Surname Frustration (rant and question)

In My Humble Opinion
41

When we married, Barb chose to adopt my surname, and to use her given middle name instead of her maiden name, as was the custom (Miss Firstname Maidensurname becomes Firstname Maidensurname Husbandsurname on marriage). Not out of any disrespect towards her parents – the reason she kept her middle name is that it was their pet name for her – but as a statement that we became a family. However, I didn’t influence her on this, and was prepared to go with the two-surnames option if she wanted. (She’s significantly more conservative than I am in social matters.)

The most interesting phenomenon in this family-nomenclature stuff, though, goes to my boy Chris and his wife Jo. They conceived and gave birth to their eldest daughter before they married, and while Jo, the tired mother, was sleeping off the anaesthetic, Meddling Grandma had the birth certificate made out with the name she preferred, including her own surname (i.e., Jo’s surname as an unmarried woman) – this despite the fact that they planned to marry and Chris fully acknowledged paternity. The following year, they married, and Jo adopted Chris’s surname, and of course their sons received that surname as they were born. So up until two years ago, when they finally went to court and formally had it changed, their daughter had a different legal surname from her brothers and both her parents.

42

My sister did the hyphen thing. Her maiden name has 10 letters and her husband’s name has 12 letters. Her driver’s license needed two lines.

What happens if hyphenating married names becomes the norm. If the kids also get the hyphenated name, after several generations, you have endless hyphens. :eek: :smiley:

43

I suppose I get to put in my six cents’ worth, since I have both an idiotic, girlish-looking spelling of an uncommon, old-fashioned first name; a wholly unique, nearly unpronounceable surname held by no other person in the western hemisphere but myself, my dad and my brother; AND, my wife kept her maiden name after we married. (First she wanted very badly to get married and take my surname…then the instant as I came around to the idea, she decided firmly against it. Go figure, eh guys?)

I’ve fought the name battle my whole life (“No, my first name ends in I, not Y–and no, I don’t wish to be beaten up at this time, thanks”). And the tedious 60 seconds of repeatedly spelling and re-spelling the nine-letter unheard-of surname with increasing slowness for imbeciles who were out playing video games instead of attending classes where it was taught how to simply write out a dictated sequence of letters can certainly slow things down a tad. It started irritating me so much that I was entertaining the idea of officially changing my last name to a common word that any person can instantly say, spell, write, and memorize in one second. But my friend Edgar said no–“Tell them, ‘I’VE had to deal with it my whole life–now YOU *%$&ing deal with it.’” I liked that attitude so much I’ve kept my name and made a game of seeing how long it takes new people to wrap their wits around it. Then I’ll chuckle and make a casual remark about how funny it is in today’s world where we rush around so much, yet we still have the time to take half an hour to get a person’s name figured out, ha ha ha.

I have a little tip for those facing the married name dilemma. Pick out the way you want to have the name from the myriad choices available. Then stick to it. It’s your name. But remain lighthearted about it. Ease up. No “Return to Sender” shenanigans that just make you look like a petty NameNazi to every Steve Cooper and Anne Mason. Just offer a gentle reminder each time someone gets it wrong, “By the way, my name is now Throatwarbler-Mangrove, not Luxury-Yacht. That’s Throatwarbler…” (spell it carefully so they get sick of being told). And do it the same way, in the exact same light, gentle tone, over and over and over and over, as someone suggested above. As if they’ve never been told before. Sooner or later (depending on their IQ) they’ll get it. For first-timers, I like to cushion the request for name pickiness by saying something like “Not that it REALLY matters all that much, but my name is spelled this way…” and then they will nearly always respond to this kindly, “Oh, no, it does matter, I want to get it right. I’m sorry.” They’ll apologize. When they do, I always say, “It’s OK, I know it’s unusual.” It makes me feel good, and makes them feel good too–because I didn’t act like I’m the Emperor of the Solar System over here, and you subjects had jolly well get my all-important royal name right or it’s off with your heads. By acknowledging that I’M the one creating the difficulty by having the unusual name situation (both mine and my wife’s maiden name), it puts them in a position of grace and feeling like going the extra mile to get it right. So no nasty cards, please. Take it easy on Jeff Lewis and Laura White…they’ve never been mercilessly tortured because of their name, and odd names are not something they’ve ever had to deal with from the playground to the present, so they need a little extra coaching.

