Since naming our first DD two years ago, DH has insisted that it was a silly idea to give her my surname as her last middle name. I did not take my husband's name when we married, and the two names sound ridiculous when put together in a double-barrelled surname. However, I wanted DD to have my name somewhere in the mix.

DD2 arrived 10 days ago, and we are now having the whole discussion all over again. I want her to have my surname as her last middle name, but DH is resisting.

Has anyone else done this? Can you help me prove to DH that my naming practices are not totally outlandish!

Depends on what your surname was, really ...

Not outlandish at all.

If he resists further say 'yes, you're right, let's just do away with your name and give dd2 mine'.

DS knows I have my name, and he loves having a name form each of us.

Makes sense to me. Not fair for one child to have your surname in her name and not the other(s)

What's your dh's problem? It's her last middle name, it's unlikely to be used, it's not to replace his surname.

I did it for both mine. When my dcs went thro a phase of wondering why I had a different surname it made us all feel more connected IYSWIM

I thought I was pretty normal in my expectations! DH's problem is that my surname is a surname and NOT a middle name therefore should not be used as such....he is a bit of a pedant on these matters.

i think its a cool idea - i wish i had thought of it. as an only child who took my husbands name ( and i think that was the right choice for me) there will be no more children with my maiden name - it effectively dies with me - in my family - others exist in few numbers out there somewhere ...anyway... if i had thought of it at the time i would deffo have given my eldest my surname as a middle name.

don't americans give a lot of mothers maiden name as first names?

I think this is a pretty normal thing to do.

I think it's fair enough - especially if it is an 'extra' middle name rather than the only one.
Plenty of people with the name Taylor, Mackenzie, Cooper, Bailey, Harvey, Lloyd...etc, (I have one of these as a middle name) all of which started off as surnames.

both my dds have my surname as their second middle name, and its certainly a surname kind of name! I really wanted to have a name in common with my dds and since my dad died when I was very young and my brother doesn't look like having kids, I thought it was a way to carry on the name. Besides, whatever happens, I've always been very attached to my surname!

btw the only annoying thing is when people try to make it a double barrelled surname - yuk!

I did it - and my surname couldn't be more surnamey (It's McSomething).

At that time I had no intention of changing my name but wanted to share/pass it on.

My sister did the same with hers.

It's a perfectly normal Scottish thing to do with surnames.

I'm pregnant with my first and will be giving he/she and any future children my surname as a middle name. It's something we discussed before we got married as I didn't take dh's name and our names double barrelled sound ridiculous.

I have done this. Aftwe we did it, I found out that all of dh's ancestors did the same thing

My Grans middle name was her mother's maiden name (Mitchell).

I think it was quite a popular thing to do then (1920's) either in Scotland , where she was born, or across the UK

Betty after doing my family tree (Scots side) I found that the mothers maiden name was normally given as the middle name, as the child (especially the son ) was usually called after a relative so by giving the maiden name it identified which family the child actually came from.

i.e my

gGrandfather was Robert Lisle Denholm married to Jane Davis
Granfather was Thomas Davis Denholm married to a Mary Hay Black,

Their son was Robert Black Denholm

and so on and on (I think my family called all thier sons either Robert, Thomas or Alexander)

Definitely do the same for DD2 - I think if you don't, you will regret it.

I agree this is entirely sensible. And Blu is right - if your dh objects tell him, fine, she can have YOUR surname, not his. You are the one who pushed the baby out of your fanjo.

Totally common practice in the UK. I went to school with a girl whose MN was Douglas.

This practice was very very common in 1800's and still is often used nowerdays. I have relations with surnames for middle names.

Also on a plus side it makes family history so much easier in years to come - your decendents will thank you for this in a 150 years time

They will of course wonder why your eldest didn't get the middle name and not realise it was due to an argument....

Perfectly sensible/normal thing to do. I have taken my DH's name but we use other family names as middle names.

DD has my maiden surname as her middle name. It is a Portuguese tradition.

I took DH's name when we married.

I did this too.
It is a nice thing to do.

Yes Ivy it did make things easier till I found that Alexander Davia Black married Jane Davis Smith in 1856 and 1871 and 1877, my family are sooooooooooooo inbred ( we do not have three heads honest)

When this baby arrives (40+5) he shall have my maiden name as his middle name. My generation of the family are nearly all girls, so there's hardly anyone left with our surname.
We haven't picked his first name yet, though!

xx

Common thing to do in Scotland.

My DH's middle name is Black (his mums maiden name). Thought it a bit weird at first but actually now quite like the idea...although my maiden name is NOT one I would want my DC to have as a middle name.

both dds have my surname as their middle name. and it's kind of extra nice as it continues a dh family tradition (scottich influence). dh and fil have dh's grandma's maiden name as their middle name

Depends purely on the potential hilarity of your surname, b97 (eg it isn't anything like Shufflebottom, is it?)

FWIW, DH has his mother's maiden name as his middle name - it's not intrinsically funny but caused much sniggering at our wedding.

I've done this for both of mine

DH has his mother's surname as a middle name. Not a problem.

My dh has his mother's surname as a middle name. Not been a problem in itself but it confounded dh's hatred of his unusual first name as a teenager in that his second name was equally odd so not really an alternative iyswim

Very common in the US to give the mother's last name as a middle name. In fact, some people thought it was strange I didn't.

