Who Comes First, the Doctor or the Lieutenant?

Hi there. You have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Kate calling from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Hi, Kate.

What’s up, Kate?

So, I had a kind of interesting thought about titles, military and civilian titles.

I just received my doctorate in physical therapy.

Ooh, congratulations.

Thank you.

And my fiancé is a lieutenant in the National Guard and the Army.

Excellent.

So, I found lots of information about how to address a couple.

If one has a title and the other doesn’t, or if a military member has a civilian title.

But I can’t find anything about how the two of us would be introduced, say, at our reception, if we want to be introduced as something other than Mr. and Mrs.

Let me ask you a couple of questions.

Did you use any particular wording on your invitation, like titles and order and that kind of thing?

We just used our first and last names.

I believe my name is first on the invitation.

For no reason other than I was the one typing them, so my name went on first.

Of course. Good reason.

Okay. And so you’re asking about being introduced at the reception.

So somebody says your name aloud, right, as you enter the room?

Right. Introducing for the first time as a married couple, typically it’s Mr. and Mrs.

But we were thinking since we both have titles that we’ve worked hard to earn, we could have some fun with them.

Right.

But we’re not sure if it goes doctor and lieutenant or lieutenant and doctor.

And will he be in uniform?

No.

Okay.

And will you be taking his last name?

Are you keeping your own?

I will eventually take his last name.

Okay.

Okay.

It’s a lengthy process to go through.

Yeah.

These are all important questions.

If you’re going to hew to the most conservative point of view on these names, we are far past the point in American life where all of the old naming conventions are respected all that much in pretty much any place except the most formal of circumstances.

So you can kind of do whatever you want, really, to be honest, Kate.

Sure.

But if you’re going to do the formal thing, strictly formal, if your husband is not in uniform, he’s still probably first in the list.

So let’s just say that his, I don’t know what his name is. Let’s just say it’s Jack.

So Lieutenant Jack Smith and Dr. Kate Smith, something like that.

That’s how you would do it.

So the man isn’t automatically first. He’s first because he has the military title.

If you had the military title, you would be first and he would be second because his doctorate, his civilian title comes after the military title.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah, that’s it.

Yeah, traditionally speaking.

Traditionally speaking.

But, you know, there are lots of different conventions for this around the world and even around this country.

And in parts of Africa, for example, in the English-speaking world, they will pile on titles.

So he could be Lieutenant Mr. Jack or Mr. Lieutenant Jack, right?

And you could be Dr. Mrs. Whatever.

Are you leaning in one direction or another?

I like the way that Dr. and Lieutenant sounds just because we both have, you know, monosyllabic first names and it’ll be a very long last name.

So I like the way that Doctor and Lieutenant goes with all of it,

But he likes the way Lieutenant and Doctor go.

I like the formality of both of them together in either order.

It’s romantic.

It’s like a lovely novel about two very competent, busy people

Who are brilliant, brought together to make a new thing together.

I love it.

But are you saying that he wants to do it one way

And you want to do it the other way?

We don’t have a strong opinion about it.

It’s just when we kind of play around with it and go, well, which way would it go?

He likes the way that lieutenant and doctor sounds better than doctor and lieutenant.

Oh, could you arm wrestle or flip a coin or leg wrestle?

I’m not sure I’d win that one.

Do let us know what you decide.

Maybe on the night of you’ll have inspiration and something will come to you and you’ll be like, oh, that makes perfect sense.

Why didn’t I think of that before?

And that’s what we want to hear about. All right.

Who has to do the introducing?

Yeah. Is it is it the father of the bride or somebody of that stature?

It’ll likely just be the DJ that we’ve hired for the event.

Oh, well, you can blame the DJ.

Slip the DJ a 20 and have him do it your way.

Fair enough. All right. Well, thanks so much for for your time and for that information.

And I might keep that bit to myself that really should be.

Congratulations on your new life.

It sounds wonderful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I’ll update you when we decide what we’re doing.

Cool.

Thanks.

Good luck to you both.

Bye-bye, Kate.

Bye.

Thank you.

Goodbye.

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