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

[ThatIsNotMyNameSoWhyAreYouCallingMeThat]

It’s my birthday. 47 years on this planet. Had the same name for all of them.

Just two cards through the post, one from each of my mum’s sisters. Both of whom came to my wedding 20 years ago, where the words Mr + Mrs Hisname never appeared, and the cheques they each kindly gave us had to be corrected because neither of us changed our names. (They noticed we hadn’t cashed them and we had to tell them we couldn’t pay them in as we had no joint account (still don’t) and so no account existed that would recognise me as Sarah Hisname.

So why, 20 years on, with a few gentle reminders on the way, are the envelopes addressed to Mrs S Hisname and Sarah Myname-Hisname?

It’s very sweet of them to send cards at all, as a text would be absolutely fine, but I’m bamboozled by why anyone would go to the effort of buying and sending a card to someone and using a name they have NEVER used?

So if you do this, WHY?!

I never changed my last name to my husband's but I do like the novelty of receiving cards from some friends addressed to Mrs HisName. But I couldn't ever actually change it - the number of Es, Bs and Ps in his name make it too annoying to spell out all the time and life is too short.

This is a slight tangent from the surname issue itself, but I find it so disheartening that so many women still put up with Miss/Ms/Mrs here, and that this country persists in using “Miss” as an official title. (Is it just Britain, or all English-speaking countries?) I don’t think it’s necessarily going anywhere soon either, based on comments from some teenage girls I’ve taught. (I told them I was Ms, when they asked me; they questioned what the point of “Ms” was and I said it was the equivalent of Mr, so does not change according to marital status. Their response? “oh so Miss do you use that because you don’t want people to know you’re not married?”…)

Other countries have effectively abolished their equivalent of “Miss” for all except those still of school age/not yet adults. For e.g. in France, it’s now Madame whether married or single; in Spain, Señora; in Poland, Pani; in Italy, Signora; in Germany, Frau; and so on. I think Fräulein (“Miss”) was officially abolished as a title for adult women in the early seventies in Germany, in response to concerns raised on the grounds of feminism and the lack of a male equivalent.

Maybe we should start addressing all the unmarried men we know as “Master”, but then again they might not interpret that word correctly…(who else remembers I Dream of Jeannie?)

I don’t get the people that think you are being unreasonable?!

I am even annoyed when people address things to me using “Miss” instead of “Ms”. They should not assume your surname just because you are married and why would they not just send a card to your first name / last name.

I would be annoyed too.

Why does your husband own his surname but yours is merely your father’s?

In layman’s terms they are deliberately getting your name wrong for two decades. If they called you the wrong first name for 20 years people would clearly see the issue.

This is no different.

They might as well not bother sending her the card.

Thank you! This is exactly right. I don't get all these people who go ahhh it's fine. They might as well write an incoherent mess on the envelope/card what's the point of sending it if you're not going to send it properly l?

😂😂😂😂😂 someone actually described other women using their own name as ‘mad feminists’ .

Loving the amazing attempted GOTCHA from the woman who thinks her name is her father’s but her husband’s name is his own……what an amazing insight into her view of her own sex. We literally never own our names. Only men do.

Would be interesting to do a reverse and post about relatives repeatedly writing to ‘Miss SameName’ instead of ‘Mrs MarriedName’. I suspect it would be easier for some to grasp how rude this behaviour is.

Interestingly my grandmother married a forriner in 1934. They adopted her maiden name.

Before I got married I was Miss, because I was single. When I married I became Mrs. I agree with a pp that Ms and Miss probably need to be abandoned altogether in the same way that Master has been abandoned. People will still know if others are married because of the ring. Perhaps that practice should be abandoned too.

There's no reason why a universal adult female title would be Mrs. After all, that has connotations of a marital status. Ms doesn't. It would therefore be the more practical option.

Maiden name = the name you had when you were a maiden I.e. before you had sex I.e. before you were married.

Did you seriously think this outdated categorisation must apply to women regardless of whether they choose to change their name? I did change mine (though wish I hadn’t) but never use ‘maiden name’. It’s my previous or birth surname.

