Baby with surname of current and ex partner aibu

You hear quite often of older kids feeling squeezed out by a new baby. I think this is a lovely idea, that they feel a sense of connection and family to the new arrival and they all share the same name because they are family.

It isn’t just as simple as the mum adding her name to the older children’s names- she’ll need the fathers permission, but also the kids will probably just continue to just use their existing name and the addition of the new name just becomes and administrative burden

It’s really odd. If I was the ex-husband I would say something. All his family of say Johnsons will say ‘David’s ex-wife Julie has met a new bloke, had a kid and it’s got our family name, even when Julie hasn’t’.

Really quite strange.

True.

But the reason that the siblings have the exact surname that they do is because they were produced by a certain person. The Ex.
The siblings don't have the mum's name, or a random name that sounded good, they have the surname of the man that fathered them. They have that surname for a particular reason.

I don't think it's a problem, or any of my business 😅, but I'm just so curious as to this decision.
I guess it comes down to why the mum wants all the kids to have the same surname. Why is it so important?

Yeah its weird, but I also find it bizarre that so many unmarried women throw out tradition and dont give thier kids their own surname.

Unless the ex partner has an extremely unusual surname then thousands of people share the same name, he appears to be able to cope with that just fine.

The only person who owns the name is the person who has it, I have the same surname as our children, their name doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to them.

My surname happens to be the same as my previous partners, just as my first name is shared by thousands of people, that doesn’t stop it being my name and mine only. Its also technically a brand, but it doesn’t make me a business anymore than it belongs to someone else.

People don’t own a name. It’s a name probably shared by many, many unrelated people.

Not that simple though is it. She needs the father’s permission to do this-he might not be prepared to give it.

Then why not give them all the related parent's name, in this case, double barrel with mom's name which is what she's going by. She doesn't use the same name as her kids, from OP's post.

Giving the baby the surname of her ex that has no relation to the baby and the other kids' parents implies paternity.

My mum doubled barreled her new husband's name with my dad's when she remarried as she wanted to stay linked to me.

It's normal to want to be linked to your children, and for all the children to be linked together by name.

i think women should just give their kids their surnames it’d save all This drama

This. Names are just names, no one owns them, but it's time we moved away from kids having their male parent's surname when something like one in three or four children don't live with their fathers and a large number of dads lose contact with their kids altogether. When relationships break down, for most kids their primary home will be with their mum (and new partner/husband and any new half-siblings who appear).

Makes sense in most cases for mum and all the kids to have the same name.

I suppose she see it’s as her children’s name, not her ex husbands.

My children have my name. It happens to be my dad’s name who I don’t speak to. I don’t see it as his name, it’s my name. So this is similar except she’s chosen to use her other children’s name.

It isn’t how I’d do it, I’d always give law children I had my name, but people do things differently.

It’s the siblings names they’re being matched to obviously. She gave the kids a sibling link and put them first rather than forcing the big kids to go through all the admin drama of double barreling her maiden name.
i think women should just give their kids their surnames it’d save all This drama

I think it’s bizarre for a baby to have a surname that doesn’t belong to either of the baby’s parents. YANBU.

If women didn't change their names these issues would be a thing of the past.

I’d assume it is so all 4 siblings are matched, somewhat. It’s not her exs nane, it is as much ‘owned’ by her dc as it is by him. If permission is needed, which it isn’t, then I’m sure one of her dc could give it.
Fucking hate that a man is seen to own his name but children and women aren’t. .

Well I would never have done it but then I didn't just take the name of my now husband; we both db'd.
So... husband, myself and our daughter all share the same db. It is his name + my family name which i reverted back to immediately after my divorce.
My sons from my first marriage have my ex-husband's name only which I very much regret but I was young and naive. I hate that there's no "link."
I could think of nothing worse than my daughter being called by my ex-husband's last name (he's never met her and she's almost 6!)

The ex is irrelevant now, it's the children's name. When a woman argues that keeping her maiden name is unimportant to her because it's just her dad's name at the end of the day, this is refuted strongly on here with people arguing it's not about it being her dad's name, the point is it is HER name now. This is just the same, applied to OP's friend's children.

I expect there was a bit of politics in the rest. Maybe they took one name from mum's side and one from dad's, so she had to choose between the children sharing a name with the baby and her doing so. I can imagine the dad not being very happy to miss out on passing his name down. Maybe they are just better names. It's not a common choice but I don't think that makes it weird.

Better option would be to change her name to the older children's surname, then use that for the baby or double barrel with new dp.

As the baby I'd rather match names with my mum rather than half siblings.

She wants the sibling’s to share a surname. Seems perfectly reasonable to me. The name doesn’t belong to the ex, it belongs to the siblings.

it doesn’t matter where a name came from, the moment a person is named, that name is theirs just as if it was created from thin air.

Yes, I can read thank you.

When she got married she obviously took his name & the older ones were given the parents surname, she wouldn't have expected him to become an Ex & her crystal ball didn't suggest not changing her name or not giving the children the name they shared. (If I had kids who had my married name, I wouldn't have gone back to using my maiden name. You change names. You don't borrow a name).

It is her older children's name. Not just her Ex's. It doesn't matter what her Ex thinks about her baby's name, it's none of his business.

Her new partner is obviously mature enough not to be acting like a twat about this.

Seems weird to me, but her choice.

She’s giving them the older siblings name.

It’s odd if you only ever see names as belonging to men, and just on loan to wives children etc.

The siblings have a surname, their own surname, belonging to them. The youngest now shares that with them

Unusual. But so what?

Women can give their Dc their own surnames. Alongside the Dad’s, if they choose. It makes more sense, really. And siblings can all share that name.

My brothers ex did that so my niece and nephew could have the sane surname as their younger siblings and her. It’s unofficial, she actually baked my brother for permission to change their surnames. He’s usually a pushover as he’s a quiet placid guy but he hit the roof. He told her HIS children will change their surnames over his dead body! He will see her in court if she even dared to suggest that again. She double barrelled them with her new surname and my brothers surname. I think she got a shock as normally he rolls over or puts his hand in his pocket.

Agree. Very weird.

Sorry, it’s weird. It would be one thing if she used her ex’s surname as hers with no intention to change her name, but she doesn’t.

To me it comes across as being embarrassed about the multiple baby daddies and trying to sort of hide that by everyone having that same name. Her child isn’t going to thank her for giving him a super awkward name from a random man.

My surname before I changed it was my link to my dad and paternal family. It has never once occurred to me to think it links me to my brother in anyway.