calling her either “Mrs X” or “Mrs Y” depending on how they met her and she just got tired of correcting people.
In most languages (including French with few exceptions) the title for married women has become the default title for all adult women and the one for unmarried women being restricted to underage girls; English is the exception using a 3rd title and using it alongside the other two.
Traditional etiquette dictates that “Mrs” should only be used with a woman’s maiden name if; she’s an older and senior domestic servant (housekeeper, governess, chef) in a great house, or as a polite fiction for unwed mothers. Really traditional etiquette dictates that “Mrs” should never be used with a woman’s given name unless she’s divorced or a widow announcing her remarriage
This being 2010 you can just use whatever title you want (Ms, Mrs, or Miss) with whatever name you want; regardless of what’s “proper”. It doesn’t really matter anymore.
“My mother is so traditional, she still calls herself Mrs. Donald Williams. I picture her at parties: ‘Hi, my name is Mrs. Donald Williams, but you can call me Don.’” - Danny Williams
Weirdly, Parliament tends to use “Mrs.” in English for francophone women MPs who use “Mme.” Since Quebec does not allow you to take your husband’s name legally, probably the great majority of those women would not be called “Mrs.” if they were English. “Mme.” should almost always be translated as “Ms.”, especially in the working world. (I do not know if there has ever been a francophone woman MP who used the title “Mlle.” I only know of one woman MP in recent years who used the title Miss: Deborah Grey.)
That varies from place to place. According to Miss Manners, American tradition never, under any circumstances, had “Mrs.” used with a woman’s given name; the ultra-traditional form for a divorced woman had her maiden last name used in place of her given name, bizarrely: after the divorce, the former Miss Ellen Maiden, later Mrs. John Husband, became Mrs. Maiden Husband.
(The “widow announcing remarriage” part is an interesting thing, since of course it looks weird for Mrs. John Husband to announce her marriage. That’s probably one of the many factors that did in the rule about not using Mrs. with the given name.)
My wife has always used her birth name, both through her first marriage and her marriage to me. The business of honorifics doesn’t come up very frequently, but I guess it’s “Ms.” when it does. I have no problem with any of this.
What amazes me, though, is people who to this day can’t seem to get a grip on women who keep their birth names. It’s bad enough that the Alumni Association for the college we both attended immediately changed their records to make her Mrs. MyLastName after we were married – with absolutely no leave on our part for them to do so. Others in official capacities have done the same.
What’s worse is members of her own family, who know damn well she has never changed her last name, but who insist on addressing cards and correspondence to her as Mrs. HerFirstName MyLastName.
I find this very insulting and high-handed. I would like some of them to have the courage to articulate to our faces the policy they’re following, which boils down to “We really don’t care how you want it to be…we’re going to do it the way we think it should be.”
Pepper Mill decided to keep her own last name, in part because [her real first name][my real last name] sounds awkward, but also because she’s very used to her own name. I don’t have a problem with this – several of my female friends kept their own last names – one pretty clearly for euphony.
She goes by “Ms. Mill”, although she’ll answer to “Ms. Meacham” (which is what her father calls her). We get plenty of mail and phone calls for “Ms. Meacham” (and for “Mr. Mill”), which is a pretty good filter mechanism – these people obviously don’t know us.
We don’t hyphenate. But our daughter MilliCal is, in reality MilliCal Mill Meacham, so she might as well be.
Not married (yet!) but I intend to keep my name. Generally I introduce myself with my first name, though I guess that could be a generational thing. If I need to use a title it’s Ms [Lastname].
ETA: There are people that assume I’m married to my SO and that we have the same last name. Unless it’s someone we’ll be spending time with regularly, we don’t bother to correct them, though it does make us laugh a little at Safeway when the cashier looks at the receipt and makes that assumption. I understand they have to do it, but my SO is not and never will be Mr. [Mylastname]. Even better is when he uses the phone number for his grandmother’s card, since she has different name than either of us.
I’m recently married and (after a whole lot of debate) opted for Ms. Alice Wonderland Hubbyname.
I have occasionally been referred to as Mrs. Wonderland Hubbyname or Mrs. Hubbyname which are both fine (i.e. I don’t get annoyed) but not generally what I call myself.
I think if you WANT to be a Mrs. you could consider something similar - Mrs. Eats Crayons Blaaarfengaaar. I would NOT go for Mrs. Crayons - that sounds like you married your dad or brother - eww.
Hm, I’ll keep that in mind if we do decide to get married IRL, not just hypothetically.
Although, not long ago when I was remembering that Melissa Etheridge and her ex-wife had created a new last name for their kids by combining their two names to make “Cypheridge” I realized that our two real-life names could be meshed to create a name that was a homophone for an existing, but silly, word. It would be comparable to having the name: Sally Bunnyslippers.
