I was talking with a friend of mine about how people routinely think that my middle name, Robinette, is a maiden name. Some people even try to hyphenate it with my last name. I once had someone, when I asked for a new badge at a convention, tell me, “I was corrected on that and told that there should absolutely be a hyphen,” as though I didn’t know how to spell my own name.
It’s such a common error that when I’m checking into a convention, if they don’t have my badge under Kowal, I tell them to try looking in the Rs. This happens even though I put Mary Robinette in the first name field and only Kowal in the last name field. I even have an FAQ on it on my site, because it is so common.
It annoys me, but isn’t a huge deal. I mean, it’s easy to correct, but the thing is… it’s a gendered mistake.
This is something that only happens because I’m a girl. Sure… Robinette can be a surname, but folks would not make this mistake with a man.
For instance, Vice President Joe Biden’s middle name is also Robinette. Do you think anyone has ever filed him under Robinette-Biden?
It happened before I got married, even. In fact, I gave up introducing myself as Mary Robinette well before I met my husband because people always heard it as a first and last name.
When people see a woman who uses all three of her names, the common assumption is that the middle one is a maiden name. No one makes that assumption with men. Eric James Stone is never addressed as “Mr. James-Stone” nor does one ever hear of a “Mr. Scott-Card” though both of their middle names can be surnames.
I do understand the weight of societal expectations here, that women in the U.S. often take their husband’s name and shift their own surname to the middle. But not everyone does.
There are also women who combine surnames with their husband. Like the Nielsen Haydens. Patrick Nielsen Hayden probably has to deal with the reverse of that gendered assumption, which is that Nielsen is his middle name, when it’s not.
Plus, there are a ton of women who don’t change their name at all.
Edited to add: And there are men who take the wife’s surname, as is the case with our own Rachel Swirsky and her husband Mike Swirsky.
The point being that there are a lot of variations out there. Despite gender-based assumptions, there are more variations on women’s name structures than there are on men’s. If you are in doubt, just ask.
So what do I like to be called? Honestly, Mary or Mary Robinette are both fine. Everyone on my Dad’s side of the family calls me Mary Robinette because I’m named after his mother and… well, it’s the South. Double-barreled names are sort of normal there. But my parents and my husband have always called me Mary. As a result I answer to both. Mary Robinette makes me think of my grandmother, but I am probably more accustomed to Mary at this point in my life.But I do always get a little thrill when there are two Marys in a group and I get to switch back to the double-barreled name.
Really, all I ask is that you not hyphenate my middle name with my last name.
So Mary-Kowal Robinette is right out? Got it.
Hee hee.
“Plus, there are a ton of women who don’t change their name at all.”
My wife didn’t change her name when we married. She remained the Williams she had always been.
Pretty much everyone, therefore, who meets her first, then refers to me as “Mr Williams”.
Sigh.
Oh, that must be aggravating, for both of you.
I have a friend who hyphenates, but somehow someone got the two names reversed for nametags for a dinner, and thus chose the wrong last name to put on her husband’s name tag! Luckily they found it amusing, but I still can’t figure out how anyone managed to rearrange her name!
Then there is that eww factor that your are referred two by your father-in-laws name. It would give me shudders the first couple of years.
Oi, I hear you on name headaches! I suppose I complicated it more by shortening my first name to a single letter…but hopefully people are learning to call me Elise. 😀
At least there, they recognize that they need to ask the question. I hope.
Thankfully, nobody has ever assumed that “Anne” is my maiden name *g* but yes, many people assume that “Laura” is my first name, and people “correct” it so that Anne is my middle name, because yeah, clearly I don’t know any better, despite the fact that I introduce myself as “Laura Anne” and use it on all legal and book-related paperwork… *headesks*
Oh yeah, I’ve corrected people for you on that. There was a point when I was tempted to put a hyphen between Mary and Robinette so that people would stop separating them.
People have told me to hyphenate, but it looks wrong to me (southern rather than northern, maybe). I should have kept my actual middle name, that would have confused the hell out of them!
(my folks gave me permission to drop it legally when I was a teenager)
I think that the double-barrelled names in the south aren’t usually hyphenated either, but people are just used to it. I have a Canadian friend whose first name is MaryClaire, with no space and the second name capitalized.
And then there’s Stephen H Silver whose middle initial has no period.
Yep. The double-barrelled Southron names aren’t hyphenated, they just are. Classic example every writer knows: Mary Sue. 🙂
My intended and I intend to add each others’ surnames, but not hyphenate…
(I love the imagery that comes to mind over “double-barrelled Southron names”…. Paw in the swing on the front porch, cradling a side-by-side shotgun… “MARY SUE! Your gentleman is here!”)
I think I always refer to you as “Mary Robinette,” possibly because there’s just a lot of Marys in my life, possibly because the most significant one is my sister with the double-barreled name, so I’ve had a lifetime of saying something after “Mary.” Feels kind of weird not to add the “Robinette” actually. And I’m from Detroit!
