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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Double-barrelled surname. To correct people?

178 replies

Daybydaybyday87 · 20/05/2020 14:42

Hello,
I know this is very insignificant in light of what's happening in the world at present but it has been an irritation of mine since my son was born. He has a double-barrelled surname (let's say Peter Smith-Jones, for example. Not his real name!) and some people consistently omit the Smith and write Peter Jones on envelopes of cards etc. It always irks me as it isn't his proper name!! When we sent birth announcement cards out we put his full name on there yet many relatives will still get it wrong. I'm always conscious of not hurting feelings and not causing offence but when it happens time and time again by the same individuals it gets a bit wearing. For cards and presents he receives he always writes a thank you note and puts from Peter Smith-Jones but yet again they just assume he's Peter Jones. If I'm not sure of someone's surname before writing a card, I'll always check in advance rather than write it incorrectly. A friend of mine has a daughter with a double-barrelled surname but I couldn't remember in which order the names were so I asked. Simple! Everyone deserves to be addressed by their proper name so why can't they make an effort to get his name right? I'm grateful for any cards and gifts he receives and don't want to appear ungrateful by correcting them on his surname but can't see any other way? We've tried telling them in a roundabout way! I have Aspergers myself so would worry about trying to correct someone politely and getting it wrong (as I often do) and coming across as rude. Anyone else have a similar issue with double-barrelled names?

OP posts:
pinkpinecone · 21/05/2020 13:20

@Pukkatea completely agree!

DryIce · 21/05/2020 13:41

Funny that those who find remembering a kids hyphenated surname (at least half of which is generally the same as your original friends, so you're already halfway there!) such a mammoth and unreasonable task, are often also the ones who expect their entire acquaintance to remember their own brand new surname after they marry. Surely it's a very similar feat?

Should I have similar objections to friends having more than one child, as there too is multiple names to remember!

peperethecat · 21/05/2020 13:47

Funny that those who find remembering a kids hyphenated surname (at least half of which is generally the same as your original friends, so you're already halfway there!) such a mammoth and unreasonable task, are often also the ones who expect their entire acquaintance to remember their own brand new surname after they marry. Surely it's a very similar feat?

Ha! Yes, 100x this.

sashh · 21/05/2020 13:49

Whats more, they'd soon kick up a fuss if the tables were turned and you addressed them incorrectly!

Which is what I would do.

peperethecat · 21/05/2020 13:49

Should I have similar objections to friends having more than one child, as there too is multiple names to remember!

They certainly shouldn't have children with more than one partner, otherwise people's heads will explode! (To be fair this is a good argument for women not changing their surnames and children taking their mother's surname as a matter of course, since the mother is likely to be the resident parent in the event of a split.)

Durgasarrow · 21/05/2020 13:54

It is annoying and it is fair to correct them every time.

YinMnBlue · 21/05/2020 14:22

What happens in the next generation when Peter Smith Jones and Emma Wilson Brown have a child together

Oh, they will almost certainly continue until each child has at least 168 surnames.

JassyRadlett · 21/05/2020 14:38

Oh, they will almost certainly continue until each child has at least 168 surnames.

Not only that, they will be legally forced to do so.

peperethecat · 21/05/2020 14:43

Whether they want to or not.

Limpetlike · 21/05/2020 14:44

And people who get anyone of the 186 surnames wrong will be given a brisk electric shock administered by the local registrar.

MrsTerryPratchett · 21/05/2020 14:46

Funny that those who find remembering a kids hyphenated surname (at least half of which is generally the same as your original friends, so you're already halfway there!) such a mammoth and unreasonable task, are often also the ones who expect their entire acquaintance to remember their own brand new surname after they marry. Surely it's a very similar feat?

I didn't change mine. Easy peasy.

angelalaland · 21/05/2020 14:48

I think there is an element of sexism in this. I didn’t take my husbands surname. I haven’t changed my name in social media, we even had a joke on our wedding day about it. But I still get called his surname all the time!!

OhCrumbsWhereNow · 21/05/2020 14:55

Having lived most of my life with an old-school double-barrelled surname that goes back many generations, I can assure you that this problem will never go away, and there will be some nice new ones to add to it.

