Opinions on taking husband's last name?
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Lyra– Every time I say my new last name I question it in my head!! I’m scared I’ll pronounce it wrong, too!
Lyra- My MIL calls my FIL Mr. (wrong pronunciation of their last name) all the time and it really confused me for the first 2 years. I was about 99% sure she was saying it wrong just to tease him but they are very deadpan humour type people and so I just didn’t say my husband’s last name for a couple years. I finally just asked him what exactly was the proper way and he said his mom was just teasing but it took until I was engaged until I fully felt comfortable saying it in front of his family.
My boyfriend’s last name ends on a consonant sound that doesn’t appear in English and while I’m so very, very close to getting it right, I haven’t quite hit it yet! I’ll get it someday, but for the moment I just kind of mutter the end whenever I say it. His parents have been very excited about explaining their language and culture to me and I know that they wouldn’t be offended if I didn’t pronounce their name 100% correctly, but I still try to avoid addressing them directly. Ha, that last part rhymed.
Here’s a question. I hear people saying they wouldn’t get offended by being called Apple Husband’sname (for these purposes his last name is Smith, k?). But I feel like people should know my correct name. If they called me Pear instead of Apple, I would politely correct them. This doesn’t go for people like…waiters, or hotel clerks, etc. But if someone in a social situation, who I would see again, called me Pear, or Apple Smith instead of Apple Scruffs, I feel like I’d want to correct them. Not in a RARR way (although that’s kind of how it makes me feel), and not in a rude or condescending way, just in a, oh fyi, that’s actually not my name.
For people you will see again, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with nicely correcting them. Its an honest mistake.
@applescruffs, yeah, and I have a feeling that even if you did it in the nicest way possible: “oh, I didn’t change my name when we got married, I’m actually apple scruffs” people would still read it as bitchy and RAWR and defensive.
I say I wouldn’t object because I plan to keep my last name purely because I want to have that as my legal name, even if no one calls me by it. It’s more a matter of keeping it for myself and knowing it’s there more than anything else. I think correcting people on your name is totally legit, I would just not do what my mom does and say super formally and in a weird tone of voice, “I decided to keep my maiden name after marriage. I’m Ms. X, not Mrs. Y.” I would say, “Oh it’s still YourLastName, I didn’t change it.” In my experience, the longer the explanation becomes, the more chided people feel and the more awkward it gets.
How often do people actually say your last name socially though?
The only time this has ever come up was when people called me “Mrs Hislastname” right after we got married, in a joking way. I actually was pretty bitchy in my response to that… I simply said, “Well, not legally” and that shut people up pretty quickly.
@applescruffs, yeah, and I have a feeling that even if you did it in the nicest way possible: “oh, I didn’t change my name when we got married, I’m actually apple scruffs” people would still read it as bitchy and RAWR and defensive.
Yeah — it seems to me that there’s some weird pressure on women to be Oh So Totally Okay with being called the wrong name even if they chose to keep their own. I mean, lots of people are actually totally okay with it I’m sure, and that’s as legit as any other feeling/choice we’re talking about here; but it’s like, if you have the gall to expect to be called the correct name, somehow you’re in the wrong, instead of, if anyone, the person who made the incorrect assumption in the first place.
I think it’s somewhat of a subtle way of distinguishing the nice women from the Uppity Feminists. I mean, whether someone is okay with it or not okay with it or changes her name or doesn’t change her name isn’t about being a “good” feminist in reality, but some people really seem to have such a scorn for women who rock the boat, especially if it makes someone else at all uncomfortable.
Some people get offended if you correct them, simply because you are correcting them. My FIRST name is really uncommon here (never heard of anyone having the same name) but it is spelt the same as a common nickname, just not pronounced the same. I don’t bother correcting people I’ll never see again but I do correct people I will or if they ask me if they pronounced it right. People have been incredibly rude about it. I’m pretty polite when I correct people as I do it all the time “actually, my name is pronounced X, Y is the american version but I go by the european version.” My tone of voice is in check too. People tell me that I pronounce my name wrong (how is that even possible?), that I shouldn’t bother, that it’s stupid. Or they just plain assume my name is the full version of the other name and have called me that. Once, on the job some old guy read my name tag and said “I can’t believe this place would let you use your nickname.” I definitely got a red apology from him.
