Do you do this? If so, WHY???????!!!!!!

Is there a way a woman can want to be addressed correctly without it being attention seeking and if so, could you explain what it is?

I get the same, Mrs Hisname rather than Dr Myname
Whether family or friends I take it as they’re lack of respect and anxiety at trying to accommodate things outside their own (antiquated) experience

Literally all you are being asked to do is remember someone's name.

A woman wants to be called by her own name, and specifically this isn't about a nickname, it's not about supplanting Jenny for Jennifer, but about not being called someone else's name, where there are historical references for her of the history of women, and she's made to feel small. She's told she needs to get over herself, that she has a chip on her shoulder, etc. How can people not understand that it's 100% ok that this matters to her, and that it doesn't to you.

I agree. I'm a woman who retained my own family name on marriage. A number of my friends also did this. A number didn't.

As I suspect most people do, I can remember perfectly well what these people are called. Whatever my personal beliefs about the politics of patrilineal naming conventions, they are just that: mine. My friends and family members don't need to have some some petty, mean-minded point made against them in addressing them by a name I know perfectly well (and they know I know) isn't theirs. What this implicitly says is that I know better than you do, and that I'm right and you're not.

Why do this? Why would I knowingly and deliberately want to piss my friends off on their birthdays or other special occasions? I care about them.

That should say something about the motives of the dicks (yes, they are being dicks) who persist in doing this.

It's annoying when people can't be bothered to write your actual name though, if you've never been Mrs X then why people feel the need to call you that is annoying.

No, I'm saying the cheques had myfirstname hissurname and the bank account had myfirstname mymaidenname. It was Nationwide and they might have asked for my marriage certificate, I can't remember as I don't have a good memory (hence not remembering who has or hasn't changed their names). But I didn't need to change my name to deposit the cheques.

There are 2 parts to OPS post, the cheques which I get, and the surname on the envelope of the birthday card which I don't get.

It's just a surname, I don't remember everyone's surname even if they're not married, then there's the remembering if they took their husbands surname or not. I also don't remember all my friends and families middle names, because they are not important, what's important is their first name which is what's actually used in day to day life.

the irony is that they would consider you the rude one for assuming they were, and calling them old when they are in their fifties....

You see, I read it as someone who thinks they are making some grand feminist point and want to draw attention to it. Change your name or don't change your name - it's no big deal, no-one but you is bothered and the constant need to point it out is attention-seeking.

I get cards addressed to my husband's surname misspelled, so it's not addressed to anyone!

My aunt gives me cash now because I think she sees it as slightly improper to address a cheque to my name.

His aunt sends me "Mrs K" stuff when I'm in fact still Miss P. And the fact that our son is double-barrelled just blows some people's minds.

I have had a number of cheques rejected by the bank because the name is wrong, my first name, husband's surname. Perhaps it's because in your case it is your maiden name which used to be your name whereas in mine it is a name that has never been mine. And OP mentioned cheques that she wasn't able to deposit, this is ongoing incorrect naming by 50 year old women that she has corrected. It's basic courtesy to get a person's name right.

They are friends with my in-laws. Get my title and first name and surname wrong. I am X my surname and they send it to Mrs Y Husbands surname. Y being husbands first name. They know and do this to make a point that they don’t like me. So all the people saying suck it up, they are in their 50’s FFS and have been told and know,they just don’t like you.

I never changed my name when I got married and my aunts and some of my cousins still address me with his surname even though we have been divorced now for more years than we were married!! And to top it all, his surname is Spanish so linguistically not as easy to spell or remember than the surname they have known me by (and which is the same as theirs) for most of my life...

I deposited checks to Mrs husbandsname into my account with my maiden name without any issues. But I can see how practical things like this would be annoying, but the surname on an envelope I don't see the big deal about. I often had my maiden name misspelled, and now get post to my maiden name, my misspelled maiden name, my husband's surname, or double barrelled. And no I don't find any of them annoying as long as they get to me.

They are in their fifties.

Yes people consistently getting your name wrong is sometimes upsetting, sometimes annoying., makes you feel unimportant

. But since I suspect I could easily make similar mistakes I let it ride.
Indeed at work one guy would get more upset than I ever did at the guy who always got my name wrong.

Why does it happen?

If I know something is wrong and I can write it immediately into my address book then fine - but my head doesn't remember somethings well at all - tell me how your name sounds and I may not be able to repeat it back to you half an hour later. I can remember other stuff fine but word sounds and letter orders are both very hard for some reason. So why - because different peoples brains work differently an what's easy for one to remember is hard for someone else

added to which, if it had been a parcel and not a card, or sent signed for, and nobody was home it might very well not have arrived, because OP wouldn't have had any ID in the 'wrong name' to collect it from the post/sorting office!

Indeed.

If you've been married once then your surname can probably only be one of two things. But you might have been born on any one of 366 different days of the year.

If you can remember when my birthday is you can definitely remember what my name is.

They are in their 50s.

So you can remember all these people's birthdays', out of a possible 365 days, but not their surnames, out of a possible two options?

And you apparently know and care about them enough to send a card but not to spent two seconds sending them a text saying 'Btw - sorry having a dozy moment, are you Emma Jones or Emma Davies?'

My point, thank you for re expressing it so charmingly.

what the fuck does 'the card arrived' have to do with the price of fish?
It would have arrived had it been addressed to Charles Windsor because post is delivered according to address, not name!

I don't believe that for one instant. Any woman who has ever married and changed her name will know that it's a hassle, and requires particular input, forms, certificates and proof of ID to get passports, bank cards etc, changed.

If you do nothing, you retain your own family name. That is the default option.

The oft-trotted-out protestation that 'your husband's name is your legal name' is, IMO, merely wilful, wide-eyed, pretended 'ignorance'. They know fine well. They're just trying to put other women in what they see as their 'place'.

I was married in the noughties. I honestly thought that in 2024 we'd have moved beyond these antediluvian attitudes, but as this thread proves, they're still alive and well. In fact, in many ways I think we have gone backwards and that Gen X women are more likely to have retained their own family names than some of those coming after.

Your guess is as good as mine as to why.

Surely the possibility of needing to "hand back" your husband's surname on divorce is a good reason not to take it in the first place.

(Utter nonsense, of course, nearly all the women I know who have divorced after a long marriage have kept their married name even if they wish their ex husband would burn in hell. But my auntie who is now divorced and has kept her married name told me she regrets changing it in the first place.)

It's so sexist to say that a woman's name is really her father's name so it doesn't matter if she takes her husband's name though. Nobody ever tells men that their name is really their father's name.

If it was your name when you were born, it is yours.

If it's a name you have subsequently chosen to adopt, it's also yours.

Let's stop telling women for whatever reason that their names aren't their own, and call them by the name they have chosen to use, whether we agree with that choice or not.

My birthday too today, so happy birthday OP 🎊

The card thing, well I'm just happy to get one!