Honorifics/Titles

Fenvagabond

Hoiya all

I'm new on here so please be gentle.

So, I'm having trouble with financial establishments with their persistent use of honorifics. My personal preference is to use Esquire which is placed after my name and not to use any prefixed honorifics. Financial establishments insist that a prefixed title is used and nothing can be done to change whilst stating that it's a computer limitation. I've tried talking to the establishments that I use, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Financial Ombudsman to no avail. Also asked the CAB for advice to be told it's how the aforementioned work. Surely it's not much to ask to be addressed according to my preference.

Now, I assume that there may be other people who prefer not to use an honorific for reasons which could be personal preference, security or privacy.

My question is has anyone else had this issue and what can be done about it?

Blessed be 

Hagar 😊

GingerTim

I'm not surprised that systems aren't set up deal with suffixed honorifics - and that's not mentioning the usage of 'esquire' is pretty archaic. I think you're going to have just live with this one.

pramsay13

You could use a fintech bank as they usually don't bother with titles.

EarthBoy

When I was 21, and a bit of a snob, I opened an account with Williams & Glyn's precisely because they put Esquire after your name, instead of using Mr.

Now I'm older, and much wiser, I laugh at such pretentiousness.

DullGreyGuy

Have to say that suffixes, and those that use them outside of the most formal of situations, really feel pretentious to me. Always surprises me when I get an email from someone and they've added a dozen or so suffixes for their various academic or military accomplishments etc 

Esquire is a bit of an interesting one given the totally different meaning in the UK to the US... the UK version is certainly a double edge sword.

For the majority of us it's not about what prefix we "like" but simply the reality of our situation in terms of identified gender(s), marital status and potential educational/chivalry status. 

It really confuses the hell out of the US that UK surgeons use the title Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms/Mx rather than Dr unless they happen to be a surgeon with a PhD in which case the later rather than the former is the source of the title. 

If you are really picky, start banking with one of the private banks, they have vastly larger choice of titles to pick from... though if you are a British Esquire you may not fit in with them. 

eskbanker

User_3237378 said:

So, I'm having trouble with financial establishments with their persistent use of honorifics. My personal preference is to use Esquire which is placed after my name and not to use any prefixed honorifics. Financial establishments insist that a prefixed title is used and nothing can be done to change whilst stating that it's a computer limitation. I've tried talking to the establishments that I use, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Financial Ombudsman to no avail. Also asked the CAB for advice to be told it's how the aforementioned work. Surely it's not much to ask to be addressed according to my preference.

Yes, it is too much to ask to be addressed (or at least recorded in bank and associated systems reliant on standardised name formatting) with a suffix rather than a prefix, but it sounds like you've been told that already by multiple bodies, albeit apparently not yet the European Court of Human Rights....

Flugelhorn

It really confuses the hell out of the US that UK surgeons use the title Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms/Mx rather than Dr unless they happen to be a surgeon with a PhD in which case the later rather than the former is the source of the title. 

If you are really picky, start banking with one of the private banks, they have vastly larger choice of titles to pick from... though if you are a British Esquire you may not fit in with them. 

The surgeon with an MD in this household is still Mister. TBH most surgeons with PhD / MD would still call themselves Mr as they would appear to be unqualified to the job if they were merely "doctor"

DullGreyGuy

Flugelhorn said:

It really confuses the hell out of the US that UK surgeons use the title Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms/Mx rather than Dr unless they happen to be a surgeon with a PhD in which case the later rather than the former is the source of the title. 

If you are really picky, start banking with one of the private banks, they have vastly larger choice of titles to pick from... though if you are a British Esquire you may not fit in with them. 

The surgeon with an MD in this household is still Mister. TBH most surgeons with PhD / MD would still call themselves Mr as they would appear to be unqualified to the job if they were merely "doctor"

With an "MD" would be confusing... I'd assume they did medicine in the US where you get a MD rather than MB ChB but realise some UK universities don't use MB ChB any more. Didn't realise there were UK "MD" qualifications but these things evolve and I dropped out before graduating 

The Surgeon with a PhD that I know that uses Dr isn't a practicing medic any more but in academic research which may explain their adoption of their academic qualification rather than the nod to barber surgeons 

MattMattMattUK

I am studying an PhD part time, it is likely to take me 4-5 years to complete, but I will certainly be using Dr once I get it, I am not putting all that effort in to not get free upgrades on flights!

GingerTim

MattMattMattUK said:

I am studying an PhD part time, it is likely to take me 4-5 years to complete, but I will certainly be using Dr once I get it, I am not putting all that effort in to not get free upgrades on flights!

Without wishing to be a Barry Buzzkill, the only time my doctorate got me an upgrade was a flight from Melbourne to Canberra!

(and good luck with it - tough enough doing a PhD full time, let alone part time.)

CliveOfIndia

DullGreyGuy said:

It really confuses the hell out of the US that UK surgeons use the title Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms/Mx rather than Dr

I've always found this slightly odd (with respect to medical doctors).  You slog your guts out for years, study and work really hard, finally you're allowed to call yourself "Dr", and (probably quite proudly, and absolutely rightly so) use that as a title.

Then you do even more studying, even more hard work, become a surgeon or a consultant or whatever, and then go back to calling yourself Mr. or Mrs. or whatever.  I've always wondered where this convention comes from.  Put in all that work for the right to call yourself Dr., then do even more work and drop the title.  Seems odd to me, but I'm sure there's a reason for it.