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?!

My in-laws left my family name off DC's, addressing him by the Hisname part of the double-barrel only.

Imagine my happy sense of schadenfreude the day DC grew old enough to assert his own preferences and forcefully corrected them.

I'm not sure it is completely... Like I said, I haven't changed my name on marriage for various reasons but I understand that culturally, a woman taking her husband's name is the norm. But if it comes up in conversation (which isn't that often TBF) I always get met with quite defensive comments about how they just HAD to change their name (for some spurious reason) rather than just saying it was their preference! And I really wasn't judging them for doing so. So anecdotally, I think it does make some people feel a bit judged.

They must be 70ish and your name choices probably aren't uppermost in their thoughts. It's probably just how they address all cards and not some attempt to be passive aggressive or undermine you.

While I don't care really, my family still does this and we get a variety of things on the rare invites and letters or cards we get - hyphenated both surnames, hisname, Mrs when I am a Ms. Some members of family can't even spell his surname correctly, or the abbrieviation of my kids' names. It's mildly irritating, but I forget too, as there are hyphenateds and couples using her surname not his, and professional names and married names all within my immediate family. I used to accidently use my step-mum's surname from her first marriage, because that is how I knew her for years before she married my dad and it's her sons' surname so it is till around! I adore her but my brain is stuck in 1987 I think.

People are usually doing things in haste or worried rather than rude or arrogant. It's rarely meant badly by anyone and the super formal Mr & Mrs Hisname was the proper default until relatively recently (I do balk at that, but I get it). It's often an attempt at formal politeness, rather than causing offence by not doing that or getting it wrong in other ways. It's hard when there were clearly articulated rules to follow and now there are none, or they are very variable and anything goes and everyone does it a bit differently.

My theory is that some women who changed their names on marriage without even giving a second thought to the alternative feel quite defensive now they've realised that other women see this as a patriarchal tradition and opt not to follow it.

Never really thought about it till seeing this thread, some people are so rude and offensive it must have touched a nerve with them and perhaps this is why!

The cards arrived didn’t they? And the offending envelope is now in the recycling, so assuming the message inside didn’t read “Happy Birthday Inferior Vassal and Bed Slave of Mr His Name , love and best wishes from Auntie Flo”, I think you just suck it up and enjoy the fact that someone who loves you and cares about you has spent money on a card and stamp to help you celebrate your birthday.

I didn't change my name and my own parents do this!

For a while my kids only used the Spanish part only as it's shorter and that really annoyed my father in law!
It just irritates me because I generally get on really well with my husband's family but the name thing seems to remain an issue!

I mean presumably she managed to get used to using a washing machine and drier rather than a mangle or and having a shower rather than a tub in front of the fire or a house phone rather than a phone box, or a remote to change the channel rather than getting up to manually change the knob on the tv, and using the indoor toilet at night rather than a pot under the bed [or random other example dependent on her age]

if someone can manage to adapt to changes that benefit them they've got no excuse to not adapt things to make other people feel more comfortable. Besides which it has never been 'correct' to address people by the wrong name. Even if it was the norm to take your husband's name on marriage when she was alive, divorced women still existed, the concept of not having the same name as your entire family wouldn't have been unheard of.

My birthday too today, so happy birthday OP 🎊

The card thing, well I'm just happy to get one!

Surely the possibility of needing to "hand back" your husband's surname on divorce is a good reason not to take it in the first place.

(Utter nonsense, of course, nearly all the women I know who have divorced after a long marriage have kept their married name even if they wish their ex husband would burn in hell. But my auntie who is now divorced and has kept her married name told me she regrets changing it in the first place.)

It's so sexist to say that a woman's name is really her father's name so it doesn't matter if she takes her husband's name though. Nobody ever tells men that their name is really their father's name.

If it was your name when you were born, it is yours.

If it's a name you have subsequently chosen to adopt, it's also yours.

Let's stop telling women for whatever reason that their names aren't their own, and call them by the name they have chosen to use, whether we agree with that choice or not.

I don't believe that for one instant. Any woman who has ever married and changed her name will know that it's a hassle, and requires particular input, forms, certificates and proof of ID to get passports, bank cards etc, changed.

If you do nothing, you retain your own family name. That is the default option.

The oft-trotted-out protestation that 'your husband's name is your legal name' is, IMO, merely wilful, wide-eyed, pretended 'ignorance'. They know fine well. They're just trying to put other women in what they see as their 'place'.

I was married in the noughties. I honestly thought that in 2024 we'd have moved beyond these antediluvian attitudes, but as this thread proves, they're still alive and well. In fact, in many ways I think we have gone backwards and that Gen X women are more likely to have retained their own family names than some of those coming after.

Your guess is as good as mine as to why.

what the fuck does 'the card arrived' have to do with the price of fish?
It would have arrived had it been addressed to Charles Windsor because post is delivered according to address, not name!

My point, thank you for re expressing it so charmingly.

So you can remember all these people's birthdays', out of a possible 365 days, but not their surnames, out of a possible two options?

And you apparently know and care about them enough to send a card but not to spent two seconds sending them a text saying 'Btw - sorry having a dozy moment, are you Emma Jones or Emma Davies?'

They are in their 50s.

Indeed.

If you've been married once then your surname can probably only be one of two things. But you might have been born on any one of 366 different days of the year.

If you can remember when my birthday is you can definitely remember what my name is.

added to which, if it had been a parcel and not a card, or sent signed for, and nobody was home it might very well not have arrived, because OP wouldn't have had any ID in the 'wrong name' to collect it from the post/sorting office!

Yes people consistently getting your name wrong is sometimes upsetting, sometimes annoying., makes you feel unimportant

. But since I suspect I could easily make similar mistakes I let it ride.
Indeed at work one guy would get more upset than I ever did at the guy who always got my name wrong.

Why does it happen?

If I know something is wrong and I can write it immediately into my address book then fine - but my head doesn't remember somethings well at all - tell me how your name sounds and I may not be able to repeat it back to you half an hour later. I can remember other stuff fine but word sounds and letter orders are both very hard for some reason. So why - because different peoples brains work differently an what's easy for one to remember is hard for someone else

They are in their fifties.

I deposited checks to Mrs husbandsname into my account with my maiden name without any issues. But I can see how practical things like this would be annoying, but the surname on an envelope I don't see the big deal about. I often had my maiden name misspelled, and now get post to my maiden name, my misspelled maiden name, my husband's surname, or double barrelled. And no I don't find any of them annoying as long as they get to me.

I never changed my name when I got married and my aunts and some of my cousins still address me with his surname even though we have been divorced now for more years than we were married!! And to top it all, his surname is Spanish so linguistically not as easy to spell or remember than the surname they have known me by (and which is the same as theirs) for most of my life...

They are friends with my in-laws. Get my title and first name and surname wrong. I am X my surname and they send it to Mrs Y Husbands surname. Y being husbands first name. They know and do this to make a point that they don’t like me. So all the people saying suck it up, they are in their 50’s FFS and have been told and know,they just don’t like you.

I have had a number of cheques rejected by the bank because the name is wrong, my first name, husband's surname. Perhaps it's because in your case it is your maiden name which used to be your name whereas in mine it is a name that has never been mine. And OP mentioned cheques that she wasn't able to deposit, this is ongoing incorrect naming by 50 year old women that she has corrected. It's basic courtesy to get a person's name right.

I get cards addressed to my husband's surname misspelled, so it's not addressed to anyone!

My aunt gives me cash now because I think she sees it as slightly improper to address a cheque to my name.

His aunt sends me "Mrs K" stuff when I'm in fact still Miss P. And the fact that our son is double-barrelled just blows some people's minds.