Those of you who have married but kept your own surname...

[frogs]

...do you get hacked off by people who should know better addressing you by your dh surname?

I kept my own name, not to make a huge political-feminist point, nor because I am particularly attached to it, but simply because that is who I am and I saw no reason to change it. I have also built up a successful professional career which would have been adversely affected if I had suddenly changed identies. I felt that the 'one name for work, one name for home' solution was too confusing (eg. what name to have your passport in?), and last but not least, I don't particularly like my MIL and have no desire to have the same title/surname as her.

I don't object to people connected with my kids (eg schools) assuming that I am Mrs Dh, nor would I ever create a huge scene about it. But it does annoy me that MIL makes a point of addressing letters to us as 'Mr and Mrs DH', and refers to us as 'the dh family'.

Anyone else get this? What (if anything) do you do about it? Dh thinks I'm making a fuss about nothing, and picking on his Mum to boot, but then it's not his name that's at stake.

Message withdrawn

Oops Leah/Picnikel, I obviously phrased that badly, didn't mean it as an admonishment! Merely I've always found it odd that people with PhDs aren't seen as 'real' doctors because it's a title that has been somehow owned by the medical profession (except surgeons who revert to Mr when they get senior enough - and woe betide anyone who calls their secretaries and mistakenly calls them doctor ? temperature drops by 100 degrees).

glad to see this is still going
I'm always amazed that people think they have the right to call you what they want or think you should be called, rather than what you want!
Surely it's a matter of respect rather than any out-dated etiquette?

I took my Dh's name I wasn't going to as really like my name , last inline of my family etc but a good friend told me she alawys regretted not doing it. I took my maiden name on as a extra middle name which i really like and if I had a daughter she would get it as a middle name.

I kept my name because mine is very unusual and rare and also for the memory of my father who died in 1995.

DH not bothered and didn't even think it was weird, as his own mother also kept her maiden name.

But our son has DH's surname, so we are even

I get hacked off by people calling me Mrs Dp's Surname when we are not even married!

Why can people not just ask? Why do they have to flounder around awkwardly, getting first my surnames, then ds's surname, wrong? Why do they not just say "What is your surname, and is your son's surname the same?"

I kept my maiden name when we got married 3 years ago - various reasons:

• name part of own identity
• feminist reasons
• preferred own name Then fell preggers and decided to change - everyone thought I was wimping out. But I grew up with a different surname to both my mother (who had reverted to her maiden name after divorce), and my step-father who she had not married. I absolutely hated it as a child. It made me feel we were disjointed and not a 'normal' family. (We werent in lots of other ways too!) Didnt want that feeling for my dd.

cat64, a family is about so much more than a name to me.

cat, you asked why not pick a name for both to share. I didn't feel the need to bother, and neither did dh. He likes his name, I like mine.

Changing your name is great if that is what rings your bell. But it isn't going to materialy change your relationship....or at least it wouldn't have done to mine.

Dh knows very well that I am his wife and I know that he is my husband. We have 18 years of being together to show us that. I don't feel the need to 'prove' that we are a family to the rest of the world by changing my name. We know that we are a family and that, to my mind, is the important thing.

I have been asked by several people why I didn't change my name to DH's because 'it's so much easier / like a proper family etc'. My answer was that I offered my DH the opportunity to change his name to mine, and he didn't want to.

cat, I've mentioned this on another thread but some friends of mine did that once. They took the first two letters of her surname, the first two letters of his, and added 'us' to signify their union. Unfortunately if me and dh had done that our surname would be Pinuus

I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with changing your name when you get married, if that's what you want to do, and if it's important to you as part of becoming a family. It isn't important to me; my mum remarried when I was 7 so I have a very large and complicated 'blended' family. We have never all had the same surname but it changes nothing about how we feel about each other.

I also don't make a big deal if people who don't know me call me Mrs dh's surname, it's a reasonable assumption after all. I'm amazed that I've got my 85 year old grandma to revert to addressing letters to me using my actual name and not Mrs dh's surname, she was appalled when she found out I wasn't changing my name. But, hey, she's 85. She's entitled!

Didn't want to change my name when I married as Dh has v complicated foreign surname that nobody can pronounce. he didn't care and when dd was born we agreed that she should have my surname with his name as a second middle name (in case she ever wants to use it). He now uses my surname a lot of the time (although all his official documents/bank accounts etc are still in his name) as it is just easier. Also, we have found that people often make judgements when they hear that you have a foreign name and did not want our daughter to have to contend with that as she grows up, applies for jobs etc. Despite all friends and family knowing this and also knowing that it was DH's decision as much as mine, we still get loads of post addressed to his surname (for me and dd) drives me insane!! Feel like others are disregarding what we have decided for our own family. Incredibly rude imo. Also mil often call dd by an entirely different first name sometimes (without consultation with us) but that is a whole other story!

