To Re-register DS Birth certificate

So he's not bothered about taking his parenting responsibilities seriously, he just wants to stamp his name on your daughter like he's branding cattle?

Ugh.

Do not change her name FFS!

The birth certificate does not give men parental rights, it gives them parental responsibility. Many men use the responsibilities to abuse women. Eg blocking taking child abroad, blocking school applications. If a man is responsible eg not arguing with the woman that has just given birth to your child on the way to the registration appointment. This is why it is better to advise women not add the man, and if he makes the effort to go to court he can be added later. This man has not.

Why? The vast majority of children manage just fine with only one surname, usually their father's.

Most men don’t apply to be added though. Why hasn’t he applied?
A man with PR can make life very tricky for a mother if they aren’t on same page re parenting. I know a mum who spent several thousands on legal fees as dad with pr didn’t want child to go abroad on a trip.

Well, my advice to the OP was simply to give a doublebarrelled name

@Kira893 I think the register was right and helpful to point that out to you when you first registered the baby’s birth.

There are two issues here.

Do you gain anything by not having his name on the certificate? Well, if you split up and he gets difficult, yes, it helps you to not have his name there. He has been around for a while so that looks less likely.
If he wants his name on the certificate, he can get it in there by jumping through some hoops, with or without your consent. It is much easier for everyone if he does have your consent.

In your shoes, I’d tell him to do all the paperwork and give it to me to sign. Then he can send it off. He is a man so knows if or when he will get around to doing that? But the ball will be firmly in his court and I wouldn’t stand in his way.

Surnames - you are not married. The child should have your name. No question. It makes your life easier at doctors, schools, friends etc. If the Dad wants his name in the mix, he should either marry your or persuade you that hyphenating/adding/double barreling is a good idea. Nobody will blink if call the nursery and say little Johnny Smith is now little Johnny Smith-Jones.

In your shoes, I would make sure that whatever you decide about his name, yours must also be in there too. Non-negotiable.

So let him do that. If he is actually willing to put the effort in, which so far he hasn't.

When you say he's great with her, what exactly do you mean? In terms of practical, financial and emotional contribution.

Not sure what anything has to do with your father? You didn’t pick your surname or your first name. Both were given to you, but they are now yours. Would you be happy to change your daughter’s first name too? It’s her name now.

I know it’s a nightmare, honestly believe me. I am an unmarried mother and I’ve had a decade of absolute hell going through the family courts with my ex so I don’t need it explained to me but the basic fact is that once paternities established, the father can be added and that is his legal right. The most a mother can do in that situation is delay the process slightly and make herself look like a knob while she’s doing it.

I think you were probably offered good advice by the registrar as you had no idea then what kind of father he would turn out to be. As others have said this is about far more than a name. Adding his name to the birth certificate (regardless of what you do about your child’s surname) would give him parental rights. Conversely, it also means that when he dies she has a right to inherit part or all of his estate. Right now that isn’t the case unless he makes a Will naming her as a beneficiary. These two sorts of considerations are far more important than a surname, and I am surprised he hasn’t made you aware of this. It is disingenuous of him to say this is just about a family name, which is why I would be hesitant to do anything until I was sure it is in you and your child’s best interests. I think the best thing to do would be to get legal advice, from a solicitor or citizen’s advice before doing anything. It seems a bit odd that he is pressuring you about the name yet failing to mention the legal ramifications. There are lots of contradictory posts with people telling you this or that is legal or illegal, so the best thing is for you to go a speak to someone qualified in person.

He hasn't bothered to do that for the last three years. Why not?

A friend of mine co-parents with his ex wife. Obviously it's not possible for a mother not to be on the birth certificate, and they were married when their child was born so he was on it automatically as well.

Because his ex wife has parental responsibility for their child he has had to get court orders to allow him to have their child vaccinated against serious preventable illnesses and to take her on holiday. His ex wife wouldn't consent to him doing these things so he had to get the court to order it.

That's the kind of power the OP would be giving this man over her and her child.

Sure, he can go to court and have himself added if he's that motivated. But since he's not, why make it easier for him than it needs to be?

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

A unmarried mother cannot put a man’s name on the birth certificate.

It is not allowed. It is not legal. It is not happening.

An unmarried mother can agree for a man to put his name on the birth certificate. If she wants to.

If an unmarried mother doesn’t agree for a man to put his name on the birth certificate, the man can apply to the courts to do so.

Unmarried fathers can’t be added unless mother names them and the man is present (Ed Milliband was famously not on his first dc’s certificate as he didn’t bother going to appointment when his partner registered the birth) . Otherwise a woman could name any man as the father of her dc. They can apply to court to be added if they want to added and mum won’t agree or if mum has died in childbirth.
Married fathers are legally presumed to be the father of wife’s child so can resister the birth.

