surname of bub when parents have different surnames

[HotI]

When we got married, my husband chose to keep his surname and so we have different surnames. We are trying to decide what to do when bub arrives. I haven't really been a fan of the hyphenated surname, cos i reckon that gets tricky when our kid gets married. However, i also feel a hold over passing on my surname, as well as DHs.

What have other people done? Have you been happy with your decision?

Thanks,

Kate

[Roryrory]

Neither of us changed our name when we married either Our boys have my surname - I am the last in my line and as my dad died when I was young I wanted my children to have something to honour him. And there are plenty others to pass on my DH's surname and he doesn't feel that passing on your name is what makes a father. We're both happy with our decision. So far there've been no problems with it, either.

[~ Zarava Flutterby ~]

DP and i are not married but both of our girls have his surname.
He is the only boy left to pass on his surname so i am a little upset we didn't get a boy to keep it going, maybe if one of our girls has a baby she will keep the surname.

One day even if we don't get married i would like to have the same surname as my girls,so might change mine.

[~clover~]

We gave our children DH's surname, but we had 4 names to choose from. Mine, DH's mum's, DH's step fathers & DH's real fathers.
We chose to honour MIL's maiden name as he is the last with that name. Her nephew has his mothers name & his father passed years ago, so there will be no more there. The nephews children all have his mothers surname also.
DH had no interest in using his real fathers name & I hated mine growing up, so that wasn't an option! We could've used step FIL's name, but there are quite a few of them to carry on that one.
We've not considered any other option since.

[shazzi]

Hi,

I hyphenated my name to include my mothers maiden name when I was 20 years old. My parents are still together, it was because I could not support the giving of the male name and the erasure of the woman's upon marriage.

Neither my DH or I changed our names upon marriage.

I thought it was important for DD to have my name and luckily DH agreed.

I decided only half of my name as i have found my own surname a pain now i am working in a career where my surname is used allll the time. I have since halved it for work as well. I chose the original half as it was what I was known as for 2/3rds of my life and I identify with it more than my mothers maiden name. Also my parents are my fathers surname and i realised that having that connection was more important than the somewhat political statement to include my mothers name in mine.

We also put in her fathers surname as her middle name as we did not see the sense in another first name as a middle name. We had none picked out anyway. We wanted her name to acknowledge the two main family lines. It is difficult where do you stop? My DH has his mothers name so it was easy for us there.

I had originally changed my name as i think it is unfair that the male name is the important one. One of my reasons is that I thought the role of the mother in growing her child and raising her child in our society naturally lends itself to the mothers name being given to them. However that is my view and i know not every one agrees.

If we had had a boy then i may have considered my husbands name as I felt he would have liked that, but we did not have to go there. But i would have been sad it was not my name. Who knows what would happen if we have a second child.

I am now considering changing my name back to my original surname for ease of use, which will cause some laughter amongst my extended family after all the scandal my decision caused before.(It really did cause some major reactions at the time).

Good luck with your decision. It is a hard one. My decisions are my own and everyone has their reasons for keeping/giving names.

[Inanna]

Kate, I totally get your feelings & I felt the same way...

I changed my name because I had a terrible childhood & I was really happy to be gone with the association my name gave me to my early life...

So my children have their fathers name. I actually had difficulty with this - though what else could they be called since I had that name too!

Now I am no longer married I didn't want to keep his name obviously & I didn't want the Energy of my birth name... So, I used the name of my grandparents who were beautiful people and gave me love and normalcy in an otherwise dysfunctional family!

So, that's my story... Had I thought more of it & changed my name to my grandparents earlier I would have liked to use that name. However, having said that my ex husband would not have liked it and I probably back then would have deferred to his strong views.

I have friends who used their family name for their children & it's worked beautifully.

I really think as we move out of such a patriarchal society it's a very positive and progressive thing to not just follow the "norm" and to think outside the square...

Good luck with your decisions Kate! I can't believe that ticker!

[sloane]

DP & i aren't married but DS has his surname. i don't have a problem with that & have been happy with our decision. it feels a bit weird when i make a dr's appt or similar & we have different surnames, but it comes up so rarely (for now) & it's more an inconvenience (if that) than anything else.

my dad had a bit of an average childhood & didn't grow up with his family or even in the same country as them. we don't have any relatives in australia & i'm an only child so growing up i didn't feel any sort of strong family connection to my surname, if that makes sense?

i feel such a strong bond with DS that i don't think his surname impacts it at all & i think it's nice for DP to have the connection.

[Cassius2]

Hi Kate! great thread!

DH and I agreed before DD was born that she would have both of our names. NOT HYPHENATED! they are two separate surnames. i like the way it looks and feel proud that she is carrying both our names with equal measure itms. the order is different to convention in that DHs surname is first and then mine. this was decided because DD is an italian citizen and her italian surname needed to be right behind the given name itms....but TBH i prefer that way anway lol!

another good friend of mine and her DP decided that the first baby would have her name and the second baby would have his...not sure how this would work if they had twins the second time around though lol.

[AnyDream]

My DDs both have two second names, one of which is my surname, then DH's surname for a surname. Written it looks like this

Harriet Scarlett Gxxxx(my surname) Wxxxx(DH's surname)

so if any time they want to start using my surname in a double-barrelled way (or even by itself), they can, but DH's surname is the surname on their birth certificate. My surname is much longer than DH's and doesn't really hang together as a double-barrelled name too well so I figure this is a simple way around it.