To be honest I can't remember callong anyone by any of the titles herr/fru/frøken (mr/mrs/ms) but maybe its just less common in norway. I call people by their first name or just their last name.

Vestitor: When it starts getting into squabbles about whose name is placed first in a union I start to wonder if getting married was a good idea at all. If a woman's name comes first in a double-barrelled name via marriage, you don't see groups of disgruntled men starting a pressure group to reverse the name order.
...

Even worse people think if they abolish e.g. 'Mrs' that it will improve a woman's lot. The latter is particularly idiotic.

The woman's name usually comes first in a double-barrelled name here, but the woman is the only who takes that name (or perhaps children) and the women's half of the name is usually dropped by the next generation anyway. At any rate being double-barrelled is not associated with being posh in the US, it is associated with being feminist, so you don't see a lot of double-barrelled men at any rate.

It's not that doing away with "Mrs" improves a woman's lot. It's that it does away with the idea that it matters if a woman is married or not. It is just easier to have one title that you can use for any woman, not requiring asking any personal questions. As far as Esperanto is concerned, I'd rather have "sinjoro" as a title for all men and "sinjorino" for all women, and reserve "frauxlo" and "frauxlino" for when we are talking about unmarried people in the third person and actually talking about topics where marital status matters.

You are fortunate this is not Russian - there is still no good way to address a person in Russian if you don't know their given name & patronymic.

The options are fairly unpalatable: tovarisch (comrade) was used until the late 80s, but now sounds facetious; grazhdanin/grazhdanka (citizen/citizeness) is very formal; probably the least inappropriate is gospodin/gospozha (master, gentleman).

On the street, though, most people just say - Zhenschina! Muzhik/Muzhchina! Molodoj chelovek! - Woman! Man! Young person! - which doesn't quite have the refinement of the French monsieur or the Esperanto sinjoro.

jagr2808:To be honest I can't remember callong anyone by any of the titles herr/fru/frøken (mr/mrs/ms) but maybe its just less common in norway. I call people by their first name or just their last name.

What are people called in public when you don't know them? For example, you don't know a person and you are trying to get their attention. In Esperanto one might shout "Sinjoro!". In English, it would be "sir!" or "ma'am", so we use different words entirely than the titles.

If you met a very high ranking person and you wanted to speak to them with respect, how would they be called? Like, John Smith and Jane Jones come, and you want to speak to them with extra respect because they are very prestigious. John Smith would usually be referred to in English, to his face, as Mr. Smith, even though you might call him "Smith" behind his back. Jane Jones would likely be Ms. Jones (de-emphasis on marriage, even if she is married and even if she took her husband's name).

Tempodivalse:On the street, though, most people just say - Zhenschina! Muzhik/Muzhchina! Molodoj chelovek! - Woman! Man! Young person! - which doesn't quite have the refinement of the French monsieur or the Esperanto sinjoro.

I've always felt the lack of a respectful way to talk about women in the third person in English. You can say "that gentleman over there" for a respectful way to talk about a man, but "lady" has unfortunately gotten a less respectful connotation over the years, "That lady over there" doesn't sound too nice. You can easily imagine saying "Some crazy lady was accosting me!" but "Some crazy gentleman was accosting me!" doesn't quite work out. "Sinjoro" and "Sinjorino" work effectively for that usage in Esperanto.

At any rate being double-barrelled is not associated with being posh in the US, it is associated with being feminist, so you don't see a lot of double-barrelled men at any rate.

Actually, I hardly see anyone with double surnames - especially among the younger crowd. I never thought of it being a feminist statement, though that makes sense.

I don't understand why anyone would want to change their surname at all, though - it's such a significant part of one's identity. I would certainly be unhappy with the propsect of having to adopt the spouse's surname - seems like you lose your sovereignty, in a symbolic sense.

BTW - How common is it for a newlywed woman to change her middle name to her old surname?

Tempodivalse:BTW - How common is it for a newlywed woman to change her middle name to her old surname?

My mom did it. I don't know how many people do it now. She would not have changed her name at all if the culture had been different at the time. But if she had not changed it, I know that people would have assumed her to be divorced, and I am sure that gets wearying when it happens over and over. Apparently it is still like that in some parts of the country, a local friend recently moved to Texas and found that people at her pediatrician's office assumed she was divorced because her name was not the same as her husband's or her kids'.

I told my husband that if he wanted us to have the same name, I'd be honored if he took mine. He declined. I feel like you'd be crazy to dump your name, unless you really dislike your family, but lots of people feel differently. I am not a big fan of the double-barrelled names but if I ever have kids I will probably end up with that. My husband wants any eventual kids to have his (common) surname, unwilling to give them my name only, and my name won't get passed on at all if I don't do it, so I definitely want my name to be passed on in some form, even as only half of a double barrel.

I knew only a couple kids with double surnames growing up. If it was Martha Smith-Jones, she was often referred to in short as Martha Jones, so for this reason I'd almost prefer my name to be the second in the double-barrel, to make sure it gets maximal use

erinja:
I've always felt the lack of a respectful way to talk about women in the third person in English. You can say "that gentleman over there" for a respectful way to talk about a man, but "lady" has unfortunately gotten a less respectful connotation over the years, "That lady over there" doesn't sound too nice. You can easily imagine saying "Some crazy lady was accosting me!" but "Some crazy gentleman was accosting me!" doesn't quite work out. "Sinjoro" and "Sinjorino" work effectively for that usage in Esperanto.

I think the origin of this is quite the opposite of what you are seeing. Calling a a woman 'that/this lady' was clearly because it was thought rude to say 'that/this woman' in the still mildly chivalrous attitude of most of the 20th century. I know my parents always referred to 'that lady' (which is in fact a titled position strictly considered) rather than 'that woman' and encouraged us to use that form. To say 'that woman' generally meant the person speaking had less respect for the person in question. In contrast it has never been odd to say 'that fellow, or that chap, or that bloke (informally) and no-one thinks it denigrating.

Tell me, what is a preferable term other than 'lady' or woman? Fellow was once a non-gendered way of referring to people, but that seems to have been adopted for men only.

Though I can acknowledge the structure of language as having been made with women in a one-down position, very often these discussions seem to always find a fault in any term a man might use.

Tempodivalse:
I don't understand why anyone would want to change their surname at all, though - it's such a significant part of one's identity.

Which is curious, considering where surnames come from. They were imposed by governments to make it easier to keep track of people - sort of a proto-RFID system.

Discussed in this book:

Seeing Like a State

... among other places.

Bruso:

Tempodivalse:
I don't understand why anyone would want to change their surname at all, though - it's such a significant part of one's identity.

Which is curious, considering where surnames come from. They were imposed by governments to make it easier to keep track of people - sort of a proto-RFID system.

Originally? Surnames evolved naturally (if used): topographical, professions, regional..etc