But you are wrong, he does have a legal right to be on the birth certificate, all he has to do is prove paternity and any family court judge would add him to it. She could stand in the way for a short period of time but that’s it, because it is his right

and yes, there’s about 100 reasons why it might be worse for the mother and the child if the father is a prick, but that doesn’t stop the fact that once paternity is established, all he would have to do is make an application to the court, and he would have his right enforced.

I think it’s shockingly poor form to be encouraging women not to respect paternity just because they’re not married as some people in this chat seem to be doing.

It’s entirely mums decision if he is added to bc if they are unmarried. It sounds like couple were arguing in office. Registrar advised he could be added later which is correct. If he wanted to be added against her wishes then there’s a process to apply via court - he hasn’t bothered so far.
It’s not simply recognition of parentage, naming him confers parental responsibility.

He doesn't have legal rights.

If he did have a legal right to be on the birth certificate he would be on it automatically.

That's how legal rights work.

Many posters here have explained the many reasons why it might not be in the best interests of the mother and the child for a father to be on the birth certificate and have parental responsibility.

If the OP wants to travel abroad, clearly the very easiest thing is for her not to change her daughter's birth certificate or her surname.

@Cinocino out of interest, what is the reason unmarried fathers are not automatically added to the BC? I presumed it was probably because of potential debates about paternity (old-fashioned bollocks about promiscuity of women outside of marriage perhaps) rather than that an unmarried Father doesn’t have the right to PR-as obviously they do as evidenced by the inevitable decision The family court would make in a situation like this.
it seems to me that if there is no debate about paternity, there’s no reason for a father not to be added?

This reads as if you're not together and you're the residential parent, so of course your child should have your surname. You can add his as a middle name, but there's no reason for your DDs name to be changed except his ego.

I agree its outrageous that you were advised not to put the fathers name on the birth certificate, this isn’t about a woman’s choice, he’s her father with legal rights and as a child she should have her birth properly recorded. As PP says, he would get it if he went to court anyway. the child doesn’t belong to the mother. trying to dig your heels in around PR would only cause damage to the relationship between you and dad and in the end cause more problems. It’s better just focus on treating each other with respect

I would go for a doublebarrelled name personally, you said you would add his name and it means you would also still have the same name, so if you want to travel abroad etc it will be easier. Don’t worry about what nursery thinks, you probably won’t be able to remember the staff’s names in a couple of years, you guys are in it for the long haul and you’re the ones who matter

Why on earth are you even considering changing your child's surname!!!

Add him to the BC by all means, but you aren't a family unit. You aren't going to marry him and all have the same name.

It doesn't make any sense at all!

He can change his name if he is so desperate to have the same surname.

This is YOUR decision. Not his!!

I would add, @Kira893:

You said, "I don’t really care much for my last name, I’ve no contact with any of my dad’s side of my family."

What this says to me is that you consider your own surname to be more your dad's than your own, and that you only have it because the decision that was made when you were born was that you got your dad's surname instead of your mum's. I don't know about the circumstances of your birth or what your parents' relationship was like but I wouldn't be surprised if it never occurred to your mum that she could do anything other than give you your dad's surname. We are so conditioned as a society to believe that men's names are more important than women's, and that women and children must be named according to their relationship to a man, rather than in their own right. And, I suppose, that only little boys can ever hope to grow into their names and "own" them; little girls generally borrow their fathers' names until they get married and take their husband's name.

And yet, here you are, with a three year old daughter who has YOUR name, considering taking a backwards step and perpetuating this cycle for no reason other than that a man thinks his name is more important than yours.

When your daughter grows up, she won't think of the surname she has now as her maternal grandfather's surname. She'll think of it as her mother's surname. Your surname.

If you change it now, there's every chance that she'll look back and think, "Why did you do that? I'd rather have kept the surname I shared with you?"

Or she'll get married and take her husband's surname without even thinking about it, or maybe not get married but give her children her partner's surname, because she'll think, "I'm not that attached to my dad's surname anyway. It isn't even the surname I was born with. Who cares? Names aren't important."

Break the cycle, OP. Be proud of your name that you share with your daughter. Don't change it for a man, especially not three years down the line when it is already part of your daughter's identity.

Very many women and children would have a much easier life if women did not put unfit fathers on birth certificates. This is my opinion due to both professional and personal experience.

A father can be added at a later date.

Don’t change a child’s name at this stage as if they are some prize he has won.

I wouldn't change her name. I wouldn't add him on the BC. I think it changed everything and if he was bad when you was pregnant then he's got it in him to be bad again.