It looks strange to me in writing for there not to be a Robinette after it.
Thank you! I love that you took the time to address the larger issue, rather than just saying “hey, it’s my middle name.” I think I’ve suspected Robinette wasn’t a maiden name (which we really need another word for – the days of maidens are long gone). I do refer to you as Mary Robinette when talking about you, to distinguish you from Mary Hobson, or Mary Rosenblum, or potentially other Marys. Now I’ll enjoy doing that, knowing it’s meaningful to you.
Yay! Thank you.
My ex-partner and I never married or changed names. Her last name is Cook, and I would sometimes be called “Mr. Cook.” Very disturbing, that anyone would assume her last name must be mine, when all they really knew about us was that we lived at the same address.
Mary, I’ve never run across an issue with your first two names, but quite a few folks don’t know how to correctly pronounce your last name. Some say “coal” and some say “cowl”. I’m sure there are other ways as well. What is the correct way should I be asked again?
Mike Willmoth
Both of those are incorrect. This is another thing I actually have an FAQ on because it is a weirdly difficult name. It is Co-wall, like co-ed. It used to be Kowalski, but is now without the ski.
I have had problems with filing Orson Scott Card in the past. But that is definitely a cultural artefact, since middle names are not often used here, while double-barrelled names are hyphenated or written as one (I think). So my first instinct tends to be first name, last name(s), which than is corrected based on how ‘namelike’ the middle bit of the name is.
To further confuse things, he goes by his middle name. My dad does the same thing, which makes it handy to spot telemarketers when they call him by his first name.
In my family tradition — and it might also be a Maritime Canada thing — the use of both first and middle names by your parents was a Sure Sign that you were In Trouble and that you were going to Get It now. I have been sufficiently conditioned by this that whenever you’re referred to as “Mary Robinette” a part of me thinks, “Oh jeez, what’s she done now?”
Well that’s a safe bet most of the time.
Yestre’en the Queen had four Marys
Tonicht she’ll hae but three
There was Mary Seaton and Mary Beaton
Mary Carmichael and me
The only male equivalent I can think of (in reverse sort of) is Americans searching under the wrong names for British composers – Ralph Vaughan Williams and Andrew Lloyd Webber to name the two I’ve run into. (I’ve even seen library records that mistakenly believe these men to have only one last name.)
Thank you for letting us know it is a double barreled name. I have an aunt named Mary Beth Gold and would never dream of calling her Mary. I can’t imagine telling someone how they should spell their name, it is your name and you can spell it the way you like. My daughter jokes that she wants to spell her child’s name “Fred” and pronounce it “Bob.” Thank you for not taking offense when we do it wrong out of ignorance, though.
I liked Howard’s “Mary Robinette Koala-without-the-a” pronunciation guide, myself.
I’ve never heard Robinette as a surname, before. I, unfortunately, first saw your name with that blasted hyphen in it, so I had to unlearn that. Bummer
The singer Mary Chapin Carpenter has the same situation. She hyphenated her first name for a while but has not done so the last few years.
On the other hand, nobody from the south would insist that your first name must be Mary-Robinette, huh?
To me, you are Mary or Mary Robinette Kowal, but never Mary Kowal. As someone originally from Taiwan, I’ve seen many translation names botched. In Chinese, family name goes first. But once translated, it’s the last name. Also, the first name is often hyphenated. Sometimes the hyphen would disappear in certain systems. Sometimes the second part of the first name becomes the middle name. Sometimes it just disappears altogether. It’s yet another set of confusion.
I will add a little more piece of trivia here. If you or anyone has seen classic TV reruns of LAW & ORDER one of the original characters from that show had a last name of Robinette. The character’s name was ADA Paul Robinette and the actor who played him was Richard Brooks. He was an original cast member of LAW & ORDER during its first three seasons from 1990 to 1993. Robinette is a rather common last name I might say.
My husband and I both think it’s funny when he gets referred to as Mr. Shack. (It would probably be less funny if it happened more often.)
I have to admit I had assumed Robinette was your maiden name. Apparently I should read FAQs more often. Which reminds me, I grew up in Texas and get the “but you don’t have a Texas accent” thing all the time (I could quote your reason #1).
My mother’s middle name is Ann, but I never heard any of her relatives call her “Ruth Ann”-it’s always “Ruthie.” My parents gave all of us family surnames as middle names, which was almost unheard of among Boomer kids in Massachusetts.
For sheer entertainment value, nothing beats having an ethnic last name, but not being a member of that ethnic group. I’ve had people walk straight past me because they thought they were looking for a Chinese lady. I’ve also had it mispronounced in very odd ways, if I’m not with my husband when I’m introduced. The most common is “Lang”, which isn’t so odd, but I’ve also been called Mrs. Lane more than once.