44

Interesting. I’d have said exactly the opposite based on the married women whom I know.

45

I’m lucky in that both sides of my family had to change their surnames when they escaped China and entered Thailand during some war a few generations ago. My current last name isn’t my ancestors’ last name, so I haven’t gotten attached to it which means I really don’t care if I take my SO’s surname.

My current last name is also hard to pronounce and I am tired of correcting people when they say my last name. It’s so annoying that I dislike going to Safeway and hearing every time:

“Thank you for shopping at Safeway Ms. looks down at the receipt…errr have a good night!”

It’s more annoying when they try to say it and won’t let me leave until they get it right. Oi.

The SO agrees that taking on my surname as a hyphenated combo would be a bit much for him seeing as though he doesn’t like how long and crazy it is on its own. It wouldn’t be a problem if I were to take my original ancestors’ last name, but I don’t identify with it at all.

Solution: take his last name so I can be free of this gobblygook of a surname!

46

You’re running with Anaamika’s misinterpretation of my post from her post above yours. I didn’t say “It’s just a name, so don’t worry what people call you.” Of course that’s ridiculous; it’s your name, you have the right to be called what you want to be called.

Given the context of my post, I thought it was clear that I was saying “It’s just a name, so don’t sweat whether my kids have my last name or my wife’s.”

47

Until 1900, my father’s family didn’t have a surname. For all I know, my ancestors are “turning in their graves” because now I’m using one.

48

Oh, i’m not saying that all Australian women keep their own name. I’m just saying that the practice is widespread enough that very few people would actually be surprised at it.

In my experience, social and economic class is one factor in this issue. Most of my friends in Australia are university-educated and comfortably middle or upper-middle class, with professional jobs and reasonably good incomes. The women usually have careers of their own. In virtually all these cases, the woman kept her own name.

My sister lives in an area where quite a few of her friends finished high school and went straight into the workforce, or into a trade school. The area is still fairly comfortably lower-middle and middle class economically, but many of her friends have work that involves manual labor or, at least, doesn’t require a degree. Quite a lot of the women—including my sister—are stay-at-home mothers. In that area, a lot more women took their husband’s name.

I’m sure there are other factors at work here, but this is just my own general observation.

49

If the OP’s first name were Jessica, but everyone insisted on calling her Jennifer, even if they’d been told otherwise, would anyone say she’s a namenazi for being upset? She’s not asking her relatives to learn a new concept, she’s asking them to learn a new name. MdashH, I think you and your husband should send out a formal announcement on good paper, and then start returning any mail addressed to people who simply do not live at your address.

A woman’s surname is not her father’s surname*, it is hers. It’s her “birth name” because it’s the name on her birth certificate. Why do people think of men as having a complete name from the day they’re born, but a woman only has a first name, a droppable middle name, and her [male relative, no matter how distant]'s surname? Nobody ever tells a bridegroom to take the bride’s last name because his is really only his father’s. It isn’t about expunging any surname that a man might once have carried. It’s about a woman keeping and possibly passing on her surname.

Elders can learn new things. It is pure prejudice to believe that they cannot. Also, future couples who both have hyphenated names will probably drop two of the names when they get married. The sixteen-name Sorcerer’s Apprentice Franken-name that’s always mentioned will never exist outside a royal family.

*even if it is the same

50

I think that sort of glosses over the deeper issue here. Your wife chose to change her name, and if her relatives persistently sent her things addressed to Mrs. Barbara Maidensurname, I don’t think there’d be many folks telling her that it’s just a name and doesn’t matter in the greater scheme of things, so she should suck it up and humor them. All of my friends who have married so far have changed their last names, and I would shove a hot poker into my eye before I would mail them something addressed to their old last name. It would hurt and upset them, make them feel like I wasn’t valuing their marriage or their life choices. Why would I deliberately do something I know is going to hurt and upset people I care about? Even if I think it’s silly for them to be hurt and upset about it, that doesn’t change the way they feel and it doesn’t make me any less of a jackass to ignore those feelings.

