correct names and MILs

[lucyellensmum]

I get very very angry btw when mother in law sends cards to dd with her dads surname, not married see. I woudlnt mind if she was doing it by mistake but is making a point - my point being if he wants his dd to have his name then he should bloody well marry her mother! So there's a can of worms, i should point out that my MIL is lovely though and i love her but you know how it is with us mums and our MIL, just let anyone q our parenting, go on just you try it! Oh god, do i go on too much. But what do you all think, should a child bear its fathers name, and where did that come from. I have a child from a previous relationship though and wanted both children to have same surname, have been with DP for 15 years and no intention on getting married - grrr.

MIL rang my place of work one day and said to the receptionist
"Hello, can I speak to er.....Mrs...... er......Miss......er........Mrs.......er......Miss chipmonkeyfirstname chipmonkeysurname."
I think she was hoping that the receptionist would say "Goodness chipmonkey people find your name very confusing, perhaps you should use your married name!"
No such luck for her, receptionist thought she was barking!

I kept my maiden name, dds have double-barrelled combination of mine and dh's surnames. Also we gave them both the same middle name, which they could use as a surname instead of the double-barrelled one.
Oddly, we've had more trouble with my parents' side of the family accepting I've kept my name - my late Mil was fine about it (although a nightmare about other things), and all the other in-laws on dh's side are absolutely ok.
After more than 15 yrs marriage it pisses me off less than it used to when family address cards to "Mr and Mrs Dh initial dh surname" -I used to chuck any Christmas cards addressed like that into the bin.
Dds have complained about having the longest names on the school register! Apart from that, it doesn't matter a jot to them and they know they're free to choose whatever names they want to be known by.
Sometimes dh is addressed by my surname, which is quite amusing.

thelady- very interesting did not know that about the names

The tradition was similar in Ireland, Scottishmummy. My great-grandfather's first name was Johnny and my grandmother was known as Mary Johnny all her life.

We are married but each have our own names. DS does have DH's surname but there's no "should" about it. Our names just don't work double-barrelled (one surname is an adjective and the other is a noun, so either way round they sound oddly conversational) and DH's surname is easier than mine for people to get the hang of and easier to find names to go with, so it won out purely on aesthetic grounds.

DH's aunt does send my birthday cards to myfirstname DHsurname, and I'm not entirely certain whether it's on purpose or clueless. DH's grandmother does it too but I know in her case it's being nearly 90 and completely incapable of comprehending the concept of not changing one's name on marriage.

No but when you can't stand your ILs anyway it helps when you get little niggles every now and again to confirm that you are right

We get all kinds of odd combinations of our names on cards from various family members. my Aunt recently sent one to me and put Mrs dh's initial my surname. Couldn't fathom how she reached that odd combination, it's down to cluelessness rather than malice so just makes me laugh.

Interestingly, dh and I considered doing the double barrel thing but dh objected to it. I discussed it with pil and if we had gone down that route I would have had mysurname-hissurname as I think it just sounded better that way round, whereas pil assumed it would be hissurname-mysurname. So double barrelled would be ok so long as I was relegated to 2nd place.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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

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!)

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 know, terrible isnt it - but there you are. It must be all the time i spend on the internet frying my mind!

oh and im not a "doctor" not in the medical sense. My english, its not great, but on here, its shite - so what.

was actually wondering when someone was going to point that out. My bad English that is, of course most people are just too nice.

even, i have a huge gap between my eldest 16yo dd and youngest 18mo dd, huge jealousy issues, have you found it difficult too?

Now THAT would be cool! But it might confuse my MIL