My mother changed her name back to her pre-marital name a few years back now.
She’s the most darling person I know. She seems to have gotten on many charities’ phone lists over the years. When we’re hanging out together and the phone rings, this is what I all too often hear as her side of the conversation:
‘Hi, yes, that’s not my name though… It used to be Mrs Oldname, now it’s Ms Name… I mean you’ve got my details wrong… Actually, I donated some money when you called me before and the operator promised me they’d changed my record then. And this has happened before… My name has changed, can you remove my old name from your system?… I think you do really good work, it’s not that… I just want you to have my name right because this is getting- … I know charities aren’t a part of the do not call scheme, I’m asking-’
You’re asking the woman for money. Don’t deny her identity while doing so.
One organisation with which I was registered required me to yearly fill out a form listing my personal details, including my parents’ names. This was primarily aimed at correcting any out of date information they might have on file. When my mother changed her name and title, I submitted these changes. I did it again and again. In letters, in forms, in everything, the organisation ignored these changes. I made a fuss every time. For years. Eventually I ended up yelling, tearful, in public. Someone nipped off to the registration office and got the records to reflect my mother’s actual name. But she was still listed as a Mrs, not her preferred Ms. She probably still is.
None of this shit happened when she changed her name upon marriage.
How dare this amazing, wonderful being claim her own identity?
Note: I got her to read this through before publishing. An objection: ‘Can a lady say “shit”?’ My response to this sort of thing is always ‘well, I’m a lady, and I [whatever], so yes.’ It’s one of our running jokes.
Note II: Regarding the title, yes, I know it’s a mishmash of quotes. I went to drama school, I can do what I like.
My mom has a hyphenated last name, and a doctorate, which means people almost NEVER get her name right on the first try.
I’ve also had the experience here in the US where I legally changed my last name, called up a credit card to update it, and they said “Was it via marriage? No? Then you’ll have to send us a copy of the ruling and $20.” Apparently if I said I’d gotten MARRIED, it would have been instant and free.
I still haven’t fixed it. Douches.
Great post. It’s so true.
Another naming problem I find common: my first name is clearly female, there is no variation of it (that I know of) used as a male name. I so often get letters at work addressed The Editor, Firstname Lastname on the envelope and then Dear Sir on the letter. I imagine figuring out they’re writing to a woman and adjusting their habits accordingly would make their heads explode or something.
It is amazing how entitled people feel to simply disregard your legal name. Like it’s just this minor thing and they Know Better.
Oh names. Yes. I’ve changed mine twice. And I have a first name that no-one can pronounce. I love that people correct me on the pronunciation and spelling of my name.
I mostly didn’t have more trouble changing it back than when I got married, except for the shares that I hold in my married name. They wanted me to provide a copy of the marriage certificate. I no longer had it since it had been surrendered in the divorce process, so it would have cost me money to get a new copy. It probably would have cost more than the shares were worth. So they are still in my married name. Since I have the right to use all of the names I have ever had, I just sign my old name to deal with them. They were rather annoyed when I said I would do that.
I hate the titles. I hate being forced to choose between Miss, Ms and Mrs. I leave them off whenever I can, and when I can’t, I oscillate between Miss and Ms. Maybe I should start my own religion so I can use Rev….
I am thinking I shall change everything to Dr. sometime soon. :-) I like the idea of a non-gendered title, if only for the occasional moments of ‘huh? wut?’ it might produce ;-)
Ugh, how appalling.
I still get called Mrs Husbandsname all the time, but lately he’s been getting a bit of Mr Wifesname because our daughter shares my surname rather than his. It makes us both laugh – possibly slightly louder at my end.
My mother is a doctor and uses only her first name (she did use her father’s surname for years but has never used my dad’s). She and my dad work at the same hospital, have the same colleagues, and you’d think the people she’s worked with on a regular basis for more than a decade would know her name by now.
And yet they still send wedding invites and things with “Dr. and Mrs. *his surname*” on them, managing to deny her identity and her career simultaneously. It’s pretty special.
I hate being forced to choose between Miss, Ms and Mrs. I leave them off whenever I can, and when I can’t, I oscillate between Miss and Ms.
Wasn’t Ms. created so that women wouldn’t have to be forced to identify as Miss and Mrs.?
Maybe I’m getting my history wrong here.
Society is stuck in its sexism unfortunately, and anything that goes outside the norm of woman-changes-to-man’s-name-in-marriage will always be challenged, if not by relatives, then by businesses or charities. Men (the few men who do) who want to change to their wives’ names have a tough time doing so (a lot of legal hoops to jump through).
Arwyn: ‘Apparently if I said I’d gotten MARRIED, it would have been instant and free.’ It’s the same here! Totally ridiculous.
shiny: It was like that at the newspaper I used to work for, too. The editor’s name was Melissa.
A. Y. Siu: Happily, where I live the name changing process is gender neutral – the culture not so much.
Everyone, thanks for your comments and stories! :)
A.Y. Siu: Yes, Ms was created for that reason, as I remember it. I just don’t like it aesthetically, which I concede is silly. But I don’t like trying to pronounce it (always sounds like drunk bee when I say it). I object to being forced to use a title at all.
I should point out that I have no such qualms when other people use whichever title they want – it’s just another part of my label phobia.
