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

[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.)