correct names and MILs

Have asked jeeves - as usual jeeves hasn't got a clue. Keep thinking of krypton, but that's superman!

Well the current one is scottish, or so DH tells me

lucyellensmum - sorry to jump in here, don't normally get involved in these things, but I genuinelyy don't think BFM meant any offence, think she was just implying you may be a time lord!

Ds has dp's surname because he is the last of that line whereas my wider family is full of small children all bearing my surname. That was an easy decision to make.

Dp and I will answer to just about any combination of our surnames, no longer bothered. My mother, however, is always keen to address everyone properly, so when ds was in hospital she sent us a Get Well Soon card and addressed it to me - on the basis that I was staying there with him, and I was the one who could read. Of course, none of the nurses had a clue who Ms [Initials] Matonic was, since ds was the patient and booked in under his different surname. The card did finally make its way to us, just as we were leaving (I think I had to sign something and someone spotted my not-very-common surname and put two and two together).

And that is about the one and only time that ds having a different surname to me has posed any problem at all. I keep waiting for the time when, I am told, it becomes an admininstrative hassle, but it hasn't happened yet.

We were going to both use my surname when we got married, until the ILs had a similar reaction to Rosaluxembourg's ILs. Instead we each used our own name then double barrelled when DD was born. It has been a real pain. Our records are sometimes filed under one name and sometimes another, and people take it upon themselves to shorten it. We now all use just the first bit- my name- so when we had our most recent baby 3 weeks ago I suggested we just give her one surname. Nobody agreed with me. DH said it wasn't fair to her to have a different name to everyone else (there is a gap of 15-21 years between her and the older children), so we have another 18 years of messing about.

MIL manages to get our name right but the rest of her family sends stuff to DHname. Fair enough when writing to him but I am not Mrs DHname, and DD (21) gets really offended at being addressed as Miss DHname because she doesn't use that surname at all.

It is downright rude to continue to address someone with the wrong name.

I did change my name when I married, as I was desperate not to be called the same as my dad any more. It was then a bit odd when I divorced xh and married again - i changed my name again despite saying I would never go through all the hassle, as having xh's surname would just have been too strange.

Have to be honest and say I like the convenience - once someone knows one of our surnames, they know the surname of the whole family and that's it. My name, IMO, is Choosy - whether I'm Floosy or Vixen or Dominatrix doesn't bother me that much. I feel less political about this having found out that in many societies women don't change their name on marriage, but have less legal and social freedom (now too nervous to say which in case I'm wrong!)

Edmund Burke was a great statesman. Nothing wrong with that name. In fact, what's in a name? A rose by any other .....

One of my schoolfriends was a Burke , he couldn't order pizza with his real name, had to make one up.

God, Burke is so common around here, never occurred to me people in the UK might think it was a terrible name. I can see why, though!

That's a point, my dh's name is awful, worse than Nutter or Burke, there is no way on God's green earth I would take his name. I was determined to keep my name before I met him though.

My sister kept her 'maiden' name (what a horrid saying, maidenname - does a man have a surname to denote his virginity status??!) for professional purposes but soon dropped it as everyone else changed it on her behalf (possibly as she has extremely militant opinions on most things whether you ask for them or not)! Now she's apparently getting divorced/possibly remarried this year I wonder which name, chocolate100maidenname, oldmarried name or newmarried name she'll use? .

If I got married I would probably adopt my husbands name depending on what it was - Burkes or Nutters need not apply . My DD would make her own decision about her surname.

I think there it's fine to keep your own name, or take dh's according to your choice, but I do laugh at friends who bang on about keeping their own name for their feminist principles and then you find that actually all their bank details are in the dh's name. People should be consistent about it.

Kimi - I'm interested to know why you think changing the woman's name to the husband's is how it should be done? Do you mean how it should be done for you personally, or for every married woman?

I took my husbands name when we marred and both out children also have his name ( I thing this is how it should be done) Sadly DH1 and I have split up, My new DP knows that if I marry hm I will be keeping DH1s name and just adding DPs name so it will be double barrelled, however I will put new name first then DH1s so I will be mrs newpartner 'DH1.
That way the children and I will still have the same name.