To not understand why double barrel surnames are so wrong/bizarre to some people?

Double barrelled mine on marriage, worked my tits off under my maiden name in my industry locally for years and years so I am known for that in my trade and people actually search for me by name so, of course, when I married I was double barrelling it rather than losing my surname entirely (I am main earner, not that that matters to us, but for context). Equally my dad died before we could marry, although I am truly blessed that my father loved my (now) husband so didn’t want to lose the name. MIL double barrelled hers on marriage to my FIL too as hers is a well known name so they don’t think it’s ‘weird’. DH doesn’t give a monkeys and totally understands why I double barrelled. My mother thought it was a weird notion to start, but seems to have accepted it as she seems to be the only person with the issue 😂.

one of my BFFs had a child with her partner and double barrelled and it’s a lovely combination, but, pretty sure when her DD marries she will make a sensible decision she is happy with around her own surname.

is this really an issue?????

I kept my last name when I married the manshape, and ds actually has both surnames. The in-laws hate it. When they send cards to ds, they only put his father's part of the surname on the envelope, and when they send to me, they only use my first name! It's like they just can't bring themselves to accept that I, and ds have perfectly good names and fully intend to keep them. Manshape himself was a bit off about our son's last names, but as I pointed out, I carried, laboured and birthed him. I also invited Manshape to share my last name (from the look of horror on his face, you'd have thought I'd invited him to use dog crap as a facepack, but I guess he inherited that reaction from his parents 😂)
We are no longer possessions of our husband, so why should we and our children forgo the right to bear or name?

Also possible its not our Heritage surname due to my great grandfather being a bit strange and he may have changed it before meeting my great grandmother. Accept ko one knew much until he passed away at 80 years old and my great grandmother casually mentioned a few things... so I'm not sentimental about it. But a bit of respect to my family too

I have double barrelled my surname. I wanted dhs surname and the same name as our kids but also in my family I am the last family member who will have this surname. We could have given it to our kids too but we just didn't want to. So I have kept it in my surname for now. We have very distant relatives on Australia so it's not going to completely die with me. My uncles didn't have children and my dad passed away and I was his only child. So here I am. Plus some very distant cousins from my grandads side who we have never met but know about. ( could also possibly turn out that we aren't related....) who knows! There's some confusing family history on my dads grandads side and we don't quite know where he cake from!

child is part of two people.

so therefore, let's give them the man's name only?

As an I.T. person that makes NO sense. You never have any way of guaranteeing with common names like John Smith that they won't be john.2 smith or john.smith 2 or -2. Ditto people that have same names as previous employees. You are supposed to avoid account re-use for security reasons. If you're in a workplace using Outlook, Active Directory you make double checking names a common practice. I have even mentioned colleagues who insist on their common name being the listed name but their email us their legal employee name. Tony but anthony.xxx or Roy Bloggs but their legal name is Anthony.Roy.Bloggs@.... If you're a small business you damn well check communications to see what the email address is or ask someone to confirm an email. Doing neither of these thing is just lazy and guaranteed to go wrong. And so that invalidates it's relevance to this topic blaming names instead of corner-cutting and lazy business practices.

I mean, doesn't your husband love you?

There's really nothing wrong with people wanting the whole family to share a surname and not double barrel but that doesnt mean that women who chose to do so are any less connected to their family. They just don't want to give up their name.for the sake of a patriarchal tradition.

There's no good reason why the men can't be the ones to give up their name. That's been an option for quite some time now and yet most still choose not to. I wonder why?

For me it is about family and giving children an identity and sense of belonging. Women are certainly still treated unfairly across the world but a child is part of two people. A child who was hopefully born out of love. A name is not more warranted because of who physically birthed the child, it's loved jointly into a family and a family name is important, not old fashioned or anti feminist. It is a part of culture and society and belonging. I love that my children have their fathers name because I love him and I chose to create a family with him.

I agree with palmfrond
Personally I didn’t change my surname (to the immense chagrin of MIL) but have zero problems with our DD taking her father’s name.
I also don’t care about double barrelling - each to their own - but think it’s faintly ridiculous to claim that this is a stance against the patriarchy

M my dh and I are both double barreled, this was both our choice on marriage, he is the last of his name line and I am the last of mine what our dds do with their surname is totally up to them, we have carried it and that was our choiceand it will be theirs (there will be no hard feelings on our part on what they decide.... dh and I discussed this when we chose our name)

Nobody has suggested that women don’t have their own names.

A few pages back, a poster wrote:
My surname is just my dad's name. And his dad, and his grandads. The name doesn't belong to any females, like my mum or grandma.

How would you interpret the message here then, not to be stupid or disingenuous?

This view has been repeated a few times on this and other similar threads. A woman has her father’s name in the same way as a man has his father’s name. Nobody has suggested that women don’t have their own names, it’s just an explaining where they came from.
Its true that traditional British surnames are patrilineal, but to extrapolate that women don’t own their own names, because you have failed to grasp the basic semantic process of the English language, is either disingenuous or stupid.

This is what people are missing here. It’s not a case of how people should respond, it’s how they do respond. And a study group of your friends and family, or indeed of mn champagne feminists, is not going to give you valuable feedback, because the former are going to tell you what you want to hear and the latter are, let’s be honest, away with the fucking fairies.

Given that they're married and took my brothers' names, I'm pretty sure they will.

It is wild to see...

I'm middle aged. I don't give a stuff about what class anyone is. How do we still perpetrate this garbage (having a class system)?

I was at a reception the other day and I heard the person in front give their surname. It was DB and I as soon as I heard it I felt grateful that I don't have a double barrel name.

Might be judgemental and prejudiced, but that was my initial reaction.

I am amazed by some of the responses on this thread. Telling women that they don't actually have a name, it's just borrowed from a man. We really don't need men to uphold the patriarchy do we. There are an awful lot of handmaidens very happy to do the work for them.

So you're not avoiding 'ridiculous form filling' yourselves then. In which case, why is it only double barrelled names that you highlight? After all, Kiriakopolous places them very firmly within that ball game anyway.

I really don't think there's that many people who give up on the name they like solely because mumsnetters can't spell it. If people only named their kids things that MN approved of all kids would be called Elizabeth and James and only the fathers surname would be present...

And like another poster pointed out mumsnetters have a tendency to be a bit low level racist with their views. Throw away the perfectly lovely name that honours your Irish, Nigerian, Indian etc culture because the old English ladies aren't familiar with it? Yeah, no 😅

I hope your brother's spouses/partners agree. If they aren't married then the children will have the name their partner decides.

No, DS has a difficult-to-spell name. My name is Celtic and has many variations and DH's (while British) is spelled in a way that doesn't make much sense. Double-barrelling would be extremely inconvenient for my child, so DH and I chose DH's name for DS, as my brothers will use my family surname for their children.

Er, yes they do. Have you seen the baby name threads on here? Half of the names are objected to because ‘they’ll be forever spelling it out to people’

At least among people my age if anything it's an indicator that mums a feminist.

Again, age thing. Nobody my age thinks DB names are anything to do with class 😂That's something I can confidently stick in the only "only middle aged mumsnetters" basket.

Thanks, I have two middle names, mildly embarrassing, slightly pretentious, and definitely a nuisance when filling out forms. My kids have two names; the first name and the surname.