  • People will assume you are stuck up, snobby and wealthy before they have even met you.
  • Every time you try to pick things up that are filed under surname initial, it will take twice as long as it's probably filed under the wrong one.
  • People will wonder if you intend to triple-barrel your children

My DH has a lovely short anonymous name and I was only too happy to ditch mine (that rarely fitted on forms) as fast as I possibly could. One of my sisters ditched half of it before she even left school and only uses the full version on official forms.

So, I'd recommend that you give up stressing about it now or it will drive you crazy for decades to come.

peperethecat · 21/05/2020 16:43

Yes but that was a decision you made for yourself, crumbs. It wasn't made for you by people who thought they knew better. See the difference?

NearlyGranny · 21/05/2020 18:43

People who think they know better AND who are not the child's parents!

The same sort of folk who set their own speed limits and queuing protocols, perhaps? Best relentlessly corrected and ignored whenever they try to impose their arbitrary rules.

OhCrumbsWhereNow · 21/05/2020 18:48

Yes, I opted out - after nearly 40 years of living with all the downsides of a double-barrelled name. Certainly wouldn't sign my child up for one or ever recommend it to someone.

Only thing that might change I suppose is people assuming that double-barrelled equals posh or wealthy. Looking at DD's class, it seems to only be unmarried parents that have opted for double-barrelling, but most of the kids just use the last part of the surname.

Merely pointing out to the OP that the issues will never go away, so she may as well stop worrying about it as it won't get better, there will just be new annoyances added into the mix.

Or else spend enormous amounts of energy being angry at something that won't change. It's like giving your kid some trendy spelling of a common name - they will spend 99% of their lives correcting people.

peperethecat · 21/05/2020 19:33

Do you also believe that women should all take their husband's surname on marriage, even if they don't believe in it, because a lot of other people will call you that anyway and it's easier to accept it than be angry about it, crumbs?

pinkpinecone · 21/05/2020 20:27

@OhCrumbsWhereNow Sorry to hear it caused you so much bother, but I'd say it's highly likely that the issue will go away or lessen at least.

Your view is based on growing up at a different time. If you're 40 it's around 30 years since you were a child. Times have changed quite considerably.

It's now fairly common for people to double barrel. That is only likely to increase. A very large number of children are born to unmarried parents and also many women don't feel comfortable taking a man's name.
Feminism has gone very mainstream.

OhCrumbsWhereNow · 21/05/2020 20:48

Up to every individual whether they change their name on marriage or not - where have I said otherwise? I was personally very glad to finally have a name that was a bit more mainstream, easy to spell and anonymous and don't miss my old one at all.

I speak merely from the experience of living for well over 30 years with a double-barrelled surname, and over a decade without one... which makes me quite well qualified on the subject.

It's adults that had the issues over it, not children - I was never really teased as a child by other children for my surname at all. The prejudice was all from adults. I dealt with a fair amount of abuse and mockery from people I had never met and who knew nothing about me, based solely on my surname - jokes about my servants and whether the chauffeur was waiting, and snide suggestions that I wouldn't be short of a bob or two. When you have adults saying "Oooh, la-di-dah" when your name is called in the doctor's surgery it's not great as a teenager or even as an adult. It wasn't even as if either of the two surnames were anything particularly fancy, and the only tiara I own was £9.99 from Claire's!

I do agree that it's now more common to do so - at least 8 of the children in my DD's primary class have double-barrelled, and I really hope that things have changed.

That still doesn't stop the problems with being constantly filed under the wrong thing or being called the wrong name, or only by half of it. So if those things are going to be a source of stress, the OP may as well get used to it.

ScarletZebra · 21/05/2020 20:51

We went for this new fangled idea of double-barrelling 37 years ago. Shock

The ILs were very bad at "remembering" our name until DC1 kicked off at them and said that wasn't her name so could they get it right, after yet another birthday card addressed to Miss X Hisname. She was little enough at the time to get away with it, and wouldn't you know it, they managed to get it right after that.

