# When did married women stop being addressed as Mrs. Husband'sFirstName Husband'sLastName? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 15, 2020, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-married-women-stop-being-addressed-as-mrs-husbandsfirstname-husbandslastname/928077 "2020-12-15T05:24:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-married-women-stop-being-addressed-as-mrs-husbandsfirstname-husbandslastname/928077/121 "2021-02-20T18:49:13Z")
Business correspondence is defaulting to “Dear John Smith” and “Dear Jane Smith,” to avoid the whole question of courtesy titles. The problem is that there is also a trend to default to a single name field. There are good reasons to do this, the main one being that not all cultures use the given name+family name system, and even if they do, they might not do it in the same order. However, I still want to stick to traditional alphabetization sorting, and a single name field doesn’t allow for that. I have suggested adopting a “name” field for the entire name, and an “alpha name” field to indicate which name should be the anchor for alphabetizing, but that hasn’t proven popular. ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2021, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-married-women-stop-being-addressed-as-mrs-husbandsfirstname-husbandslastname/928077/122 "2021-02-20T19:24:15Z")
I have donated money to the ACLU on several occasions, and for years when they wrote me letters asking for more, they addressed them to “Dear Lastname”, no title. Eventually they switched to “Dear Friend.” ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2021, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-married-women-stop-being-addressed-as-mrs-husbandsfirstname-husbandslastname/928077/123 "2021-02-21T00:15:29Z")
For my mother, here three separate names (Dr A Jones, Mrs J Smith, Alice) were a way of keeping her professional, social, and personal lives separate. I know more than one person who use made up or adopted names for the same purpose, so the practice hasn’t stopped, it just become less standardized. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2021, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-married-women-stop-being-addressed-as-mrs-husbandsfirstname-husbandslastname/928077/124 "2021-02-21T05:13:43Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > > [@digs](#): > > > > Every one of the teachers in my school does [go by first name]. Though once in a while we’ll have a sub or part-timer who has a doctorate and wants everyone to know it. I wonder if they know that the students mock them for it… > > Is that a K-12 school in the United States? Because in my experience, schools are the one place where Mr/Ms have really persisted. I don’t even call my colleagues by their first name unless we are friends. Sorry, didn’t see that you asked me a question (almost two months ago!). I was referring to a tech school, so high school and college age students. And all teachers go by their first names, with a _very occasional_ Mr. or Ms… annnnd, that one guy in every department that introduces himself as Dr. Stickup Mybutt. Our guy had a “Doctorate of Education (Classroom Practices)” from an online diploma shop, that’s well known for being “where teachers go to get a piece of paper so they can move up the pay scale at their school”. Which is fine, I have friends that did that. But wouldn’t Dr. Mybutt realize he’d worked less hard than his colleagues who’d slaved away at a Bachelors or Masters in their field of expertise? I’ll tell you, he fooled exactly zero students (who have great BS detectors, and for whom respect has to be earned). One of our goals is to have a relationship with the students and meet them on their level. Which I can’t do if I’m Mister Prentiss (pun on _In Loco Parentis,_ clever, eh?). Any time a student asks “Professor?” I think “Crap, I’m not reaching this kid. I need to get to know them better.” So, sorry for all this verbiage, but it’s a sore spot with me (and if I were calling my fellow teachers Mr. and Ms., I’d be keeping them at arm’s length, too.) ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2021, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-married-women-stop-being-addressed-as-mrs-husbandsfirstname-husbandslastname/928077/125 "2021-02-25T17:14:25Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I’m going to try out the “mizz” for everyone. It might work out. So far, aside from the awkwardness of using a new word, it _is_ working out. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2021, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-married-women-stop-being-addressed-as-mrs-husbandsfirstname-husbandslastname/928077/126 "2021-02-25T17:20:44Z")
Yay! and thanks ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2021, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-married-women-stop-being-addressed-as-mrs-husbandsfirstname-husbandslastname/928077/127 "2021-02-25T17:43:27Z")
When my wife and I got married (in 2010), the officiant insisted on closing the ceremony with “allow me to introduce Mr. and Mrs. Myname Mylastname.” I found it gross. That’s my _fucking_ name. She’s a whole other person with her own name. I’m sharing my whole life with her - let me at least keep my name. I also find it insulting to women for the same reasons, but I seem to be alone (or at least unusual) in finding it insulting to me. FWIW, she planned to take my name and I had no preference. She wound up forgetting to do it within the time limit that Florida gives you after marriage (I think it was 90 days), and we would have had to pay $400 or something to do it after that. So she remains Hername Herlastname and neither of us cares much. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2021, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-married-women-stop-being-addressed-as-mrs-husbandsfirstname-husbandslastname/928077/128 "2021-02-25T22:50:30Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > When my wife and I got married (in 2010), the officiant insisted on closing the ceremony with “allow me to introduce Mr. and Mrs. Myname Mylastname.” I found it gross. That’s my _fucking_ name. She’s a whole other person with her own name. I’ve always thought that was insulting. They should either drop it entirely or say, "introducing the married couple, John Doe and Chris Doe-Reymi (or however each couple wants their names to be announced. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-married-women-stop-being-addressed-as-mrs-husbandsfirstname-husbandslastname/928077.md?page=6)