mistaken identity?

[cellio]

Yesterday I picked up the ringing phone to be met with "Is this Mrs. Cellio?" Now, that's a telemarketing tip-off as far as I'm concerned, as is "...Mrs. Zweig?", so I asked who was calling. Sometimes I respond to such things with "there's no such person"; this time I started to and at the same time she was saying my full name, so I let her talk to me.

It turned out to be someone from Ohr Somayach, an organization I support, so it was, I suppose, ok that she called me. It wasn't a cold-calling telemarketer, at least. (Or UJF -- same thing.)

But the whole thing did make me wonder about one tangential thing: am I "Mrs. Cellio"? I mean, I'm married, and I kept my original last name of "Cellio", but "Mrs. Cellio" usually implies a "Mr. Cellio", right? And there's no "Mr. Cellio" living here. I don't think of myself as either "Mrs. Cellio" or "Mrs. Zweig"; I mostly just avoid honorifics, and grudgingly cough up an ambiguous "Ms." if forced to specify something. I've done this since college; it's not recent. (Aha -- a reason to seek a PhD! :-) )

I wonder what my various friends with mixed last names do.

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Pretty much exactly what you do, except that I'm completely comfortable with Ms. I am clearly not Mrs. Rivkis, since I am not married to Mr. Rivkis. I choose not to be Mrs. Jacobowitz. And I'm obviously not Miss Rivkis anymore, or what's that wedding ring doing on my hand?

Ms. Rivkis works, and for people who don't know me well enough to call me Naomi (at least those who don't do it anyway; I simmer in impotent fury against those who do so uninvited) I usually insist on it. I will permit business colleagues of Manny's to call me Mrs. Jacobowitz if I think they are too important to piss off.

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

We are Mr. Salley and Dr. Ehrlich. :) You're right, the PhD does have its uses. :) Weirdly enough, my mother had a serious problem with this when we got married. She kept telling us that it was improper for a married woman not to use her husband's name. She actually demanded that Karen change her name. Can you say 'control freak'? It took about a year before she finally quit.

Now, I have a question from the male perspective. My wife and I have joint bank accounts and both our names are listed on our credit cards. When we got a credit report a few years ago, I noticed that it had "David Ehrlich" listed as a "known alias". When I called about it, I was told that some business credit card readers will only pick up the first name listed. Listing my wife's name as a known alias stops the red flagging that would normally result from "David Salley" signing a credit card statement made out to "Karen Ehrlich". Has Dani ever had this problem? Has he ever gotten phone calls or anything for "Dani Cellio"? :

[cellio]

As far as I know Dani hasn't yet been called "Dani Cellio", though I think he's gotten "is this Mr. Cellio?" a couple times when a telemarketer called with my name in hand. (The phone book lists only "M Cellio", so that's ambiguous.)

[jducoeur]

Weirdly enough, my mother had a serious problem with this when we got married. She kept telling us that it was improper for a married woman not to use her husband's name.

Whereas, when we got married, and msmemory did take my last name, she got mildly hassled by a modest number of people who couldn't get their heads around the idea. Sometimes you just can't win...

[cellio]

You definitely can't win on this. I got pre-wedding "input" (to put it politely) from both sides. Ultimately, though, it was my choice (with Dani's opinions counting for something, though it's a minority stake :-) ), and I decided that I've had this name all my life, I've grown attached to it, I've published under it, and I felt no particular need to migrate to the end of the phone book. Dani was ok with all of this.

(And I suppose there was one other factor. We got married about a year after I converted. I already get some amount of grief from people who assume I converted in order to marry, rather than for my own reasons; by keeping my obviously-not-Jewish surname, I am making it just a bit more clear that that wasn't the reason, because if it was I'd take the obviously-Jewish name as part of the package.)

[littleweeds]

Pretty much the same thing you do. If it's necessary, I'm quite comfortable with Ms.

About the only people I don't correct when called Mrs.

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Pretty much the same thing you do. If it's necessary, I'm quite comfortable with Ms.

About the only people I don't correct when called Mrs. <insert-husband's-last-name-here> are my grandparents or people to important to upset.

Actually, it's kind of amusing... since I'm often better known than my husband, he gets called by my last name more often than I get called by his.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

For their time and place it was very feminist for my parents to have my mother hyphenate her name. (My parents would get incredibly pissed off to be called feminists, but IMO they are.) To this day, there are people who call my father Mr. My-mother's-hyphenated-last-name, which amuses him; that in turn boggles many of his friends, some of whom I suspect would beat their wives in rage if such a thing happened to them.

