Opinions on double barreled surnames please.

30 replies

honeytea · 09/12/2012 20:15

I am having a wobble, I am 40+1 weeks pregnant and we are 98% decided on our baby's name.

We had decided to give the baby y DP's surname which is S v a n b e r g (sorry about the funny spacing I don't want google to bring up this post) It is a Swedish name and is pronounced svan-berry it means swan mountain.

My surname is B o s w o o d and we are not married so I would not share a name with my baby.

Today I have been feeling sad that I am about to give birth to a baby that won't have my name, the baby obviously will be half of me and half of my DP but I have grown him and will give birth to him and it feels unfair that just because of tradition the baby will get my DP's name.

We have thought about the advantages of both names, we live in Sweden and unfortunatly being Swedish is seen as a good thing, there is still some discrimination against people who are not Swedish. My DP's name will probably give DS an advantage when it comes to job applications. My name would be rare in Sweden so he would be easilly identifiable.

When I travel alone with DS I will have nothing in common with him, I have a UK passport and he will have a Swedish passport, I won't have any way of proving we are related (they don't do birth certificates here.)

Another issue is that they are very strict with names in Sweden, you are not allowed to have double barreled names unless you can prove cultural reasons. So 2 Swedish people can not give their child a double name but a Spanish person living in Sweden could give a double name, I think I could say it was culturally relavant as most of my family have double names I only don't because my father was rubbish and didn't deserve to give me his name

The final issue is that my surname will not be on the official list, you need to apply to the tax office to get the name approved. I don't think they would refuse the name but it would be a hassel.

I'd love to hear opinions, do you or your DC have double names? is it worth the hassel?

Thank you sorry about the essay! I hope it is just late pregnancy hormones making me worry!

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TremoloGreen · 09/12/2012 21:13

Same as Miss Piggy. Married but kept my name. I thought our surnames together were a bit unwieldy so I will give our baby my name as a middle name, then if it comes into question with passports etc, my name will be in there.

Leafmould · 09/12/2012 21:10

I read on another thread that having to prove anything like family link or dispute with the swedish authorities leads to a delay in registration, and then also a delay for registering your child with certain services [schools?] which puts them at a disadvantage.

If this is the case, I would choose a name from the list.

Wrt travel, your child can have dual nationality, so can get a uk birth certificate and passport too. Do Swedish passports or Id cards detail the names of both parents? Some eu Id cards do, which can be very handy for proving parentage.

Shinyshoes1 · 09/12/2012 20:31

My children are double barrelled . DP never married, we have 3 children but I didn't want them solely having his surname

PessimisticMissPiggy · 09/12/2012 20:24

I didn't take my DH's name when we married. My DD has my surname as a middle name. If we'd double barrelled it would have sounded shit.

MissPricklePants · 09/12/2012 20:17

dd has a double barrelled surname, no issues with it but she usually gets called by just her first surname as it is quite a long name when all together!

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