To get annoyed with family and friends not knowing my name

[FartleBarfle]

I think I am being oversensitive but I can't help getting bothered every time people get my name wrong. I am married but didn't take my husband's name, which I know is not conventional but I thought it was more common these days. If someone I know gets married, I always ask if they plan to take the name rather than make an assumption.

Many people just changed my name in their heads and cannot seem to change it back. Bare in mind it's still the same on social media, email addresses, and all my formal documents. I do tell anyone that asks what my name is but people just presume.

This has caused embarrassment for example at my brother in law's wedding at an exclusive venue, I arrived separately to my husband and was asked my name on arrival. I was told I wasn't on the list. I didn't realise it was done by surname as I couldn't see the list but once we realised the mistake I was made to feel stupid for not saying my husband's surname. I hadn't even considered it!

My own father has booked tickets for a table for me under my husband's surname (when he wasn't even there) which caused confusion as I was just told it was under my surname.

I have also had a package sent to me that I had to collect with ID which I did not have in that name.

And now we have just received a wedding invitation where they have spelled my first name wrong and put my husband's surname - the RSVP is already prepopulated, so it feels like I'm being difficult to contact them separately to say that it's not my name.

Why can't I just accept that some people will just call me by my husband's name whatever I say and move on? I feel like I am being irrational and should just go by either, but it really bothers me when this happens. Does anyone have any advice or experience the same? Is it being petty to correct people all the time?

[quote FartleBarfle]@TomHardyandMe

Hahaha that's brilliant! I'm keeping Dave in my back pocket!

I do think overall here, the issue is that you don't realise people are getting your name wrong until they send you something. They don't normally address you by your surname. So it leaves me wondering whether to contact them to correct them or just leave it. That's why I feel awkward about it. I wouldn't feel embarrassed about correcting someone who called it to my face![/quote]
For me, the awkwardness comes from it being nice that they send a card to mark occasions, but they still don't bother to use my actual name on the card. It seems almost ungrateful to say thanks for the card, but my name is... I don't want to upset anyone by pointing it out, but they clearly don't care about upsetting me.

I'm very close to my due date and our children will have both my surname and my husband's surname. If they continue to ignore my name when it comes to my children, then I will really have to say something. It is so rude to be erased by them.

The other thing, of course, is that some people just aren’t very observant; it isn’t necessarily down to a judgement of your choices. They just assume things are a certain way and simply don’t notice that you use a different name to the one they think you do. My DD, for example, has a name that can be spelt in various ways. She is the less common variant - think Isobel rather than Isabelle. So many of my friends and family write “Isabelle”, even though we’ve mentioned it/ always write cards from “Isobel”. It’s just a lack of attention to detail sometimes. It’s going to be the same with surnames for some people, I’m sure.

This happens to me, too - mainly from husband’s family who know perfectly well that I’ve added their surname on to mine (not double barrelled, though).

At Christmas FIL was telling us how annoyed he was that someone had misaddressed him on the envelope of a Christmas card. I was like HELLO YES ISN’T IT ANNOYING WHEN PEOPLE DON’T USE YOUR ACTUAL NAME.

people never remember my christian name, it takes literally months.. and its rarely spelt correctly.

I gave up correcting people.

I use my married name for passport etc but I use my own for work as I had already spoken at conferences and published so it would have been weird to have changed it. Works fine but inlaws don’t like it. I’ve taken work calls for university clearing etc when at theirs and there is muttering when I give my name - so I use it all the more. My DF loves it though and addresses anything just to me as Dr maiden surname.

Yanbu.
I have up fighting it. DH family especially assume I changed. They must think there's trouble in paradise though as none of my social media 'changed' so they probably think I've left it to make affairs easier

I'm also too fat for my wedding ring atm so I'm sure that's fueling some gossip.

It’s not that new...I didn’t change my name when I married 30 years ago.

I didn't change my name either but never had problematic confusion over it. The inlaws are salty about it but they deal with it by leaving my surname off everything I did have to get the name sign thing changed at our wedding do though as they'd assumed I had taken dh's name.

I don't have a problem with clearly telling people 'oh that's because I didn't change my name when I got married, they've given you my husband's name, not mine' or similar. Distant relatives making errors on cards doesn't bother me.