I got married in the beginning of 2007 and decided not to take my husband's name until September of that year. I use it for introductions and work purposes, but I didn't go to the Social Security Administration to change it until last week. I did the thing for my new card and then my husband tried to get a replacement card for himself. The worker looked at his birth certificate and driver's license and said she couldn't issue one since the names didn't match. His license says Smith (example) and his certificate says Jones-Smith. His mother told him that he could go by one name if he wanted, so he grew up using Smith instead of the hyphenated name. He used it for school, work, marriage certificate, our children's birth certificates. The worker said he is legally Jones-Smith and that so am I. Is this true? My marriage certificate has him listed just as Smith so I can't have them change it in their system until I have my certificate amended. I called the county I got married in and they said they don't amend the certificates. What do I do? We were thinking of legally changing my husband's name, but we're moving out of the country next month and don't have the time.

Please clarify something - I gather that you are now using "Smith" and have it shown that way on your SS card, driver's license, and passport, so you have no name issues at this point, and the only problem here is the issue with your husband's last name - correct? Then it seems to me that your husband would have to do the name change thing to get it corrected legally. Seems to me that this issue should have come up long ago, when your husband's mother first applied for his SS card, and also when he got his passport. Perhaps in the wake of 9/11 the SS administration has tightened up on this sort of thing.