My older two children took their birth fathers surname. I kinda felt that if they didnt it would be like he wasnt "owning" them..sounds silly but yeah...hindsight being what it is.. i would have given them my name. When I married my DH after two years we hypenated the girls name with our married name so they werent losing their roots so to speak but were acknowledging our new family status. Like a poster has already mentioned..we did need their birth fathers permission to change their surname. We did find that until their names were changed legally no schools would use the new name...though that may vary state to state.

Jo