I wish people who freak out about "deadnaming" would pay half as much attention to not screwing up women's names

submitted by NDG from self.GenderCritical

This has been on my mind for a couple months and I have to get it out.

I've had the exact same legal name for my entire life. Let's say it's Margaret Anderson Fitzpatrick (first, middle, last). When I was a young child, I signed things as Margaret Fitzpatrick, and when I was ten I decided to start signing things as Margaret Anderson Fitzpatrick. "Anderson" is my mom's last name. Some years ago, I married "John Smith."

I've had people screw up my name as Margaret Anderson-Fitzpatrick, Margaret Anderson Smith, Margaret Fitzpatrick Smith, Margaret Fitzpatrick-Smith (with hyphen), Margaret Smith...my husband and I get things addressed to "the Smiths," "the Smith family," "the Fitzpatrick family," "the Anderson-Fitzpatrick family." A lot of the time it's from relatives who should know better. We're talking people who remember when I was born. AND IT'S BEEN THE EXACT SAME LEGAL NAME MY WHOLE LIFE.

If they leave out the "Anderson," okay, whatever. I just want people to get my last name right. But when they screw it up, do I go cry on Tumblr about how they're "wrongnaming" me and it invalidates me as a person and it's "literal violence"? No. It pisses me off, but I can still function, for God's sake.

My husband's "woke" ex-friends that he used to do hobby stuff with (they've since decided I'm a racist, because I said it was traumatic for little kids of all races to see their neighborhoods destroyed in riots) would have rather eaten glass than screwed up a trans person's name. But what did they write on invitations to us? John and Margaret Smith.

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[–]fuckingsealions 19 insightful - 1 fun19 insightful - 0 fun20 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I've been casually noticing how hard it is for men to remember women's names in a lot of situations. This is a really random example, but during quarantine my household started watching early seasons of Survivor. The male contestants always knew the names of the other men pretty quickly, but the women were often nicknamed, like "Blondie" or "Barbie" and they would fumble for their actual names.

I also saw some interesting poll results. They surveyed 1000 people about who they recognized from pictures of older tv shows, both the actors' names and the characters' names. Men were almost always the top recognized people, even if a woman was the actual star of the show. After a while the results became predictable. It's annoying.

[–]shveya 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I have had male coworkers take months to remember my name. A lot of the time I get called “Leslie”. It’s always that name for some reason. My name starts with an L, but it doesn’t even rhyme with Leslie.

[–]MarkTwainiac 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I've used the same name my whole life, and have often had it mis-stated coz I've always gone by both my first and middle names (like a Sue Ann or a Billy Bob) but documents as well as websites always leave out the second part. Nobody in my life calls me just Billy - I'm always Billy Bob - but even major websites insist on calling me just Billy. Amazon knows from my credit cards and delivery info that I'm Billy Bob, but at the top of every page is always "Hi Billy!" Annoying.

In addition to the social issues of being referred to as though I took my husband's last name when I married - which I didn't, and never even considered, not for a second - there have been financial hassles too. Coz on my credit reports, I keep being listed not only by every possible variation of my own name, but by every possible combination of my own first name and first & middle name along with my (now ex) husband's last name. Since his last name is fairly common, this means a vast amount of false info about my addresses and employment history have been reported to the various credit agencies - and I've been dunned for debts belonging to women with my first name(s) and my ex's last name. It's maddening.

[–]VioletRemi 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I have a name that is similar to common name here, but is different version of it, however, everyone is still calling me with wrong one, and it taking me long time on a new job or within any new community to teach them to say correct one. As I am annoying them to a point (either by ignoring them, like they are calling someone else "oh, you ws calling that name, not me", or by explicitelly fixing them every time they are misspelling), that they are just surrendering and calling me correctly.

[–]PeakingPeachEater 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

My real name is a dimunitive of a name, and everytime I tell people, they try to call me by the other name. I also HATE my name because that makes me sound like I'm "little" for the rest of my life

Let's just say my name is..."Lolita". Well, when I tell people that, they automatically assume my name is short for "Dolores" and sometimes call me "Lola" for short of that name...but...those aren't my names.

I'd go by the name "Li" as short for it and Americanize it to "Lee" so people don't ask me where I am from or make retard comment like "you have an accent"...Okay?

They always assume I'm a boy talking on the phone and call me "sir" too if I talk how I normally do. I changed my voice intonation recently (forced higher pitched, overly polite, bubbly customer service tone) and now they call me "ma'am"...

I also don't particularly feel attach to nickname either, just neutral. I use it for work and meeting people. I get extremely annoyed when my bosses refer to me by legal name, and one is a TiM!! Like, I don't deadname him, and I don't call him a "he" infront of him either. A lot of coworkers have by mistake hahaha. Another boss used to call me by name and tried to say my name was beautiful because it is biblical...yeah...another reason I do not like haha. I am an atheist. A lot of people also pronounced my name wrong and it sounds even uglier to me.

Anyways lol, I wouldn't call it "literal violence" like some TiMs/TiFs claim. Just a slight annoyance. I mean, I can choose not to respond if someone calls me by the wrong name or a name I don't like.

I've always wanted to change my name but wouldn't even know where to begin. It's...somewhat rare my first and lastname combination...

[–]forwardback 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Especially bothers me about the word naming me: woman. Walk right off with that cis nonsense. Take my name, replace it, then forget about me using preferred pronouns or preferred name in return.

[–]ANIKAHirsch 1 insightful - 6 fun1 insightful - 5 fun2 insightful - 6 fun -  (28 children)

Why didn't you take your husband's name?

[–]Shesstealthy 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (25 children)

Why would you?

[–]Dravidian 13 insightful - 2 fun13 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Why is it even still a question?

[–]NDG[S] 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Because it's not mine. It doesn't say anything about my family or my history. My mom didn't change her name either, so I didn't grow up with the idea that changing your name when you got married was "what everyone did." I don't care what other people do with their names, but it's always seemed really arbitrary to me.

Besides, all of my everything - driver's license, degrees, professional license - is in my own name. And my husband's dad's side is pretty dysfunctional.