To think women should think more carefully about giving children father's last name?

The conventional approach is not legally mandated. People are free to do as they please.

Some will choose continue, others will do something different. Each to their own.

You are aware that countries like Spain have been doing this for generations? How many Spanish people have you met who have four word surnames? I don’t need anything making easier as its an incredibly easy and common thing amongst millions of people.

Names would likely be chopped in half or favourite chosen I would have thought, which is fine and similar to what happens to names over time anyway.

Berg was taken off the end of Jewish sounding names after the war for instance and names are often changed to anglicise them or due to spelling drift or preference.

Names don’t necessarily remain static even if using traditional lineage method, so this is a straw man argument for sticking with the current method

The conventional method is outdated and sexist and it’s long overdue being called out.

preferable to taking a man’s name?
Preferable for who? YOU?
You can't argue that women should have the freedom to do whatever and in the same sentence tell us that we MUST do it your way, you are just as bad as "the patriarchy" 😂

I don't want an invented name, I don't care what people call themselves, but that's not for me.

Double-barreling only works when you have short name.

We do have the choice, what we don't need is people telling us what we have to do because they dont' agree with our choices.

Not sure having a different name would cause any issues travelling that couldn’t be cleared up by showing a birth certificate.

Why take his name, rather than him taking yours though, if it has to be either/or (which it doesn’t)?

Surely, all having a new name or all called the mother/wife’s name, or double-barrelling would all be fine for travelling and preferable to taking a man’s name?

Indeed, but you haven't addressed what happens with the subsequent generations. I'll illustrate to make it easier for you, Simon. For the purposes of the illustration, the letters below represent a full surname.

A couple both have double barrel surnames. Person 1's surname is A-B. They marry Person 2, with a surname C-D. They're zealots, so give their child surname A-B-C-D.

The child grows up, marries a person with a double barrel name, E-F.

A-B-C-D and E-F have a child. What do you think typically happens at this stage?

I think babies should be given their mother’s surname - that may be the same as the father as well, or not

I am not sure why it's "confounding" you. Great you made up a new name, I have no interest in doing that. No flipping way would I ever consider doing that, so that's not a universal solution.

Having the same family name as a family made MY life a lot easier. So what? Travelling is a big one in term of ease.

Yep! Also the line that goes mothers know that the kids are theirs but fathers can’t be sure so they need the kid to have their name to reassure them…..

Wish I had a cut and paste saved for these threads. The whole ‘you need to have the same name as your kids to identify as a family’ always confounds me. If that’s what you need, you are really stumbling in the wilderness. I didn’t change my name on marriage. DH certainly didn’t expect me to and indeed if I suggested it would not have married me, as I wouldn’t have been the person he thought I was.

When kids came, we solved the issue by making up a new name using the letters of both our surnames. All the kids have the same surname. To blow a lot of minds, we’ve all always been able to identify as a family. The government has always seemed to know who we all are and relationships to each other😁, and no one else in life has struggled with the concept. The kids were always sure who their parents were and who their family consisted of, and no teachers or friends struggled with this either. We had zero issues with stuff people throw out as to why this ‘couldn’t work’. As adults we have asked them if they would have changed this given the choice looking back and not one would. They all love their surname, love that it is unique to them, but also love that it connects them. That was the one thing they said they would have hated, having different surnames to each other.

I am so pleased to read this thread-it’s actually made my day. I’ve been on Mumsnet a long time, and there was a time that I felt like a lone voice when I advocated for women not changing their names on marriage and children having their mother’s name or being hyphenated. And answering the “what happens in the next generation” question , and the belief that men’s last names are always more attractive and easier to spell. And the point that somehow men’s last names are their own but women’s are their father’s. But there are loads of people on this thread making those points. I’m so happy!

Mother's baby, Daddy's maybe?

But it is very unusual even nowadays for women to keep their names. So it’s obviously considered more important for men to protect their lineage….

To some women hence why they double barrel the surname etc. What i am saying is that the idea of just making up a surname is not desirable to many because they think your name shoild reflect your lineage

Wow, I am in ireland so must not be as common here, genuinely shocked at that statistic

Proudly? Why?

