Married Woman Who Keeps Her Name

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Robert Smith, calling from Camp Pendleton, California, actually, in San Diego.

Oh, hi, Robert.

Hi, Robert. How are you doing?

Fantastic. How are you guys today?

Super duper.

What’s up?

Okay, well, I have a question.

I just got married back in early October.

Hey, mazel tov.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

And she kept her maiden name, which is Crumpacker, which is derived from Grumbacher, of course.

How do you spell that?

Just like it sounds, C-R-U-M, Hacker.

Oh, my.

Yes.

Wow.

So I have a non-exotic name, leaps and bounds, Smith.

But she didn’t want to change her last name, so she kept her maiden name, Crumpacker.

Now, to introduce us, there is no longer the option for Mr. And Mrs. Smith.

She can’t be called Mrs. Crumpacker, because that would entail that she married a Crumpacker.

Right.

So what do I call her?

You know, Ms., Ms., Bob?

I have no idea.

Honey, sweetie, sugar, darling?

I use Doodlebug quite a bit.

Oh.

But yeah, we’ve just been arguing about it.

Not arguing, it’s more like a friendly banter.

-huh.

I’m so interested.

So she didn’t want to change her name.

What was her rationale there?

Oh, she’s a very independent person.

-huh.

And really digs her last name.

And that’s about it, actually.

Okay. So what’s her title, right? That’s what you want to know. What’s her title? She’s Mrs. Ms. Ms. What?

Exactly.

What does she want to say? What does she use?

She uses Ms.

Ms. With a Ms. sound.

Exactly.

-huh.

But I had always heard that that was used for maybe divorcees or even widows or such, but I have no idea.

Well, the underlying rule for most of this is that whatever the person wants to be called is what they’re called.

So if she wanted to be called Mrs. Jones, that’s her prerogative.

It’s when you don’t know what the preference of the person is that you really have a problem.

So if she prefers Ms. Crumpacker, then she is Ms. Crumpacker.

She sounds like she’s the mistress at a boarding school.

Wrapping those knuckles.

Yeah, she’ll love that.

Putting old heads on young shoulders.

Well, yeah, I think that your wife, what’s her first name?

Andrea.

Andrea.

I think Andrea’s instincts are right on because if she were to be Mrs. Crumpacker, then naturally the question is, where is Mr. Crumpacker?

Exactly.

And he’s not in your home, right?

Not even close, no.

Okay.

Boy, it sounds like there’s a story here.

I would definitely go with Ms. there.

I would do that, actually, for any woman who wants to keep her original name.

What do you think, Grant?

I mean, if you say she’s Mrs. Crumpacker, then there’s always an asterisk there, an invisible asterisk there.

Yeah, Mrs. isn’t right here.

Miss implies that she’s not married.

Ms. is a title which is appropriately vague but allows any of these other things to be true, to be unmarried or married.

And, you know, if you know somebody well enough, they’ll figure it out.

And if you don’t know them well enough, then maybe they don’t need to know.

We have the same circumstance in my house, Robert.

My wife kept her name.

We wanted to keep it.

She’s besides her grandfather.

She is the only other person in her whole family that has that name.

So she kept it.

It’s valuable to her.

And we gave it to my son as a middle name.

And when I asked her about this, she’s like, I don’t care.

You know, part of it is there’s a battle here to be fought because most people won’t respect your wishes anyway.

A lot of people will think that she took your name anyhow.

Right.

And a whole other group of people just don’t understand the role of Ms. and think it’s something foisted upon them by the ERA movement.

Exactly.

Right, so Robert, are you okay with her calling herself Ms. Andrea Crumpacker?

Absolutely.

I think that’s a great choice.

I think Ms. Crumpacker is exactly the right choice.

Good to go.

Well, that’s good to know.

I appreciate your help.

All right.

Sure, no problem.

Thanks for calling, Robert.

Okay, bye-bye.

Well, did you have a dilemma about this when you got married?

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