These changes were all about marital status. What are you talking about?

“It seems odd to me”

I assume you are younger than me. I am 64 and "maiden name" was the term used. It has evolved out of language and common usage. As indeed has Christian name and surname. My mind says those terms because they were ingrained but I would never use them now. It's first name, last name. Just as I address envelopes now with first name and last name and if I'm not sure first name and first name. But I was taught by my mother, at school and when I did a secretarial course that the correct address for a married couple was: Mr and Mrs John Smith. Whilst one changes with the times it is hard to delete the rules and I have only been able to change because I had children late and still work with a team in their 30s/40s. More shocking are some of the very outdated comments and observations made to my 26 year old daughter (Miss Hellebores in the classroom) by her Y9s, 10s and 11s.

Even when I divorced and reverted to my maiden name my parents still wrote “Mrs” on envelopes as I wasn’t respectable if I wasn’t a Mrs. I tried to put them right and say I am Ms.
Then my elderly dad, when I was on a call to his bank and they needed permission to deal with me, said my name, and told them I was Ms “because she is a divorced person”.
Why on earth are people so hooked up on bloody labels?

It's the same with my SILs, all of three of them spell DDs name wrong, they're nearly 18 now, still don't bother to spell it correctly

Wouldn't be bothered but DD is literally named after their own mother. How in hells name can you get that wrong? It's not even a name with weird spelling (unlike our niece who I always check I've spelled their name right).

Pisses me right off.

Lol, and when a MIL refuses to pronounce your child's name correctly despite being told exactly how to say it names and cards suddenly matter an awful lot more than the sweet thought behind doing it at all.

OP it's downright rude. No different to addressing them by their birth name.

I had a colleague who whenever he saw any document I had with my title on it would furiously cross out “Ms” and write in “Miss”.

😄

That 'fathers name' gotcha is beyond laughable but it's always on the bingo card.

Yes, like “mad feminists” is meant to make other women shut up, and apologise for trying to be acknowledged by their actual name. How dare we? It’s just a name, night?. It’s ironic, because so many women who say this to other women, and say that they are not feminists, and don’t give a shit about feminism, wouldn’t have the vote, wouldn’t have the right to a bank account, let alone a mortgage, wouldn’t have access to greater educational and career opportunities, to access for better health care, to more equal opportunities in society, or have greater agency over their own bodies etc etc, if it wasn’t precisely thanks to the work, over generations of women, of “these mad feminists”. The irony of such smugness and cognitive dissonance is unbelievable. And women who want to be known by their own names are told to “get over themselves”.

Right “my husband’s name vs. my father’s name” makes no sense.

Should be “my husband’s name vs. my name”

Or

“My father’s name vs. my father-in-law’s name”

For consistency.

My dad died in 1986.

all his banking was immediately shut down leaving my mum with nothing as she had no account in her own name with anything in. No joint accounts then.

I remember her buying something in a big department store, and the assistant saying they had a discount if she took out a credit card. Great! Only to find she had to put her husband’s details on the form and his income. No husband income, no credit card. Didn’t matter what her own income was.

lots of incidents similar. Lost count of the times we were stood in the bank, or a car dealership, or a shop arguing that they couldn’t deal with her because of the lack of husband.

in 1986. Obviously things have changed since but this is relatively recent. Memories are short and people forget that rape within marriage was legal until 1991.

i work in a technical field. Many of our customers still perceive the male employees to be more knowledgeable than the female, even when the female has specific knowledge in a certain area.

feminism matters in the same way racism matters. If you ignore it you condone it. It may not always be easy to see but it is there still.

Damned right.

Why is my father’s name his name, not my grandfather’s? Why is my husband’s name his name, not FIL? And yet my name, that I’ve had for over half a century, is somehow on loan from someone else?

In the bin with that nonsense. Rank misogyny.

I didn’t take DH surname when we got married nearly 30 years ago and I’ve never worn a wedding ring - they felt the need to advertise my marriage status. The correct way to address letters to DH and I is Dr Brown and Mrs Parker.

Surely Mrs Parker is your mother.