That’s the heart of it, right there: people not taking your feelings into account. The cashier at the grocery not taking your feelings into account is one thing, your alleged nearest and dearest doing so is quite another.

51

Oh, and Manatee, sorry about the misunderstanding. I didn’t go back and reread the thread and took the quote at face value. The point remains the same, though; most of the people I’ve known IRL who have told me to just get over myself about the last name thing would be mightily offended if someone were to deliberately call them by the wrong name.

52

I’m in the same boat, CrazyCatLady, with my wife and sons. It was those people who get “mightily offended” that I was telling to “get over it,” not people like you who have made their own, personal decisions about what they’d like to be called.

Deliberately calling someone by the wrong name just because they’re not following tradition or aren’t going with the name that you’d like them to use just makes you a jackass.

Unfortunately, like you, I’ve had my share of such jackasses.

53

If this is in relation to my comment above, you did realise it was a joke right? I didn’t think that people DO think of women as not having a complete name any more than men.

54

I meant to add this.

If anything I’m guilty of continuing to refer to, and think of, married women as First-name Maiden-name. I think some of it may be wishful thinking though, which is even more useless if you consider that I’m married as well.

55

It did sound like a joke, but it sounded more like a joke against women who don’t change their names. It is tough to respond when you can’t see the person’s expression and don’t know anything about them. I, for instance, have a bright green face :stuck_out_tongue: or maybe purple :confused: or orange :cool:

It’s also something that always seems to come up in this sort of thread. It’s like how in political threads, somebody always eventually mentions Hitler. In surname threads, there are always posts saying (a) it’s just a choice between her father’s name and her fiance’s, and (b) hyphens lead to twenty names strung together. Both are usually said as jokes, but in a mocking, condescending way. Perhaps I was jumping at shadows, sorry. I do think a lot of people think of a woman’s last name as not really being hers though. There were some posts even here which clearly come from that perspective.

56

Well it was. However, the views expressed by a joke don’t necessarily reflect the views held by the joker. Which is interesting because, although that kind of humour can work well face to face with people you know, taken too far on the internet and it is essentially the definition of trolling.

57

We can’t really know for certain the motives of the people who continue to get your name wrong. For all we know, they may be forgetful or careless or think it’s just silly.

The important thing is that it matters to you and you can do something about it without being unpleasant.

But please don’t be dishonest and blame it on the mail carrier! Each and every time that someone writes to you using the wrong name, immediately send that person a note on a distinctive notecard explaining pleasantly that your correct names are Otto and Zelda Zuzzy-Wump and you wish to be addressed that way on all of future. correspondence. (Be sure to keep a copy of how you have it worded.)

When and if that person does it again, use exactly the same distinctive notecard and use exactly the same wording to explain once again that blah, blah, blah… Keep doing that every single time.

Be certain that if they do it in person you or your husband immediately corrects them – even if you have to interrupt to do it.

It’s called the broken record technique. If that doesn’t work, nothing will and it will become obvious that you have good reason to ask face to face why this person is ignoring your requests.

You have a right to be addressed by your name, dammit!

BTW, in the United States, mail is delivered to the address – not to the “name.”

58

Except in the case of the OP, Mr. Smith doesn’t live there. Both the husband and wife changed their names, not just the wife. This sounds to me like more than a typo - doesn’t the Post Office have a statutory obligation not to deliver mail to the wrong person?

Mrs. Piper kept her own name, and we’ve actually found it helpful in dealing with telemarketers. When one calls and asks to speak to “Mrs. Piper”, we can say in all honesty that there’s no-one there by that name. There’s usually a puzzled pause, then “but our records show…” which we interupt by repeating there’s no-one of that name, and politely say good-bye. Anything that helps to muck up telemarketers’ records is a good thing!

59

They did both change their names but the new names are almost identical to the old name, and the postal carrier knows that the Old Names lived there and still live there. In my experience, the post office will not redeliver under these circumstances. The carrier is not delivering to the “wrong” person. He can see that the person formerly known as Mr. Smith is now Mr. Smith-Jones and that any mail for Mr. Smith is undoubtedly for the man now known as Mr. Smith-Jones - not for some other completely different unrelated person.