What martianbishop said...

And cat64 - no, I don't think that is the point. DH and I can create a new family without all having the same name. It's a cosmetic detail that has nothing to do with our relationship. DH and DS both have brown eyes, while I have blue, but I don't feel the need to wear coloured contect lenses.

If you have a double-barelled child (not that I do) and they marry another double-barelled individual, they can do whatever suits them in the context of their relationship, just as I'd advocate anyone else doing.

Edam, what about surgeons who become Miss or Ms, or uh yes it does get confusing????

right Leah - our DSs have a double-barrelled name and lots of people said what would they do when they get married. I just say - that's not my problem They can choose what they want to do just as DH and I did. In some countries, it isconsidered perfectly normal to have your mother's and father's names.

I've kept my maiden name, and some people don't even know that it's my maiden name, so sometimes my DH or sons will get called my maiden name. I like that, because I get called hisname occasionally as well. No problems schoolwise that sons have different surname to mine. Sons accept it as normal that I don't share their surname. Husband doesn't like it one hundred percent, he feels that it means I don't want to be part of the hissurname family, but I don't see it like that. I have no problems being referred to as part of the hissurname family, for example when booking places in a restaurant/theater etc.

Moondog, totally agree, very weird, but mainly a prob on flights to USA and within......grrrr.....so in the end I gave up and have just about switched my name on everything! (still a few odds n sods outstanding tho!)

I kept my name, and feel much like you do, frogs. I don't mind when people related to dds' school call me 'Mrs DHname' because actually they are calling me 'Mrs DDname', since my dds have their dad's name. But I do object when people who are perfectly well aware that I use my own name insist on calling me by a different one (my sil is the worst offender, and I know she's doing it on purpose, she thinks I'm too big for my boots... ha!). Haven't tackled her about it though... not sure I could, without making a huge scene, and I don't really think it's worth it. We decided to give the dds my surname as an extra middle name (our surnames are both quite long/unusual, so not really double-barrellable!) so that they can decide for themselves at a later date if they want to use it. But I would have hated for them not to have my surname as part of their name somehow.

As for the 'Dr' thing. I do use my title pretty much all the time. It's partly laziness, as it avoids the Mrs/Ms/Miss thing and partly because in my line of work (university lecturer) it's the normal form of address for someone with a PhD. I specifically try to remember not to use it when flying and such like, as I do not wish to be mistaken for a 'real' doctor if the pilot is taken sick midway across the Atlantic!! But I don't see why using my title should be socially unacceptable. My dh has a PhD, but because he doesn't use it in his work he doesn't normally use the form 'Dr'. I did try to convince him, at the time when I had my PhD but he hadn't finished his yet, that the form Dr should take precedence over plain Mr, so that letters to both of us should actually be addressed to Dr Ellbell and Mr DHname! It never happened, though!

ellbell - my DH is PhD as well so if people write to us Mr & Mrs DHName - I always tell them to at least get his title right even if they can't be bothered with my name - makes me sound a bit up myself probably but there you go...
We are a bit of a mouthful though - Dr DHname, Ms Myname and DSs myname DHname (not hyphenated.) Also - my name is foreign so I always have to spell it and DH's name is ordinary English but spelt slightly differently so always have to spell that too - don't know why we bothered really

Yeah, Tommy, that's why we just couldn't be bothered going down the double-barrelled route. Both dh's name and mine inevitably require spelling out, so imagine the two of them together. Also dd1 has a 9-letter first name and an 11-letter surname. That's bad enough (she still can't quite get the spelling of the surname), but then add mine in too.... Poor kid!

Whenever someone rings to ask for Mrs DP, I say really quite politely that she's dead (that was DP's mum).

I actually like the fact that my children have a different surname from either me, or their father (they have both, non-hyphenated). They are separate people from either of their parents. We're not one homeogenous lump of 'family'; we are four people with different relationshipos to each other.

Mind you, their surname is a nightmare, involving two unspellable non-English names, one of which (mine) has five consecutive consonants AND an umlaut

answering the original question, am not married but yes i do get hacked off when people phone for Mrs DP. mostly because i know they're likely to be cold callers or selling something though, it's a total giveaway.

we both have PhDs but friends never send us letters to "Dr Fennel and Dr DP". the bank does, but our friends tend to just use our names...

oh, MI, i like your idea of family. used to hold to it quite strongly but seem to be getting acclimatised to yukky family cosiness somehow over the years.

What really winds me up is dp's parents using his surname on childrn's cards, and sending mine to Mrs Fred Bloggs. On the other hand most people round here think dp has my name - as I'm the one who does school stuff, account at paper shop etc. Years of teaching has really put me off being Mrs, Miss or Ms anything. The only time I use his name is ordering takeaways - his is easier to spell to a bloke in a busy restaurant!