surname of bub when parents have different surnames
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Last edited by AnyDream; February 25th, 2010 at 09:37 AM.
A few generations back, they used the surname as a middle name. So my middle name is Crosbie, which is weird when you are a kid lol
But it means now I have a family connection, and I am related to every other Crosbie in Australia. I love the history it gives me.
So you could perhaps use both, they don't have to be hyphenated to use them both
My mum didn't change her name when she was married, and all of us three kids were given her surname as our only middle name - not hyphenated or anything. Its a nice link for siblings. People sometimes question it as a strange "middle name", but as soon as I explain why its there, they think its great.
My husband and I have different surnames but we have chosen for our kids to have DH's surname as I have a poor relationship with my Dad and wouldn't want to carry on that name with my kids (despite still having that name myself..)
I have a friend who's kids have the mum's surname because the fathers surname was a shocker in terms of being teased at school etc.
And I have another friend who made up a surname based on the two surnames of her and her husband - thus creating a whole new one.
Did anyone hear about them talking about this on 'The Circle' this morning?
One of the girls said she wished she named her DD with her surname, but at the time she thought the father kind of needed that as a bond between him & his DD. But the father left them & she's wished she gave her name after that.
Another said that back in the 70's when she had her baby, if you weren't married the baby legally got the mothers surname. She actually changed her name by deedpoll to the fathers name so the baby could have the fathers name.
Most of my friends kids have the fathers name unless they seperated before the baby was born. Then they often have the mothers name. Some wish they'd used the other name whan they seperated down the track, others didn't.
I guess I believe when you love your husband/partner, giving your children his surname is more a gift than anything. I have a friend who decided that since her DD got her DP's surname, she'd give her her middle name. That worked for them.
I don't have a single friend who has hyphenated or used both names as surnames.
These days you are allowed to give your children any surname you desire. MIL did change DH's name (DH's choice) to step FIL's surname & he was known by that name all through school, but he decided to use his mothers maiden name (his birth name) when he applied for his license & thats what he's used ever since. His 5 letter name is so much easier than my 11 letter surname!
We married after we had already had 3 of our boys and I kept my surname. I always thought I would get rid of it as soon as I could as its not common and I have to spell and pronounce it all the time.
We gave the boys both our surnames but not hyphenated. This way I figured they drop off my name (its first) to be used as another middle name and just use their Dads if they wanted too. Number 4 has both names, as will this one when she decides to grace us with her presence.
I think naming your baby is such a personal decision and you should do whatever works for you and your happy with. We got so many negative comments about our boys names that this time we have kept the name to ourselves and nobody will know till she is here. It is driving eveyone insane but why should we tell them only to have the negative feedback?? No thanks.
Giving your child both names, un-hyphenated (one as a middle name, one as a surname) is becoming more common. My husband and I have different surnames and we struggled with this decision, too, for the same reason. We're not fond of the hyphen either.
However, I felt that if we used our names un-hyphenated it would have the exact same effect as choosing one name over the other as a surname. At school he would be known by that surname and the middle name would be forgotten. So in the end we went with the hyphen and then whatever our son chooses to do if/when he marries is up to him.
We tossed around the idea of choosing a completely new common surname for the entire family based on something that was important to us, like Liberty or maybe a place we shared, but we never made a decision.
We often get mail to "Mr and Mrs (my husband's name)" and I don't really care. We also get mail to "The (hyphenated-surname)s", which isn't correct either. Again, it doesn't worry me. I know our surname situation is confusing for people, I can't expect them to keep track.
Actually, since giving our son the hyphenated surname we are now leaning towards changing our surnames to match. It turned out we didn't mind it so much after all.
I was not keen on taking on DH's surname when we married, but he was very very strong in his feelings that he wanted me to, and so I did. I am content that I did this now and am happy that my sons have the same name too. Painfully traditional, but it's all fine with me.
A BB member once told me that should she and her DH have a boy, they will give him DH's surname, and should she have a girl, then her surname would be passed down. I really really liked this sentiment.
I have lived in a south american country where it is the norm to have mother's and father's surname. Not hyphenated, just two names, mother's first then father's.
Do what feels right to you. But I guess you might have to get used to correcting people.
I kept my surname when I got married. All my kids have DH's surname and my surname as a 2nd middle name. My surname is a popular boys name atm too so it worked well. DS is known by all of his names but I tend to drop the girls 2nd middle name (my surname) for some reason.
Registered User
surname of bub when parents 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.
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.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks