This is what bothers me: if I've written you an email and clearly signed my name, or I've sent you an IM when my name is clearly listed in the header of the IM window, or you've bothered to contact me by looking me up in our employee directory where my name is spelled right, some people still spell my name wrong, even after immediately seeing it spelled correctly.
This isn't the exact same thing, because it's not a from-birth issue, and is something that we know is not the norm so we don't get tweaky about it to the people.
But neither my husband nor I changed our last names when we got married. Then we hyphenated DS's name. So there are three last names in our household. We didn't tell MIL/FIL about it, because we knew they would flip out, so we made sure our bank would be cool taking gift checks in any name combo.
But on envelopes I'll put things like "The B***, W****, and B***-W*** family". I have told my family repeatedly. They have ASKED repeatedly. I have said, repeatedly, "oh, I know we're the odd ones, but I'm me, Robert's him, and Eamon is hyphenated". My dad decided to put my name as some sort of beneficiary on a pension, asked me for my address and social sec. number, and had already put my last name as hyphenated. Then he refused to change it, since he had already written it, and said it wouldn't matter...um, putting a name that isn't mine on a legal document won't matter? My SIL, who is a total sweetheart, decided that she hates that I don't have a credit card, and decided to send me one on her and my brother's account (her whole family has cards on their account, they are incredibly generous to their family), and even though I told her specifically, the card came today and it's hyphenated.
I have the same last name that I ALWAYS had. Nothing changed. It took me ages to get used to my friends' married names (they all changed them) and then get used to going back when half of them divorced and went back. I even remembered the one friend who kept her married name post-divorce b/c of their kids.
I know this isn't their issue, that we are the odd ones (it will get more odd if/when DH decides to hyphenate or flat out take my name, b/c he has realized he has no respect for his father's family or their name). But when they ask and I tell them, repeatedly....at some point...I do kind of expect that they could remember it.