My dad has my grandmother's maiden name as his middle name (Scottish) and my godson has his late grandfather's last name as his 2nd middle name (it's a v cool name )

I have heard of this happening quite a bit, makes sense to me [we do the family name as middle name thing]

We are due our first son in July and dh is keen to use his mother's maiden name as a middle name for him [we didn't use it for our 3 dds though]
The name is Southern which is not too outlandish and would mean alot to dh as his mum died when he was 22 so never met any of her grandchildren.

it used to be fashionable years ago (18th/19th century) to give kids their mothers maiden name as a first name if it was an 'important' family.

Perfectly reasonable thing to do - I knew a girl at school whose middle name was Livingstone (her mother's maiden name).

It also gives dd an obvious link with her cousins, who all have the same middle name - means a lot to her as an only child

My 3 DC all have my surname as a second middle name, and they love sharing a middle name and a surname. I would be really sad now if we hadn't decided to do it, as they have a different surname to me.

i think its a great idea and although im married to dh so and we all share his name-my surname was more unusual and there isnt many left so i wanted to do what your saying but dh fault it was silly

We did exactly the same. Didn't double-barrel as that would make it more difficult for DD when she learns to write her name so she has four names. Don't see the issue. It will generally just be used as an initial, surely?

I haven't done it but I rather wish that I had-seems very sensible.

I took DH's name when I married, but both DC have my maiden name as second surname. Happily, its a first name/surname type name, and is even unisex as a first name...but I would have done it regardless.

My brother has our grandmother's maiden name as his 3rd name because it died out with my granny and her sister.
I am double-barrelled but we were a bit steamrollered into single surname for our kids (we live in Poland where bureaucracy is gone mad and you have to choose your kids' surnames when your marriage papers are being drawn up!!). I later mega-regretted this as I have my Mum's maiden name (Taylor) as my surname and that too dies out with my generation, so my DD2 has that name as her middle name.
We could have changed their surnames but their original surname is stuck with them for life anyway (on practically everything you have to give all previous surnames). Aha and the other bureaucratic quirk here is that you can only give 2 first names!! And only if one parent is foreign can you have a name that's not "Polish". All girls' names have to end in -a, for instance, and you can't give surnames as first names (so with DD2 we had a mega-fight on 2 counts - hats off to DH for sorting that one out).

Of course not! We gave dd my surname as a middle name (I also kept it as a middle name). It's very very common practice in Scotland btw, but can seem a little strange to the english.

We actually live in Scotland (but are not Scots ourselves), so we would just be continuing the custom.

Will show DH the thread to convince him!

DS1 has my maiden anme, was a problem when we realised we should have double barrelled it to normalise dh's surname which i took (lovely on girls, pants for boys) but other than that REALLY glad I did it s it meant a lot to Dad (who had girls, all of whom married and took new names)

I am Scottish...personally, my mum did this with me and I have always hated my middle name and wanted a "normal" type middle name, but maybe thats just me!!

We did this - we aren't married and I wanted DD to have my surname as part of her name, so she is 'DD middlename myname hisname'.

i'm scots too btw!

i have brown as a middle name, my birth mother was scottish but her maiden name wasn't brown so i don't know where it is from.

I've been wondering this.

I took DH's name when we got married and there's only me and my brother of this generation from my Dad's side. Brother absolutely doesn't want kids and my Dad is sad his name won't be passed on.

I wondered if we could get away with my maiden name as a second surname for a boy. Think it's far too masculine sounding for a girl though...

Yep - I did this. Apols if this has been mentioned higher up the thread (rushing to type before feeding dd) but it can really help when travelling to have your surname in your children's passports if you're on your own with them and didn't take dh's name on marriage.

We gave our dd my surname as her third middle name. So when immigration officials wonder if i'm trying to steal smuggle her through the borders, I can point to my surname in her passport.

It probably was because I didn't like the surname I have as a middle name!!

Herecomethegirls, what I did and it seems lot of other people here did was to give a 'normal' middle name then 'surname' middle name. I agree that if you only had the surname one you could feel a bit cheated.

I did this too so of course I think it's a lovely idea. DS1 has my mum's maiden name and DS2 has my surname for middle names. Perhaps our names were easier for boys as they are boyish names which I love and sound good and I like the connection. If we had a girl we were thinking of using my MIL's maiden name which although no connection to me is a 'girl's' name, just to continue the theme! .(Could you look further afield in the family for other surnames, if he is not keen? )I like the idea that a surname conjures up a connection to the entire family as opposed to just one name taken from a relative or whoever.

My 16 year old son has my maiden surname as his middle name. I understand this is common in Scotland and since both mine and hubby's family are of Scottish origin and both boys have very Scottish first names it seemed natural.Eldest son has late FIL name as his middle name and I wanted our second son to have a name from my family. I didn't like my dad's name and due to 'difficulties' relating to me having a step dad as well, decided to give him MY maiden surname so that he was named after me.Of course, there was the added bonus that all my dad's family were well chuffed to think that my son has their surname!

I had no idea until recently that this was not as common a practice throughout the UK as it is in Scotland.

My brother has my mother's maiden name as his middle name. When my dd was born we decided that, instead of using my 3-syllable maiden name together with dh's 3-syllable surname (which I took on marriage), we would give her dh's mother's 1-syllable maiden name as her sole middle name.

It never occurred to me that anyone would find it odd.

I did. Don't use it day to day, but nice to know it's there.

I wish I'd done this - well, I wish I'd given DD my maiden name as a second middle name, not instead of the one she has. I have my maiden name as a middle name though, I dropped my original one. The doctor's surgery still likes to use it, and some organisations think I'm double barrelled, but I like having it there.

The daft thing is, I thought it was just something the Americans did, until my dad pointed out it was a Scottish tradition ... appropriate, given it's a Scottish surname.