And WP, being able to use Dr is the only motivation for doing a PhD that I could ever have! :)
Ariane, you can become a Reverend on-line at, for example, Universal Life Church (http://www.themonastery.org/?destination=ordination)—I did! On acceptance, you can print out a certificate, suitable for framing. If you register with the authorities, you can even perform weddings. Just don’t try to get cute with the IRS.
Ok I’ve mentioned this one elsewhere but it drew little comment.
My wife [pardon the possessive but it may be directly relevant for once]
wrote to a federal govt. minister [COALition] about a particular issue a few years ago.
In due course she received a response, quite detailed and therefore not a standard response but directly related to the substance of her letter.
Probably written by a flunky and signed by the minister.
A couple of weeks later we went to our post box [we live in the country] and there was a letter for me from the minister.
Same letter. Exactly. Verbatim.
But my wife has a different name to me.
So how did they get from her name to mine to be able to send a letter?
OK I know they can do it by various means but the real crunch is WHY?
There was no ostensible relationship between her letter and my name and me, on outward appearances her letter had nothing at all to do with me.
What set of thoughts caused a set of actions that led to them sending me that letter, note, not a standard fits-all-purposes reply but one tailored to the substance of her issues?
Hey! So glad I’m not the only one who is manifestly annoyed by the naming issue and people without the courtesy to get it right.
It is the most ludicrous thing anyway that women change their names on marriage. Men don’t.
In the Netherlands a woman keeps the surname on her birth certificate for all important documentation: passport, taxation, driver’s license. If she’s so inclined she can have people call her by her married name, but it makes no difference if she’s married or not when she needs to id herself. And that’s how it should be.
Any female from about the age of 18 is addressed with the equivalent of Mrs (Mevr.), but it doesn’t signify marital status.
I get comments all the time when it is realized I use my own name. Are you a feminist or something? Do you have a problem with being married? Why don’t you want to use your husband’s name?
What I do when I get called Mrs husbandsname I politely explain they must have the wrong number. Mrs husbandsname doesn’t live here.
As for the Miss, Mrs or Ms issue. I dislike all 3. When asked which one I prefer I tell they can pick one. Why should I be Ms? What’s that anyway? I don’t want you to know I’m married/not married? Ridiculous.
hannah’s dad, I don’t know what’s going on there!
Hey, Anansi. I understand why some people would want to change their names eg family identity and one’s name is probably one’s dad’s anyway. But the gender disparity is really something! I still get called Miss a lot, which really annoys me – I like the ambiguity and the consistency of Ms. Thanks for sharing that info on how things are in your part of the world!
From a slightly different angle – I still occasionally get mildly scandalized looks from people when, usually due to archaic bank-security-question procedures, I have to tell them my surname IS my mother’s “maiden” name.
Haha! That’s fantastic.
I never realized the intense politics surrounded people changing their names until I got to North America myself. In Malaysia, names aren’t changed to reflect marital status, honorifics are. Most older women are called Madam (their own surname), or in Malay, Puan (their own name). “Mrs” is used when there’re a surname and an obvious husband involved.
I remember my friend who got married in Australia came to visit my family, and asked my dad about name-changing procedures in Malaysia. He gave her a “wtf?” look and asked, “what? Why? If you change your name on one govt document, you’ll have to do it for all of them. Why on earth would you go through all that trouble?”
My first name is a common nickname with an unusual spelling, and it is not my nickname, it is my name. I’ve spent my entire life correcting people. Last week I received an Email with my name spelled three different ways – one on the salutation, one in body, one in the attached task list.
Then I didn’t change my surname upon marriage, which further increased the confusion. I mostly go by “Dr”, which gets me out of the Mrs/Ms thing. I don’t mind being called Mrs. Sam when we’re involved in family events, but the day I showed up to participate in Career Day and was introduced as Mrs. Sam, I raised a fuss. Grrr.
Ach, don’t even get me started on the idiotic minefield of married names. Just a few weeks ago I fell into the disorienting pit of “hey, would you change your name if we got married?” with my boyfriend of 10+ years. I thought he was cool, so I was totally unprepared for how badly it went. So many old tropes! There was “what about the children?” and “not changing it is pretentious” and “hell no, I’d never change my name! That’s ridiculous!”The only bright spot was that he never actually broke out that “you’d change it if you really loved me!” Thing is, I never felt particularly militant about it before, but now I’m like, eff that. I don’t respond well to presumption.
@hannah’s dad:
I suspect they got from your wife to you via your shared address. I don’t know why they’d bother, though… Does the agency in question take donations or maintain a members list? If so, maybe they contact everyone in a household in the hopes of getting money/memberships?
Ugh, yeah…
I always knew I wanted to keep my last name when I got married. For a short time my mate and I discussed making up a new name entirely, or him taking mine, but then we decided that was too much trouble.
Now, I love my last name! It’s really unique, and that’s one of the reasons I kept it–there’s a benefit to being an artist with a recognizable name (plus he’s an artist too, and several years older, so I try to avoid the “artist’s less talented wife” assumption). But it’s also really long and “ethnic” sounding. My mate and I got engaged some three years before we got married, and that was three years of people going “Oh, I see why you’re marrying him!” whenever they found out what my surname is. WTF!
And of course, I still get letters from people who know I’ve married addressed to Mrs. Hisname or Mrs. Hisname-myname
I am a person, not a possession! Grr! Rantrant!
Wow, thanks for your stories, everyone!
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