The good news: It was ridiculously easy to add an additional cardholder to my regular credit cards. Just went to their website and filled out a form.

Still need to call them to request the version of the card with your photo on it, since you can’t order that from the website.

The bad news: The credit card company that handles Lane Bryant’s and Torrid’s cards said there’s no way to shorten my first name to just an initial without a legal name change. Grrr. I have a feeling it’ll be the same with other department store cards. (Fortunately as it turned out later, it wasn’t a huge deal to add an additional cardholder to these as well.)

Unfortunately the bank, as expected, doesn’t allow “authorized users” for ATM cards, you have to add a joint account holder.

But… I’m now the proud owner of a Visa and Mastercard with “Marlena” on the card. It was an oddly moving moment when I activated the cards online, and confirmation page page said “Customer name: Marlena [LastName]”.

Admittedly it’s a bit silly, but it felt like “Wow, Marlena is becoming an official person.”