Not many good things for women about the feudal system…quick search results below, would you be proud to continue these traditions from the feudal system too?

limited legal rights, dependent on male guardians, unable to own or control property, economically dependent despite doing essential labour, little bodily or personal autonomy, very limited social mobility, vulnerable to exploitation and violence, carried heavy workloads in both domestic and agricultural labour, limited educational opportunities, excluded from most religious authority, child birth was dangerous and expected frequently, social norms required women to be obedient, silent, and submissive.

I despair!

Well it’s your name, not your dads. But there’s also nothing stopping you changing your name, I changed my whole name (not just my surname) in my very early twenties. People pretend this is a faff, its just as easy as changing your name on marriage, you just post the deedpoll to everyone, rather than the marriage certificate.

My husband and I gave our daughter my surname because his parents were abusive so he didn't want to carry on their names. However if that wasn't the case our daughters surname would have been Mums name-Dads name and I think that's the way it should be unless abuse is involved.

Well my last name is my dad's. He's been to prison for DV, manslaughter and between him and my narcissistic mum I'm extremely traumatized. I'm not with my kids dad now but forever glad I chose his name over mine.

I hate my dad's last name but I also hate my mum's so I'm fucked for options. But that's just my own personal experiences thankfully not everyone has had my life 🤣. Maybe I need to pick a random last name and run with it haha. It should be normalised to have the mother's name though and not just be expected that they get the dad's name.

I am perfectly happy with my name so feel no need to change it. It amazes me that women still do this. When kids came along their enlightened dad suggest they took my name. I carried and birthed them. No hassle, no fuss, couple of raised eyebrows that were swiftly ignored.

I married over 30 years ago and all kids got husband's name .I also took his name it was the done thing to have your father's name if married. I can't see the problem to be honest if I had divorced young I would have just kept the name .it goes back to feudal system when you could only claim as a legitimate are ..my children and grandchildren are proudly there fathers and therefore there grandfather's name .

Also, this!

I'm male, and DD has my surname, and I actually agree with you OP.

DD wasn't exactly planned, she turned up unannounced 12 months into mine and DPs relationship (literally, we didn't know DP was pregnant until she went into labour). As a result we were still in a fairly casual relationship. We weren't living together, probably only saw each other 3-4 nights a week. Naming our kids certainly hadn't entered the discussion at that point, in fact, neither of us particularly wanted children.

We took weeks to find a first and middle name we could agree on, and then the night before we registered DD we suddenly realised we hadn't talked about her surname. I'd assumed it would be DPs, after all we weren't married. DP on the other hand was more traditional and wanted it to be mine. I didn't argue against it because of two reasons.

First - While we weren't married (and neither of us particularly wanted marriage), I figured we probably would be at some point, if the relationship went well.

Second, DD's name would have sounded bloody stupid with DPs surname. It sounded like a superheroes girlfriend. Think Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Pepper Potts.

We should have double barrelled, but in the chaos of those first few weeks, it just didn't even cross my mind.

18 years on, and I wish we'd done things differently. I underestimated DP's aversion to marriage, so we're still not married now, so she still has a different surname to me and DD.

DD is a lot like me, she looks like me, she has a similar personality and interests to me. I can see all the ways she's like DP as well, but other people often don't, and more than one person has assumed DP is her Step-mum, including class teachers. It doesn't come up much, but I know DP sometimes feels a little disconnected from her, and I think a shared surname would help with that.

Personally, I think double barrelling should be the default when parents don't share a surname, or if not, then it should be the woman's surname. While it shouldn't be the case, on average the mother still generally does the majority of the parenting, and is still generally the default parent if the couple split up., so it just makes more sense for mother and child to share a surname.

It's because you've not interrogated the double standard. You're not the first and you won't be the last!

Basically, if you really think the woman's name isn't her own cos a man had it first, then you wouldn't describe her husband's surname as his either. Because he got his the same way. Either surnames only really belong to the first person to hold them, which incidentally is a woman in some cases, and all the people in your example don't really have their own. Or your surname is your surname, in which case both the woman and man here have their own equally.