Meanwhile, I intend to be Ms. My-current-last-name all my life, because, well, that's me. My fiance has a 'weird' last name and I have a 'weird' first name anyway, so why should I make life harder for myself? :) Meanwhile, when people call for Mrs. My-current-last-name, if I'm feeling truly obnoxious, I tell them she's dead; she is my grandmother, and, well, she is dead.

A.

[jeannegrrl.livejournal.com]

My sister-in-law keeps her maiden name since that's how she's known in the PhD world. It's kinda funny she doesn't object to being called "Mrs. Husband's Last Name" but she definitely objects to being called "Mrs. her last name"

I took my husband's last name, moving my maiden name to be my middle name, but I feel weird being called Mrs. Glazer (Hillel's Mom is Mrs. Glazer - tho I don't call her that, I call her Mom or Sabta) - I mean it *is* who I am - I'm married, and I'm a Glazer, but I normally check the "Ms" category if I'm filling out paperwork. I considered myself Ms. Sarfaty before I got married so now I consider myself Ms. Glazer... But I don't make an issue if I'm called Mrs - it just feels weird...

However my personal pet peeve is the custom of addressing stuff to Mr. and Mrs. Husband's First Name and Last Name. I love my husband. Dearly. But I am not Mrs. Hillel anymore than he is Mr. Jeanne. Although I have had friends who know this pet peeve of mine, who want to tease me, address stuff to Mr. and Mrs. Jeanne Glazer or Jeanne Glazer and Family. :-)

[cellio]

However my personal pet peeve is the custom of addressing stuff to Mr. and Mrs. Husband's First Name and Last Name.

Amen. That annoys me. I am not "Mrs Dani Zweig" any more than he is "Mr Monica Cellio", though of course we get Mr/Mrs Dani but never Mr/Mrs Monica. He has enough trouble with people who think "Dani" is a woman, though, so I'm not going to insist that he answer to Mr Monica. :-)

[goljerp]

My friend Ruth would defenestrate me if I called her Mrs. Edward Katz. Occasionally I call her husband Mr. Ruth Hartman-Katz. :-)

[ohi.livejournal.com]

When I got married, I made my husband's last name my middle name, so I'm Debbie Ridpath Ohi. This confused a lot of people, especially those who had never seen me in person so assumed that my married name is my last name.

I wanted to keep "Ohi" because I'm used to it, and I look far more like an "Ohi" than a "Ridpath". I don't get my panties in a knot if people accidentally call me Debbie Ridpath, though.

Debbie

[cellio]

Yeah, I don't get upset when people call me "Mrs Zweig" (and we have some relatives/friends who seem to persist in it). I guess it just seems a little weird to be "Mrs" either way. I violated the conventions of my parents' generation, but the current conventions haven't caught up with themselves completely or there would be a standard answer to this situation. :-)

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I actually rather like the chaos. :) People can choose what works for themselves, and have an awareness of others' choices as being voluntary and valid (hopefully, at least). As long as people aren't twitly about it (ripping people's heads off for a honest mistake, accusing women who don't change their last names of not loving their husbands, throwing around notions of what's 'proper' like bats to beat folks with) it generally works.

[alice-curiouser.livejournal.com]

I use both my original last name (Ludwig), and Rusty's last name (Snyder). If someone calls me Mrs. Ludwig, to me it implies that their should be a MR. Ludwig, but I usually don't bother to correct them. It's usually telemarketers who do this, and I'm going to just hang up on them anyway.

What's really funny is when Rusty gets mail addressed to Russell Ludwig...

old-fashioned etiquette

[jpbl.livejournal.com]

Not that I want to stir things up, but I seem to remember from books I read while I was planning my wedding that in old-fashioned (and old) etiquette books, the proper way to address a married woman is either Mrs. Husband's-First-Name Husband's-Last-Name or Wife's-First-Name Wife's-Last-Name (with no title). Obviously in the past, it was assumed that the Wife's-Last-Name = Husband's-Last-Name, which isn't always the case. But, according to that logic, you could be addressed as Mrs. Dani Zweig or Monica Cellio, but not as Mrs. Monica Cellio, Mrs. Monica Zweig, or Monica Zweig. Of course, I'm not trying to imply that the people who keep calling you Mrs. Cellio (except grandparents and those of that age) have ever read those etiquette books, and at the moment, I think you've got a really good way to recognize telemarketers, which is always a plus. :)