I’m wondering this at the moment - complicated by the fact that I have no idea what the legal situation is if I do want to change my name. I’m getting married in France, where you keep your birth name, though you can choose to use your husband’s name (or you can both use a hyphenated name) socially. In the UK (where we’re both from, and where we’ll probably end up living again), I think there’s an easy way to change your name legally to match your husband’s name when you get married - since I’m not getting married in the UK, though, I assume I’d have to fill out all kinds of paperwork to change my name properly when I move back. Which I’m disinclined to do. So I’ll probably end up using Mrs [HisLastName] socially and at work, and being Ms [MyLastName] on my passport and legal documents, as well as for my own business ventures - I make jewellery and I write, under my current full name. Which all seems a bit complicated.
Does anyone (by any chance!) know where I should go to find out this kind of information in the UK? Is it the Home Office? The Foreign Office? Some random other government department somewhere?
I didn’t think I was particularly attached to my surname until changing it became an option. Who knew this would be the most complicated thing about getting married?
Why get angry at someone that is just following formal addressing etiquette used for over a hundred years, because you decided to buck the trend? :rolleyes:
Just politely explain to them that you did not take your husband’s name and you would prefer to be addressed as Ms. Such N. Such, which is also quite acceptable. Your anger is a bit misplaced.
Depends how many times she’s already politely explained that and had it not sink in. Why do some people have such a hard time letting women choose what name they want to use?
I kept mine, and there have been a few missteps (my alumni association calling and asking whether they were speaking to Mr. Luna when my husband answered; a well-meaning aunt who addressed a wedding gift check to Mr. and Mrs. Tom Scud, causing much confusion when we asked the bank how to endorse a check that was made out to someone who didn’t exist, upon which the teller thought I was asking how to change my name on the account, which was not the case).
But yeah, I’d also get pretty aggravated if people kept insisting on calling me by a name that isn’t mine. Luckily, with most of the people we know, it hasn’t been an issue. Many of my female friends have kept their names when they married, for that matter.
This is confusing. However, it doesn’t ever trip me up because I don’t use titles/honorifics when addressing people.
I only recently learned that Mrs. is not used if she didn’t change her name. I just thought it meant she is married.
Actually, I think that’s not quite right either. As I understand it, traditionally, Mrs. is used regardless of whether she changed her name, because it’s only used with the husband’s name. It’s meant to indicate whose wife she is.
So, if “Ms. Anne Smith” marries “Mr. Robert Jones”, and doesn’t change her name, she’s still “Ms. Anne Smith”. If she does change her name, she’s “Ms. Anne Jones”. But in either case, she can *also *be referred to as “Mrs. Robert Jones”, i.e., “Bob’s wife”. She would never be “Mrs. Anne” anything, except in the rare cases mentioned upthread. Or if Robert changed his name to Anne, I guess.
ETA: However, most people in my experience use it the way you thought: They think “Mrs.” means married (and of course she has to change her last name), so “Ms. Anne Smith” is usually called “Mrs. Anne Jones”, no matter what her actual name is.
In my experience, people like Broomstickdo “politely explain” and say what they would prefer. THAT is when people INSIST that she “should” be called (proper etiquette). Broomie ain’t the rude one, there.
Because people who INSIST on such are not merely making a mistaken assumption from ignorance that you can simply correct and move on. You’ve already corrected them, and they’ve dug in their heels, thus the word insist. These people are, in short, being assholes, and it’s human nature to get angry at people who are being assholes.
Because my first name is MY first name, it is NOT my husband’s very masculine sounding first name!
My name is Mrs. Broom Stick, not Mrs. **Thomas *Campbell. Do you not see the difference? I don’t have a problem being referred to as Mrs. Campbell - I am his wife, after all, but it’s Mrs. Broom Campell, not Thomas Campbell - that is my husband, not me! I am not a female appendage of my husband’s body, THAT is why I find obliterating a woman’s name entirely so she is addressed by her husband’s name and his name only to be highly offensive.
Tradition isn’t always something we should continue. Especially when it’s demeaning and/or humiliating to someone.
You may of course disagree - but seriously, I have cut off contact with people who refuse to address me by at least my first name in correspondence (yes, I do say something politely the first time it happens and give them a chance to get it right the next time. I explain that I find it offensive, even if it is tradition, and please don’t call me that). Trotting out “it’s tradition” is bullshit. So was slavery at one point. That doesn’t mean it was right.
I go by my maiden name, I didn’t get married until I was 40. I personally say Ms. TheFaerie, and if my husband and I are formally introducing ourselves we often do it individually, for example meeting a bank manager, he will introduce himself and then I will introduce myself while doing the handshake thing.
I don’t worry if complete strangers refer to me as Mrs. TheElf, they don’t know and it’s really not relevant to the discussion, and it doesn’t bother me at all.
My personal opinion is that Mrs. just indicates you’re married. You’re as entitled to call yourself Mrs. Originalname as you are to Mrs. Husbandsname.
The only thing I can think of that might be a problem is when people are unaware of the situation. When they hear that Mr. Blaaarfengaaar brought Mrs. Crayons to the office Christmas party, they might assume there’s a Mr. Crayons out there who’s unhappy about this.