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 didn't change my name on marriage. My parents have difficulty accepting this, even though it's meant I've kept their (much more unique) name.

I wondered how my birthday cards would be addressed, but I think even they feel so weird about it that they just deliver it in person in my first name only! 😂

It would annoy me too though, especially after 20 years of it!

(When we got married we did get some cheques in Mr & Mrs Hisname. We had a joint account though so I took the cheques to the bank and also took the marriage certificate, just in case they needed it, and they didn't care - I felt like they should have cared a little bit that we were paying in cheques with one of the names wrong, but they didn't!)

I'll call anyone whatever they want.
I have my own name, and when I got married we both agreed to take/keep my name. Sometimes people assume, because I'm married, I'm "Mrs". It doesn't bother me.

Its an old thing, back in the day the wife was to take the husbands surname, some people think that's just the way it is

At least they haven't got your first name wrong. About 40 years on this planet and relative changed my name to Lisa lol, would have been closer with Vivian

That just makes me so desperately sad for your mum, and for all the women like this, that had no power over their own lives, because they were still considered essentially the property of their husbands, who in turn were the only ones that were allowed to make the decisions. With the name thing, this is exactly what it originally boils down to. The moment you married Mr John Smith, you immediately lost your name, a massive part of your identity, you lost agency over a great chunk of your life, because in that moment you became Mrs John Smith, who was now in charge of your life, and now you were properly. So sad.

And now you were his property*.

You’re not though. You can use the name if you want to, but it’s absolutely not compulsory.

And I would see that as kowtowing to the unenlightened.

I’m also Gen X.

One aunty broke the glass ceiling in a male-dominated industry. But has apparently forgotten that now.

It’s the use of Mrs (wife of) that confuses that.

Mr Parker’s dad is usually Mr Parker too. He’s never been married to his father either.

Count yourself lucky - I get cards to my husband and I from an old neighbour of his who came to our wedding. She gets my first name totally wrong - i've decided shes crackers and just laugh ( She's knocking 80). I mean it might vaguely sound the same but its definitely not right

I never meant to say that—sorry if that’s how it came across. I’ve got no problem with anyone wanting to keep their own name. I was just saying my own personal experience and how I felt about it at the time. And why I decided not to.
My point was, one of us had to give in—because there’s no way I wanted to inflict a double barrelled surname on my children. I could’ve kept my name and given the DCs his(I don’t think he would have minded this at all, the argument was more about what we would call any potential kids than me taking his[or his father’s!] name) but I didn’t want a different surname to my children.
It was my given name, but taken from my father(as his and most people’s, in the uk at least, have been, historically). I looked at it rationally and I didn’t want to lose my relationship (I wonder if it would have come to that if I hadn’t backed down?😂) over a name that had been given to me as a direct result of this tradition I was trying to end. It seemed paradoxical to me at the time.
I have told the DCs about this weird time in mine and their dad’s lives and we have a laugh about it.
As a couple we rarely argue, but if we do—it’s ALWAYS me that backs down. I’m not saying this is right—each to their own—but I have a very happy life, a supportive husband and a beautiful family. I don’t know if I would have these things if I had insisted on passing my maiden name on to any children we might have had. I am going to ask DH tonight what he would’ve done if I hadn’t backed down. We have occasionally talked about it since, and he always apologises for his bloody-mindedness, but I guess that’s easy for him to do after he got his own way.

Would your husband really have ended the relationship if he did not get to brand you with his name?!

Although I think it’s a stupid tradition I get some people like adhering to tradition. But if a man was INSISTENT that his wife had to have his name I would assume he would have other views on gender that….well each to their own but I would assume he was a bit of a chauvinist.

Edit: I misread - you are talking about passing on names to children. Yep I think that‘s murkier as children don’t have a name and need one.

I get some women want the same name as their kids but I wonder if that’s because that’s what they are used. That concept never bothered me but that’s because I have never shared a surname with my mother. Maybe I would have felt differently had I done.

I’m your husband too but in the opposite way. There was no way I was giving up my name for a man and there was no way that the children I give birth to weren’t going to have my name. So they have a double barrelled surname because that felt like the only compromise.

No—he wouldn’t have minded if I had kept my name—it was if he didn’t get to brand the kids with his name. I wanted to brand them with mine.
Like I said, I could have kept my name but I didn’t want to be my name and the kids be his name. I wanted the same name as my children and so did he.

Good for you!
I just couldn’t hack double barrelled for my family. In my mind I thought— what about when the DCs have kids and both sides are equally attached to their own double barrelled names? Where does it end? Someone has to back down sometime. Unfortunately in my case it was me. I’m very happy for you that you didn’t 👍🏻♥️

I had the same issue with my mother ignoring the reality that I hadn't changed my name to Mrs Cat - I think they are just set in their ways and/or don't approve of your decision or don't believe that it is real because obviously the universe would disappear in a puff of smoke if women didn't change their names when they got married ! It's frustrating and if I had had a daughter who changed her name after marriage , although it might have surprised me, I would never have sent a letter addressed to the wrong name - but I can only assume they just don't see it that way ! Yes been there cashing in cheques with my marriage certificate !

Yeah, but you've not been married to a Parker. Mrs doesn't just say you're married, it says who you are or have been married to.

This was an old fashioned practice when I got married 35+ years ago. Yanbu

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. There were joint accounts in 1986, I had one.

I just couldn’t hack double barrelled for my family. In my mind I thought— what about when the DCs have kids and both sides are equally attached to their own double barrelled names? The Portuguese I think drop one. So while they all have a lot of names, it doesn't increase exponentially.

Portuguese and Spanish. Drop one, pass one on.

I could’ve kept my name and given the DCs his(I don’t think he would have minded this at all, the argument was more about what we would call any potential kids than me taking his[or his father’s!] name) but I didn’t want a different surname to my children.

I’d have said he could brand them with his name when he grew them and risked his life birthing them, personally. Arrogant git.

Maybe he said no to a joint account and she had no say in it.

Compromise. If a couple can't come to a fair compromise over names then they probably aren't ready to get married. It doesn't have to involve someone backing down at all.

Well good for you.

as a 40 year old newly widowed mum of two it wasn’t common. If you were a SAHM your DH often gave you cash for housekeeping as card payments were those carbon copy stamps. You couldn’t make bank transfers etc without going into the bank so it was one bank account, cheques, and cash.

My point was even as recently as the 80’s and 90’s women didn’t have the same access to credit and purchasing if they weren’t married. It was still considered “his” money if you were married. Feminism matters.

Am I right in thinking it’s still the paternal names of each parent’s own double barrelled surname that usually get passed on? A law changed in Spain in 1999 to “allow” the name from the female line to be used, but it has yet to really catch on I believe. (I am not sure about Portugal.) So even then it’s not especially fair.

To me it would make perfect sense for the default custom (for heterosexual parents, at least) to be that everyone double barrels, with the mother passing on the name from the female line, and the father the name from the male one.