My DC are all 30+ and none of them has dropped a name. DS is married and DDIL took his whole surname (her choice, not his). Our DGC have our whole surname. I suspect that if the others marry they would make their own decision about what to call themselves, just like we did. The choice is theirs. I think I'm a bit more grown up than my ILs and can manage to remember whatever they come up with.

OP I suggest you tell them straight and directly. It's the only way it will stop.

LisaSimpsonsbff · 21/05/2020 21:22

I always enjoy threads like this. My son has a double barrelled name (DH'sname-myname) and everyone I know has had no trouble remembering this and nor do they find it odd or surprising - so I enjoy remembering that this choice absolutely infuriates the most pettily ridiculous kind of person. I particularly like all the comments that it's 'common' - I imagine all these Hyacinth Bouquets sniffing.

I would like to know what the overlap is between people who have strong opinions what other people's children's surnames and the other group I regard with equally bemused amazement, people who can be bothered to give a fuck about people parking outside their house. I would guess that the Venn diagram is a circle.

peperethecat · 21/05/2020 21:23

Up to every individual whether they change their name on marriage or not - where have I said otherwise?

But it's also up to the individual whether they double barrel or not. What's the difference?

I speak merely from the experience of living for well over 30 years with a double-barrelled surname, and over a decade without one... which makes me quite well qualified on the subject.

And speaking from experience as a woman who chose not to change her name on marriage, literally all the arguments you have made against double barrelling could also be made against keeping your name when you marry. People get your name wrong - either carelessly because they assume you will have taken your husband's name and can't be arsed to check, or deliberately because they think you should have changed your name like everybody else does and who do you think you are, making some sort of feminist standpoint?

When I was trying to decide whether to change my name or not I read an article listing the pros and cons and explaining how each option worked. The author explained that if you change your name on marriage you have to produce your marriage certificate as proof of your entitlement to use your married name and then you can change the name on your passport and driving licence. It explained that if you want to have a passport in your married name to travel on your honeymoon you can get one in advance but it won't be valid until the date of your marriage and in the meantime you won't have a valid passport. Alternatively you can keep your existing passport until it expires but then you need to remember to book any travel tickets in your maiden name. Obviously changing your name on your passport and driving licence is an administrative burden and costs you money. But when you've done that you can contact your bank, utilities providers and everyone you have any kind of account with and provide evidence of your name change so you can be referred to by your married name.

In the part which describes not changing your name, it says you don't need to do anything at all. You get married and apart from that everything stays the same.

The article nonetheless concluded by saying that the simplest and easiest thing to do is to change your name to your husband's name on marriage because that is what most people do.

When I read the article I thought the conclusion was fucking ridiculous. You've literally just described all these tedious things you need to do if you change your name and said that you don't need to do anything at all if you don't change your name. How can you possibly then conclude that the easiest thing to do is change your name?

But having got married and not changed my name, I now often think it would have been simpler to change it. Half my medical records are in the wrong name because the hospital can't get their heads round the fact that I don't use my husband's surname. People send me things which don't fit in my letterbox and so I have to pick them up from the post office only they've addressed them to Mrs Hisname and I don't have any ID in that name.

If only I could just forget about all my pesky feminist principles it would indeed have been much easier to take my husband's name, and then I wouldn't have a lifetime of getting annoyed with people when they call me by the wrong name.

These are all the same arguments that you are making in favour of not double barrelling.

They're also very similar to arguments you could make about not fighting for women to have the right to vote, or for equal pay, or for abortion rights, or for marital rape to be illegal.

It's always easier to accept the status quo than to fight against it. That's not a good argument for doing it though.

pinkpinecone · 21/05/2020 22:26

@LisaSimpsonsbff prob also the type who think people with certain names can't be lawyers. You may have a law degree from Cambridge and an absolutely brilliant brain, but if your name is Daisy (or even worse something foreign sounding) you'll never get a good job. Oh and you have to put the long name on the birth certificate or it's basically abuse.

sashh · 22/05/2020 06:16

They certainly shouldn't have children with more than one partner, otherwise people's heads will explode!

Reminds me of the 'Kevins' joke.

Brefugee · 22/05/2020 06:40

False double barrelled names are so very pretentious.

women's names getting written out of history is so very patriarchy.