Contemplating titles in gay unions in the Current Events Forum made me think about more traditional marriages.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I am married but have not taken my husband's surname. The decision for me was more of a bureaucratic one than any sense of wanting to keep the family name or my independence as a woman. That is, it's been hard enough over 35 years training people to deal with my name as it is, so I wasn't about to go changing it and having to start all over again. The thought of the number of forms I'd have to fill out to get it all done still makes me nauseous, and I'd be bound to forget some obscure but vital organisation which would mean I'd end up getting my car repossessed or my oxygen allocation cut off or some other equally inconvenient muck-around.

The other reason I wasn't going to change my name is that the combination of my name with my husband's surname just sounds silly. Not only because I'm not used to it, but because (as I'm sure I've written somewhere recently but can't for the life of me remember where) one of the syllables in his surname is 'ing'. So Ing blah-ing-blah, or Ingrid blah-ing-blah, is just to awful to contemplate!

I have a friend who is in all other ways one of the least conventional people I know, but she couldn't wait to change her name when she got married. Then again, she was born a Sidebottom...

So my friends, to change or not to change?

I did change my name when I got married, but only because we wanted children. I felt that it was just as easy for everyone in the family to have the same name.
If the marriage had been planned as a childless one, I probably would have kept my maiden name, because all of my documents and degrees were in that name.
My parents were saddled with multi-barrelled names, and 2 middle names each. In reaction to this, they did not give one single middle name to any of their 4 children. It's funny, when you grow up without a middle name, how many people don't believe you. I wish I had a nickel for every time someone assumed that I was lying about not having a middle name, because I hated it.
So, when I got married, I kept my maiden name as my middle name.

Changed my name. My husband's name is a standard anglo saxon one, whereas my maiden name was most definitely not. After a lifeltime of sitting in wating rooms and knowing that when they called out "Linda ....uh...." they meant me, I was happy to simplify things.

I'm like agony - I was happy to take on my married name as it was easier for people to pronounce and spell, and caused much less comment, than my maiden name.

The only problem it caused me was when I was living in America and the Australian University that I graduated from refused to send correspondence in my married name without me sending them my original wedding certificate as proof of name change. Well, I wasn't about to post that to them so I just left everything in my maiden name.

I know a lot of women who kept their maiden name because they didn't want to take on a MAN'S name and be seen as "belonging" to their husband. Yet, they don't seem to realise that their maiden name is almost always their FATHER'S name. So they are just keeping one man's name instead of adopting another's.

I changed my name...both times. The strange thing is, I really prefer my maiden name, even though it's difficult to pronounce and difficult to spell. It is so uncommon a name that everyone, or very nearly everyone, in the US who has that name is related within 6 generations. (That is, they are either all descended from my great-great-blah grandfather, or his brother.) There are fewer than a couple thousand of us in the entire US. Because of that and other reasons, I have a strong identity attachement to that name. As they say, I am definitely a mymaidenname. In looks and attitude. My maiden name is a part of who I am, and I am a part of what my maiden name represents. I am proud of my family history, and hold it very dear.

But, during both of my marriages I took on my husband's name, which actually surprised me a little. When I was young, I always figured I'd keep my name. Not because of the whole liberated woman thing, although that enabled me to even contemplate keeping my own name, but because my name was MY NAME, and loving a man didn't seem like enough to make me give up that important part of who I was. But, the first time I married, I was fairly young and thought that his name, being so much easier to say and spell, would be a better choice. I wasn't especially proud of being Mrs. hisname. I suppose I was a little indifferent. But when our marriage ended I couldn't get rid of his name fast enough.

I was pregnant the second time I got married. I decided it'd be easier if we all had the same last name, although in retrospect I could just as well have kept my name. I know my husband wouldn't have cared. His name is a good, uncommon German name, and also easily flubbed, so it wasn't really an improvement for me. To tell you the truth, I think I'm still a little undecided about the matter, like I may at any moment decide to take back my maiden name.

Something I've found interesting, though... Now I'm married to one of the last men in a dwindling line. My husband doesn't want any more kids any more than I do, but I know there is some amount of displeasure with our choice to only have one, since some would like a boy in this generation. I was talking with my coworkers about it, and said that it wasn't nearly important enough to me to provide a male heir for my husband's family, and that if the carrying on of a family name would be enough to get me to have any more kids, it'd be MY family name my children would have, because my family name means much more to me than his, and my name is in danger as well. What I found interesting was that it shocked them. Why would it shock them that my family name and history would be more important to me than my husband's? It's almost as if there is an idea that a woman's maiden name is just on loan until she gets married, like she adopts her husband's family history instead of inheriting her own.

