Wow, this sparked quite a discussion. Many thanks for all your thoughts. I still wonder if, when hiring a car in England, for example, I shall have any problem that my driving licence and my passport don't match. But I'll face that when I have to! Meanwhile, one of my reasons for using my husband's name is that it starts with B at the beginning of any list, and my maiden name starts with Y, so for over 40 years I have been at the top of any list and not at the bottom - until now!
I have my married name on some documents (insurance, bank card/chequebook, carte vitale, rental contract etc) and my maiden name on others (passport, carte grise) including my French driving licence. I have never had problems with having either my passport or driving licence accepted for identity purposes. I usually carry a copy or my Livret de Famille around as I got married in France but have never had to produce it.
Ours have the Swiss ones although born in England. We registered them with the embassy within days, got passports immediately then first trips the carnet things. I am the only one without now, as if it actually makes any difference.
Since arriving in France in 2004, my wife has always had all her documents (Cart Vital, License, Bank Cards, bills , Tax Forms etc etc etc) in her married name of Longhurst and only once has she ever been officially listed as "Scott" which was at the Notaires during house purchase/sale. Her maiden name has never appeared on any official documents even though it has always been declared as such. So it is not always the norm in every part of France or indeed with every organization in France to ignore the married name and use the maiden name.
Regards, Mike Longhurst
Yes but the UK accept that people call themselves what they want! It is just in France & Germany (& elsewhere) that they are twitchy about a person's exact name & there are strict rules about names.
So you just tell them driving licence in maiden name, passport in other name - so what - you are still the same person. If there is no intent to defraud etc they don't make a fuss about it, at least not in the UK.
Well you can ask to have your UK passport either in your maiden name or any other name you lay claim to - I had my married name on my UK passport (but won't on the next one!!) and have always only ever had my birth name on my French passport. I suppose the ambiguity arises from the fact that the UK doesn't have a clear paper trail for name-changing & it is so easy. You can always get a new passport in your maiden name if you are really bothered.
If you need French documents made from UK documents that is where the difficulties may arise - so the old nom de naissance & nom d'usage come into their own.
That's where I see the challenge Catherine when I go back to the UK as my driving licence and Passport will be in different names! All UK banks seem to demand 2 forms of ID if you need to mak any changes to your accounts or withdraw money!
I'm sure it will be no problem in france but I can foresee lots of challenges when I am back in the UK and trying to prove ID to banks!!!!
Yes a LdF is only of real use if you are French - eg I got married in Scotland & my first 4 children were born in GB but as we are all French people born abroad my livret de famille was filled in Edinburgh & London until I lived in France when No 5 (born here) was added by the Mairie. It is handy for when I can't be bothered to get a load of new birth certificates from Nantes for admin stuff.
Anyway, never mind what is right / wrong / strange / unique / French / not French, my point was that as we do not have ID cards in the UK, as a British citizen, my sole form of official ID is my passport. Surely as said British citizen that is 'officially' who I am, wherever I happen to be living?
If anyone is interested, you can get a Livret de famille if you get married in France. I have one but my kids aren't in it as they were not born here so it's not actually very much use anyway...!
And Veronique - blimey!! Good luck with the paperwork in years to come...
I don't see why I should lose my name if I get married, sharing is fine but disappearing as an individual seems odd especially as it is so one-sided. I don't have a problem with both changing names by adding a bit on or both keeping their original names... I DO have a big problem with Véronique Langlands disappearing & turning into Mrs Basil Brush (for example). No matter how much I love dear Basil to bits, I exist in my own right and that doesn't change because I choose to marry. I got all my degrees etc etc etc before getting married, the person who got jobs etc on the strength of those degrees hasn't changed so neither should her name.
I probably think this because I'm a French person (as much as a British one) and so it seems perfectly normal to me that people eg my parents should have different names even though they are married.
Given that use of names is now choice in the UK, after all you can be born X, married and have taken Y (it is actually legal for a man to take his wife's name) but do everything else under alias Z. Don't let it worry you.
The thing is that in the UK anyone can legally call him or herself what he or she wants, there's no Etat Civil and you don't declare a divorce etc (one of the reasons the UK is top of the bigamy league in Europe), but in most of the rest of Europe they work on the principle that you have a name, usually your father's name or sometimes both your parents' names put together, when you are born or adopted and that's your actual real official name whatever happens later, even if you decide that when you get married you will call yourself Bloggs or whatever. If you marry 3 or 4 times that can get a bit confusing although it isn't unusual either so if you keep the same name, ie the one you were born with, it is simpler.
When I married an English person in Scotland we put our names together so he took my name & I took his - according to their UK birth certificates, our children have both names as their surname. According to their French birth certificates, they have only their father's birth name but both as a nom d'usage. Now we are divorced, I have dropped his name and just have the first half, ie my own name... but he has decided to keep both (as he can, as a UK citizen, I hate it but tough), so acc to the French his name is X-Y, my name is X and our children are Y. Silly but there it is.
My personal situation has also been complicated by the fact that my German stepfather adopted me this summer so I shall legally & officially be X-Z - my original birth name would normally have been replaced by my stepfather's name but as I happen to have had that name for 51 years and have been professionally known as X for years, they will just add the Z. So I'll have 3 lovely new birth certificates, a UK one, a French one and a German one, with my new name on them. I can see years of fun ahead with documents....
I'd say if you are worried about the driving licence thing you either get them to put your married name as a nom d'usage or you fold up your birth certificate & keep it with it. All this goes in the livret de famille, a handy document for French people but I think not available to UK citizens even if they live here.
Your driving licence alone will be the only identification that you will need to carry around. The authorities in France understand that a married woman continues to be known by her birth name in many situations and her married name in others. Nobody will bat an eyelid if they see that your driving licence and debit cards have different names.
I think the problem I will have as I am about to change my driving licence from the UK to France is having my driving licence accepted in the UK as it will be in a completely different name to all my other forms of ID (i.e passport, credit card etc) or do you have to carry your birth certificate, first marriage certificate, divorce papers, 2nd marriage certificate around with you to satisfy the authorities?
You are still thinking as an Englishwoman, what you think as normal a French, German or Italian woman might consider strange. The important factor is that it is the process in France that matters.
In which case Doreen, one would go to the registrar to get their birth certificate or equivalent document amended to their married name logically since it is one of the few commonly accepted forms of identification across national boundaries.
Excuse me, but since when has UK law been the one in the world that is uniquely right? My Swiss wife has never used my name and in her country the same applies as here, she had a UK driving licence with her own name since that is the name she uses and is on her birth certificate and passport/ID card as well as the one she turned in. I used to have a German driving licence and know there that the name of a birth certificate is the one that is asked for thus used, various other countries as well. The normal practice in other countries is to add words to the effect of 'wife of/married to X' to the licence and various other documents. If anything, the UK practice is the strange one.
Admitting the document was a different one, I had the same problem on my C.V. I contacted the issuing officer directly (his name was on the accompanying letter) and he asked me to send a letter saying the name was that of my Father and that I am called/known by my Husbands name. The replacement arrived within ten days of me sending the letter.