Married woman Dopers (or other name changers) - any issues with how banks, credit cards, etc handled your new name?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Wondering if any married women have experienced issues similar to my wife WRT credit cards and the IRS adding the honorific Mrs. to your name, or making your spouse the primary account holder of an account you added them to.

(I’d prefer not to get into a discussion of whether or not one spouse should change/retain/hyphenate their surname. And I’m happy to hear from anyone who changed their name for whatever reason, or anyone who added people to their accounts for whatever reason.)

We got married in 86. At the time my credit was crap - my wife’s impeccable. She adopted my surname, and added me to her existing bank and credit card accounts, and we filed taxes jointly. Immediately, the accounts - and the IRS - either started listing me as the primary account-holder, listed my name first, or changed her name to Mrs Agatha Dinsdale. I was not given an honorific as “Mr.” Edgar Dinsdale.

When my wife objected to getting “second billing”, she was told that it goes in order of birthdate. But hers is earlier than mine. Then she was told it was assigned alphabetically. Her first name precedes mine alphabetically.

I am happy with her name being listed first on everything, if for no reason other than that she does most of our financial/accounting paperwork.

Over the years, she has corrected all of these accounts, with one exception. Discover lists her as “Mrs Agatha Dinsdale.” She called them today to discuss an issue about expiring cards, and to ascertain that we both would retain access to the account after the other dies. She asked if they would simply remove the “Mrs” as that is not her legal name. Suffice it to say, this did not prove to be a simple correction that could be handled over the phone or on-line with a couple of clicks. So far they are indicating that she needs to provide a court order of her name change from Mrs Agatha Dinsdale to Agatha Dinsdale. Of course, no such court order exists. :roll_eyes:

We have no recollection of exactly when or how the Mrs was added to her name. I imagine at some time we completed a form on which she checked a box for “Mrs” ahead of her name. We do not believe the Mrs was added immediately after her married name change back in 86.

Well, congrats if you have read this far. Just wondering if anyone else has similar experiences, how successful you were in correcting it, and how much effort it took. Strikes me as likely an artifact of darker days when married women were not even allowed to get credit cards in their own names. I remember my mom cancelling her Marshall Field’s card in the 70s for that reason.

2

My wife never “officially” changed her last name. For her profession, she uses her maiden name, for things involving both our sigs, she hyphenates both our last names (hers first). For things she doesn’t want to be bothered with, she uses just my last name. Never had an issue.

3

Glad she has never had an issue. I’ve heard of women doing that. I personally find that a potentially problematic approach, as I could envision any number of situations in which someone might question what her “legal name” is. I’m likely over cautious, but I’m pretty anal about always signing my name the exact same way - Edgar MI Dinsdale.

4

We married in '83 and I don’t recall any hassles from any businesses. I’ve always managed our finances, so most bills have been in my name, again no problem. Really, the only (minor) annoyance is with our credit union (for the last 43 years…) When I contact them via chat, I have to pretend to be spousal unit. They claim I have my own member number (while his is the account number) but I have no idea what it is. So it’s easier to be him to get thru the security questions. First world problems.

5

we had hassle with the bank on redeeming some U.S. savings bonds. We called the bank and asked what they needed, and was pretty much nothing special; just a drivers licence.

Then we got there and were told we needed her birth certificate, previous divorce decree, her name change documents to mine, and her SS card.

We left and dropped it for a few years.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I went back a few months ago and asked; and was told essentially the same thing, bring a bunch of documents including name change documents.

This time, armed with these and the savings bonds in question we got them redeemed…..Not once did the person ask her for anything other than her drivers license with her current (my) name on it. I asked and she said we didn’t need them.
So we did have issues, but it was dependent on who we talked to at the bank; they didn’t need what we were told twice to bring.

6

We were married in ‘96, and I seem to remember Ms. P having some issue with Social Security, but I don’t think it took very long to fix.

7

Some time around 1984, I remember having to fill in a form relating to gas supply. (You had to physically present yourself at The Gas Showroom. Feels like several lifetimes ago.)

Regarding the applicant, a name had to be entered into a box. The form stated: To be completed by the husband; if completed by the wife, this should be done using the husband’s name.

Even back then, this was startlingly sexist. We crammed both names into the box, and this was never questioned. I’d like to think that they didn’t dare,

j

8

Read in the paper the other day that in the US in 23 80% of women take their husband’s name upon marriage. No detail WRT same sex marriages, hyphenations, etc. But I was surprised that that number was so high.

