Has hyphenating your name made things complicated?

Question

I am a redneck woman who considers herself married to a Russian woman, and we've hyphenated names. I'm glad I did it, but I'm finding a few problems. For example, I have to say, just as my wife has, "My name may be long and Russian, but it's easy if you break it into parts." On a couple of petitions and on a site where most everyone uses full names, I can't make it fit into the name space! And since mine comes first, people keep wanting to call me by just her name. Plus some of my relatives have decided they won't use it.

Has anyone else run into problems like these after hyphenating your name? How do you gracefully deal with it?

Answer 1

My step-dad has a hyphenated surname, which I took when I was 16. It's not complicated or Russian or anything, it SHOULD be relatively simple, but the amount of confusion it's caused has been insane. Makes it worse that hypehenating here in the UK is a kind of sterotypical thing for the upper class to do, and I'm lower class, so I tend to nto use the hyphenated name in my daily life, but it has to be used in full on official documents. Terrific fun. What's more, my poor wife used to have a very simple surname, only four letters long - now she's saddled with two wordsfull!

As for dealing with it gracefully, state or write it clearly where you can, and if the space is too short, choose one of the names to use - you'll still be married to her in all important places, like your heart, but if you can sidestep bureaucratic nightmares by using only the one name, just do it and move on together :o)

Answer 2

I would never hyphenate my maiden with my husbands last. I gladly took his name because it was a new chapter in my life. It bugs me when other people do it, mainly because I work in a doctors office and do all the charting, so hyphenated names just makes it all so much more complicated! So, I agree with you on this entire post! :]

Answer 3

I have always wondered if Mary Smith-Jones marries Charlie Kline-Wickly are their kids stuck with Smith-Jones-Kline-Wickly?
I notice that everybody thinks everybody should hang onto all the names. How about starting a tradition of picking a new married name for both - so a marriage announce becomes "Mary Smith-Jones and Charlie Kline-Wickly are pleased to announce that they have united in marriage as Mr. and Mrs. Dallas."?
Icelanders go to the other extreme: the son of Jon Samson is named Mark Jonson and the daughter of Odd Mikelson is named Lara Oddsdattir and neither changes their name when they marry.