What I find really strange is the American custom of addressing a woman as Mrs John Jones instead of Mrs Carole Jones. For some reason, it really got up my nose when people did this to me, so I always made a point of correcting them and saying my name wasn't John. Perhaps it was because we don't do this in Australia.

I don't mind taking my husband's surname and I don't mind the designation Mrs instead of Ms or Miss, but DON'T call me by HIS Christian name instead of mine!

Certainly in Britain the correct form of address of a married woman IS Mrs John Jones, it is just that in recent years we have become sloppy and tend not to use the correct form. Surely if someone sends a letter to a married couple in Australia they don't normally pur Mr J and Mrs C Jones, do they not put Mr and Mrs J Jones?

Anyway back to the topic, I changed my name on marriage and continue to be known as Mrs Ex-Husband even though divorced and no longer wear my wedding band. I have, however, reverted to beng Mrs Sue, rather than his forename.

I know many professional women retain their maiden name for work and some use their married name for other times. These days problems can occur with travel and the necessity for an airline ticket (and perhaps other tickets) to be in the name used on the photo ID and if the person's name varies, well you can see the problem. In my (former) work we used to be asked about this problem and the answer is to have marked in your passport the word 'also known as' and the other name which is used. Obviously you need to provide the passport office with proof of both names and have a reason for wanting to have the option of using either name but our passport office assured me that it can be done.

I changed my name with no thought about it. I wanted my name to be the same as my husband's. Plus, I had the added benefit of dropping 6 letters from my surname. It went from twelve letters to six. We stand out in this area of German heritage, but it suits me just fine to have people ask.

My etiquette book (yes, of course I have one, what would life be without Miss Manners?) tells me that "Mrs" (odd, isn't it, that we have the abbreviation, but don't have the word it is abbreviated FROM?) is to be taken as meaning "the wife of". "Mrs John Blahingblah" is correct, she is known as "Mrs Ing Blahingblah" only if she divorces Mr Blahingblah. This used to be the way you could tell if a woman was divorced.
The whole point of "Ms" was to do away with this nonsense. Why should we be able to tell a woman's marital status at a glance - Miss, Mrs Him, Mrs Her - while men cruise around under the umbrella of Mr, as if we really cared about them, rather than who they were married to? In real life, Ms has just added another layer of confusion to the whole thing, we being human beings and prone to confusion.

I have a personal aversion to seeing the word 'Missus' used in (usually fictional) writing. But Aggers according to Dictionary.com 'Mrs' is the abbreviation of 'Mistress', which makes sense. I guess by that logic 'Ms' could also be an abbreviation of 'Mistress', which I kinda like (what Dic.com has to say about 'Ms' is interesting too). I think it's time we reclaimed 'Mistress' as the legitimate female form of 'Mister' (is there an equivalent for a male in the context of extra-marital lover?). To me it has a nice sound...and OK, I admit to liking the association of 'The lusty wench Mistress Blahingblah' (actually 'Blahingblah' would of course be a remarkably appropriate name for me, much better than Ed's actual surname! I shall have to try and work it into dinner conversation with his parents tomorrow... )

It's a strange situation. My surname is also unusual (In most parts of the world. Not many vowels, it's quite phlegmy), but before "the incident", we had a rather less unusual (but still not very common) surname, so it's all relative. I prefer my name now as it actually sounds better to the one that I was given in the first place, but some of the members haven't been so lucky. Do you go with your gut feeling, or is it better to think about the other people whose names you are manipulating at the same time?

And you'd be surprised how similar "Ms Blahinglblah" is to what we all go by now. There's probably an interesting way to pronounce that in Gaelic.

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What I find really strange is the American custom of addressing a woman as Mrs John Jones instead of Mrs Carole Jones.

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I couldn't agree more MG. When we were married, the minister asked how we would like him to introduce us to the congregation (after the signing of the register). Mr and Mrs hubby's first then second name was offered as one of the options. I told him that I had taken on my husband's last name, not his first name, so we were just Mr and Mrs last name.

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What I find really strange is the American custom of addressing a woman as Mrs John Jones instead of Mrs Carole Jones. For some reason, it really got up my nose when people did this to me, so I always made a point of correcting them and saying my name wasn't John. Perhaps it was because we don't do this in Australia.

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I wouldn't have thought it was that uncommon here although I'd consider it more an old fashioned thing perhaps. WOuldn't surprise me someone in my Mum's generation to be called Mrs John but would in mine.