9

why? It has traditionally been done for very long time and was historically much higher (closer to 100%)

10

Not sure why - it just surprised me. I think within the very limited sample size I had been exposed to over recent years far more than 20% either kept their surnames or hyphenated.

11

Mrs. H’s father was Leslie Dale T….
Mrs. H was Leslie Dawn T….

When she first tried to vote in Iron County after we moved here in 2014, there was an issue with her registration. I’m not sure what it could have been, but it had something to do with two people named Leslie D… T… in the same town. Of course, by that time her name had been Leslie D… H…. for well over a decade, but, whatever, Missouri.

12

I took my husband’s last name (no logistical issues with it) to get rid of a bad reminder of my childhood. My husband told me at the time he would be opposed to me taking his last name if it weren’t for the special case. (Note: we married at age 23.)

I think there can be a kind of romanticism in it if you are really in love with a man. I’m kind of traditional in this way, not that I want anything other than an equal partnership but that I want to show the world that this partnership exists and taking his last name is a pretty public way of doing that. I’m a bit heteronormative in this way. I don’t want to suggest this is ideal, only give you some insight into how some women might be thinking about it.

I am actually surprised it’s 80% though. Most of the women I know either kept their last names or hyphenated.* I opted for total assimilation.

*In all fairness, the family surname has a legacy and reputation attached to it, at least locally, so I imagine women in my husband’s family kept it out of a sense of pride. Of course according to his cousin, the upshot of keeping her maiden name is being frequently asked at work, “Which one did you marry?”

13

Why are you surprised? :wink:

My wife took my name for reasons similar to your. No way she was keeping that bastards last name.

14

I took my husband’s last name. My maiden name was common and uninteresting, as was his last name, and it seemed logistically simpler to share a list name. He took my maiden name as a second middle name. (We filed a legal name change, and changed some other details at the same time.)

I’ve rarely had any issues. My grandmother used to address me as Mrs His Name, but my mother convinced her to stop doing it.

I always checked “Ms” rather then “Mrs”, but i don’t think the honorific is considered part of the legal name by anyone, and i never worried I’d be misidentified by it. I’m pretty sure my husband is “Mr” in all the places I’m “Ms”. At least, I’ve never seen anything addressed to

Puzzleguy Lastname and Mrs Puzzlegal Lastname.

I have first billing on our tax forms because i filled them out the first year we filed jointly. A lot of the utilities and stuff are in my name, which is slightly awkward now that he pays most of the bills. But not super awkward, because lots of households have multiple adults. I think he has first billing on the checking account, but both of our names are there.

15

Just because I know so few young women who took their husband’s last name. I would have guessed it had fallen way out of favor.

16

When we married in 1980, we discussed finances and decided that a joint account would be the simplest. My wife became Mrs. Bob2 and gets annoyed when people address her using my first name, which feels very old-fashioned. She also hates Ms.

Until recently she has happily let me take care of the money, although we discuss any major purchases. She has her credit cards, etc. It was only a few days ago when she decided to use the bank’s app on her phone and discovered that the only account she can see is our joint current account. Savings accounts and credit card accounts are not shown.

I called the bank to ask why, and all they could say was that she was a subsidiary user on my cards and the savings were in my name. I have yet to decide what to do about this anomaly.

17

I’ve mentioned this before but my last name is very unusual and people frequently comment on how cool it is. My ex wife’s was moderately common and innocuous. We were in a relationship for around two years and had a year-ish engagement and never discussed the issue. I assumed that she’d keep her name and thought changing names is silly. I didn’t find out that she was changing hers until we were filling out the marriage license and she checked the box. The same thing exact thing played out when we went through the very friendly divorce thirteen years later.

A while after the divorce I was her +1 at a fancy event. They took our picture and made sure we were listed as the equivalent of “John Smith and Jane Smith” as opposed to “John and Jane Smith”.

18

In my experience, the biggest hassle is usually finding a sensible person who understands how and why to correct a name.

I have been fighting with Toyota for seven years. My husband and I bought the truck together; both names are on the title, and we share an address. The dealership, however, needs one name to be primary, and doesn’t like to deal with the secondary person. My insistence that neither of us is primary and that you can send an email to two people, and have two names listed as the owner, cuts no ice. At the moment, the “primary” slot is my first name, his middle name, and my lastname, and I’m genuinely not sure if the person who did that was trying to help or annoyed at me for trying to buck the system.

19

My maiden name was mispronounced often. I was thrilled to get a last name that no one could mess up.
If I married again, I’d move it to my first name and take his last name, hoping it wasn’t something like Czykinipowot.

20

Sorry - I was just joking because I thought it a tad odd that the other poster asked me why I was surprised.