Agreed. The OP shouldn’t ask (that does come across as sightly weird) but his wife the babysitter sure as hell should know the full name of the child and the child’s parents/guardians. I don’t care if mom is only a phone call away; accidents of all kinds, from misplaced cell phones to epic natural disasters to everything in between can happen. We hope they never do, of course, but that does not excuse us from the responsibility to be reasonably prepared.
ETA: Not that am placing all the blame on Mrs. H for not knowing. Mom should have provided that information up front when the babysitting arrangement was first settled.
For me (German, tail end Boomer) it’s pretty inconceivable not to know someone’s last name. It’s the first datum I get, well before the first name (if I ever need to know it at all).
I need it
to address mail and parcels
to ask for or complain about someone at their workplace
to press the right doorbell at an apartment building
to ask when visiting in hospital, which room the patient is in
not least, to disambiguate (my wife has a lot of Karins and Utes and a few Petras in her circle, and I have to ask ‘which’ to keep them straight. At work there are several Stefans and Christians, and I share a first name with several colleagues myself.)
I, personally, would not at all be offended if someone that I knew asked me what my last name is. And I would not think it awkward to ask someone that I know what their last name is. I don’t get what the issue would be.
You can ask, but then you risk finding out that her full name happens to be Alicia None-Of-Your-Fucking-Business. Awkward.
Ms.Homie may, of course, may make her own decisions regarding with whom she does business. Were I to enter an arrangement to watch someone’s child for pay, knowledge of all parties’ first and last names – child’s, parents’, anyone else relevant – would be absolutely required. Hesitancy to provide first and last names would be a gigantic red flag that would prompt me to summarily decline the arrangement. Sorry. Came from a different set of cultural expectations, I guess.
…
This might cut across age lines to an extent, but it also looks kind of like “online” culture encroaching into real life. Only online culture of an earlier time, like right before modern social media took off, when having your real name online WAS kind of a big deal (and generally to be avoided). I still think that “No last names! Private!” is pretty niche, but I’m open to learning more about American (and other) subcultures where that it the current ethic.
The OP has said on several occasions on several topics that his wife has old fashioned and very rigid ideas about many things. My late MIL was born in 1925 and had 1880s sensibilities about nearly all matters of etiquette and decorum. And especially gender roles and male/female relationships. It was … tiring. She was quite proud of the fact that her views did not evolve with time. She possessed the Eternal True Way and all else was Error. She died here in the 2020s still living in the 1880s. I can sympathize with our OP.
So yeah, Mrs. H might well vehemently believe asking is an outrage, an outrage I say! But that’s not binding on us or anyone except her husband the OP.
I don’t read much of anything into a youngish woman not exposing her last name on social media. Both for her personal safety / security and for the all-encompassing preference for maximum informality that our generation started and our kids and grandkids are carrying much farther than we did. She’s not “keeping a secret” she’d be loathe to disclose. She’s doing what’s natural for her generation.
If I was the OP and willing to take my wife’s shit over it, I’d ask her if I was curious. I’d need no more motivation than that. But truth be told, I’ve adapted to the informality enough that nowadays that curiosity is idle at best and may be entirely absent. Lotta my acquaintances, and especially the younger ones, are “Bob” or “Sue” and that’s it. Why not “Alicia” too?
I think it’s negligent bordering on lawsuit material for Mrs. H to not have the full names of everyone: Mom, Dad, and child. She’s the one that ought to be motivated to know these things.
I also think it extremely far-fetched that “Alicia” would have the slightest negative reaction if asked for her full name. Perhaps slightly better if asked by Mrs. than Mr., but probably no difference either way.
In the pre-WWW days, it was also taboo to give your full name when calling in to a live radio program. (I recall hearing an occasional “No last names, please” from Tom and Ray of NPR’s “Car Talk.”[1])
though that didn’t stop them from gleefully repeating the full name of a very patient Indian-American caller who introduced himself as “Arup Gupta.” ↩︎
It may surprise some people, but to some people names are very important. In some cultures, knowing someone’s name (and speaking it) gives you supernatural power over them (I doubt very much that this is at play here, and only mention it for a frame of reference). In certain modern social circles names can still be a very sensitive topic. If you know me in person, chances are you only know my middle name and possibly my surname. If you are very close to me, you might know my first name, but if you do you also know never to call me that. Trans people can also be very sensitive to things like “dead naming”. Survivors of abuse might likewise be put off by someone being able to identify them by their legal name. There’s also the uniqueness of a person’s name. If your name is “Jack Smith” this is probably not something you ever thought about. I can guarantee you that there have only been 3 people with my legal name who ever lived - the other 2 are my father and grandfather, both of whom are dead. So I am very careful about who knows my legal full name and how it is used.
The bottom line is that names can be important to some people. It is up to them to determine who gets to know them and use them. Going back to the OP, what this really boils down to is how much friction is he willing to create with his spouse. Personally, if my partner indicated to me that asking would upset her, that would be far more important to me than any awkwardness in asking Alicia her surname. Whether or not the asking is rude is not for us (or the OP) to determine - Alicia alone gets to decide that. If Mrs. H is comfortable babysitting for someone whose last name she doesn’t know, that is also not up to us to judge.
To the best of my knowledge I am the only person in the world with my exact name (due to a German last name, a non-German spelling of my first first name and an uncommon second first name). At least Google ego searches turn up no one else.
I have no reservations at all against giving my full name to people who have business with me (dropping the second first name for mere convenience when not needed).
I really, really, really would prefer that people address me by my last name until I’ve gotten to know them. Very few people seem to respect that: it gets derided as rigid and old fashioned. (And I’m still weirded out when children address me by my given name. Rude. But not to them, nor to their parents, so I try to keep that in mind.)
I am also uncomfortable addressing strangers on the same terms I use for friends. Too bad, says the world; we’re all first names now!
In college everyone tended to refer to each other as [nickname or last name] from [fraternity house, team or dorm]. "Do you know Schmitty from Phi Delt? He’s dating Kelly from Alphi Phi.
One of my friends from another fraternity asked me why my house-mates called me “Smith”. I was surprised when I told him “that’s my last name”.
Anyhow, I think if “Alica” can trust the OP’s wife or partner wither their child they can trust them with their last name.
And honestly, it seems weird that y’all being so secretive about it.
I wouldn’t mind the cultural change so much if I didn’t feel it had been driven by people trying to manipulate me into buying crap by deploying the language of friendship in non-friend contexts.