When I first got my only-one-name sorted with Medicare, a programmer there was proud to say they’d researched how names worked in Australia and she was confident the system could cope with anything thrown at it. Whether the data entry operators know how to deal with that was another issue, of course.

My passport has one name, no title, and no questions were asked.

How do I reckon people deal with letters and formal situations? Well, I have no problem with using a given name, since that’s something everyone has. The family name is, well, the family‘s name. Or just avoid the issue with a salutation of “Good morning”, which is what I do if unsure. If a bureaucracy, then perhaps that’s a field on the form: “preferred form of address”.

I’d never really thought much about the gender/marital status labels before. But now that you mention it, surely in most situations, these things shouldn’t be important.

Besides, it’s a pain in the backside for all involved when gender isn’t readily apparent from the addressee’s name, but etiquette dictates that a title must be used. It often results in somebody making an embarrassing wrong guess.

Just out of curiosity, how would you suggest people be addressed in letters/formal situations, if the traditional titles were done away with/ made optional? For example, should a new, gender-neutral title be introduced, or should we just be addressed by our given/family/preferred name?