Changing my name has been SUCH A FAFF!

[sarahb083]

I took my husband's surname when we got married. I wasn't bothered but it was very important to him so I did it. It has been SO MUCH more of a faff than I expected. Given that this is something many, many women do, systems do not seem to be set up to accommodate it.

• Had to change mortgage documents, all bills, electoral roll, banking apps, etc. NONE of these places make it easy to change your name, and many require sending a marriage certificate through the post.
• I apply for tax free childcare every 3 months. Every 3 months, they've said they can't find me in PAYE so I have to call the childcare service and request a dropbox link so that I can send them my payslips. After 2 years of this, they've just worked out that it's because PAYE had my maiden name, despite both my employer and my childcare application having my married name.
• Changing my email at work meant I needed to change my email address for every piece of software I use. I had to contact every company and ask for my email address to be changed. Some of them seemed to have no idea what I was trying to do - surely many women have to do this?!
• Sent off for a new UK passport, along with my US passport. They sent it back because my US passport had my maiden name and they said they couldn't update my UK passport until all other passports had my new name. What if other countries have the same policy?! I had to send off my US passport, wait for it to come back, then send off my UK passport. I can't enter the US on my UK passport or vice versa, so I wasn't able to go to the US for 6+ months while this was happening.

I've spent SO MANY hours of admin and cost on something that only affects women.

@RedToothBrush That would mean being stuck with xh's very dull boring surname. I want my much more marvellous maiden name back (which I should never have bothered altering in the first place obviously)

It meant the world to my husband so I did it for him. But, it's caused me many many years of angst. I so wish it hadn't been important to him.

Decades ago it was three or four things and emails didn't exist! Driving licence, bank account, passport and doctors.

This time it's been hundreds and hundreds of unexpected things and I'm still not through it all yet as new stuff pops up. Driving me potty.

My advice to young women is keep your own name.

I changed mine many years ago, and not in the UK, but it was relatively easy. As a pp said, you don't have to do it all in one go, and I don't think I would bother about a work email - I see plenty of email addresses where the surnames don't match with the persons actual name.

I also changed my first name by deedpoll many, many, years ago - only the spelling of it, not the actual name - and that caused no issues either.

Sorry, genuine question, what are all these hundreds of unexpected things?

I'm another one who gets irritated by the whole silly trope that a woman's name is either her fathers OR her husbands, whilst men's names are their own. What a daft assertion and one that is always made by women who changed their names because of some sort of standard patriarchal reason, but then have a secret bit of feminist guilt about it and so seek to belittle the women who made a tiny bit more of a feminist decision than they did.

My name is mine. The same way my husbands is his. It's not a 'maiden name' either, it's just my original and permanent name.

Didn't mean to quote you there!! @inloveandmarried

I suspect if you had drilled down into why it was Very Important to him you would have found that simply using his name socially would have covered all of the bases.

Oh well. Hopefully you’ll only have to do it once.

I sometimes get work emails where the name doesn't match the email address with no explanation (not so bad if the footer says Jane Smith was Jones). I think it looks unprofessional and as if their IT support isn't up to scratch.

Really? I see it all the time and don't even think about it! Lord save me from those who obsess about whether or not something so trivial is 'unprofessional'.

No obsession but first impressions count.

Also, attention to detail is an important part of my role, but I realise that isn't the case for everyone.

Why do this?

Effectively you retain your professional name for social but not legal purposes. But this makes no sense. Socially you could call yourself Mrs X but legally AND professionally still be Mrs Y.

Why change it to please you husband (and/or in laws).

It makes no sense.

Why change it to please you husband (and/or in laws).

It makes no sense

Would it make more sense if somebody changed it to please themselves?

That's why I decided to keep my married name, even though I'm now divorced. I couldn't be doing with the hassle of changing everything back over to my maiden name, and I'm most certainly not paying for another passport just for a name change. Not when I only renewed it a few years ago. I have changed my surname back to my maiden name on Facebook but that's it

Yes, it is a rather common trope amongst that group!

Honestly. Not really. Unless they had a really shit name that was problematic in some way.

Otherwise I genuinely don't see the point with all the faff.