I am not going to give my baby a surname

Nothing wrong with you wishing you to choose another name because of the past but calling your unfortunate child Iris Poppy Elizabeth-Anne is just cruel and unusual imo.

Mind you - It's better than Iris Katherine Elizabeth-Anne.......

I think you should honour your fresh start and call her Iris Elizabeth Anne Stewpidchild.

Except, of course, that her DSS and her DP are still men within the family, so she/they will never quite be rid of the bastards! Everything seems to pivot around the evil nature of 4 men in the previous 2 generations, despite the fact that DSS has stated that he thinks the idea is stupid, and that the OP and her DP have gone through their lives with the names of these "bastard" men, and managed (presumably) to remain decent human beings despite this.

As previous posters have said, by all means give her a different surname if you must, but at least give some thought and consideration to what she'll have to spend the next 80 years explaining. I second Concordia - all 3 of you should take a surname that means something to you all (and give your DSS the opportunity to change his too)

i have given this some thought stewpid and have to say that i think it's fine to give your child adifferent surname and lovely to honour departed friends but-
the name you have chosen which will effectively be used as a surname is going to cause her no end of grief. i had terrible problems with my maiden surname (although no bstd men in my family) as it was just such a pita unusual name and i would never change back to it even if DH became the next yorkshire ripper.
friends i've known have changed their names as a family to shake off old ancestral problems.
one did to Thomas - i agree this is a bit boring.
another changed hers to her mother's maiden name. others have suggested this or similar and it may be a good idea.
i would say all 3 of you having the same surname, well why not, it will make things easier and a show of unity, and then you are all free from the bstd men of your families?

I refer to Santimonious post of 10.29:

"Iris Poppy Mulieres.

Iris Poppy Fanjolina.

Iris Poppy DownWithTheBastardMen?"

Great idea. Yes, please name her after me

I am just luverly.

I have a surname as a middle name (old Scottish tradition) and it has caused a lot of confusion here in England. I've been addressed by my middle name and my middle & last names have been hyphenated. I've even been treated as two separate people by one organisation. Unusual naming is a nuisance and a pain - not my parents fault in my case, as it was conventional when they named me. For your daughter's sake don't do it - if you must change her name (and as you say, a lot of kids have different surnames to either their mothers or fathers), choose a recognisable surname for her.

Thanks TIY I thinkOP mentioned considering changing their names as well, though, but I think that would just be a big finger up to the lives they have already led under their current names.

Sorry, where they lived, or a place that had meaning for them.

i get this, i think; my first husband and i discussed both changing our surname together when we married. But we didn't.

For me, it's roots that mattered - names have a meaning and a resonance. Well, the meaning and a resonance are what you want to change I guess. I do find Elizabeth-Anne too awkward though. Bethanschild or Bethans are both reasonable options IMO.

If I felt I had to do this, I would choose a place name (which after all, a lot of surnames are) - preferably a name of the place the child was born, or a name with a link to where you live, or where Elizabeth/Anne live.

As we are loosely on an Elizabethan theme how about Raleigh, Drake, Shakespeare etc for a family name?

Whatever you decide I think Elizabeth and Anne should be two of your dds christian names and not form a surname. I think you will be thought of as 'weird' at the school gates (If that bothers you of course!)

I haven't read every post I'm afraid as it all got a bit much, but I just wanted to say that I think Elizabeth-Anne would be very confusing and annoying throughout your daughter's life (i.e. yes, it is the hyphenated christian names which I find problematic), but the suggestion you made in a follow up post of 'Elizabethan' would work fine, or maybe you could merge the names together in another more surnamy kind of way (e.g. Elizan / Lizan) . It is worth noting that throughout history Christian names have made a habit of morphing into surnames but the difficulty is with those particular names which are just so very un-surname like.

agree with everything flightattendant has saidtoo. the name is MORE than these men, it is YOU

so going back to your grandparents the men were fairly unpleasant?
that doens't mean that further back you didn't have some fantastic men, worth celebrating??

don't get me wrong, I can understand your reasons for wanting to get away from the name, but I think if you do it you should change ALL your names. if you don't want to pass the family name on then why do you use it yourself?
it seems a bit odd to make life difficult for your daughter but not willing to do so yourself.

i would maybe research your family tree, you may be surprised, don't let your father/grandfather skew what might otherwise be a lovely heritage.
also, as someone else suggested, why not use a female name from your families? what about your mother's maiden names?

That makes me think though MP...if you are going to change the name, it doesn't change the person, the gene pool, anything else really does it?

So how far do you go? Do you shave your head if your hair is the same colour as your grandparents' whom you never liked much?

You can't destroy any part of yourself that comes from them. You need on some level to accept that you came from a mixture of people, some who were quite nice and some who weren;t, but generally everyone is a bit of both.

My maternal grandfather fought for Germany in the war (well, you had to in those days whatever you believed) beat up his wife regularly, abused his kids and (some say ) killed his own father. I'd not hesitate to take 'his' surname if it were applicable, because it is also the surname of my mother and her siblings - and I loved him.

He was reformed by the time I knew him
BUT it has zero to do with his name. Perhaps it does for my mother - I don't know. He never did anything bad to me. My paternal grandfather on the other hand, though I love him in hindsight, was quite difficult to get on with and when I was in my teens I questioned my surname coming from his side. Then I realised quite quickly it came from further back than him, and from people whom I probably would have liked a lot more.

You can change the course of a river but you can't stop it being made of water.

(i do think it's a wee shame for dss that his sister won't have the same name as him, can't it just be in honour of him, iykwim?)

ikwym H. It's a tricky one.

lol @ the cat's name

Iris Poppy Mewler

hmm

I had a friend who got annoyed with his family so changed his surname to 'Newman'

i dunno, i think there's something nice about appointing them as guardians wherever they are, iykwim?

choke I mean

Two friends of mind were unsure what to do viz a viz surnames when they got married and had a baby on the way. So they both changed their surname to the cat's name and that's also the baby's surname.
A bit random, but makes me smile every time I think about it.
But there is something to be said for having a) a surname that sounds like one b) the same name as at least one of your parents (I think?)

oh i will be SO PROUD if you go for bethanschild.

Bethanschild is nice

You need a new surname that is a proper surname.

Just pick one that is meaningful, the surname of someone you admire, or a special place, or choose a word that is meaningful, or a word in a different language.

Just out of curiosity - although you may have explained already and I may have missed it - what surname has your DSS got? If it's the male surname of the family, do you intend to change it in protest at the last 2 generations (which btw are hardly ancestry), and if not, how will you explain the differences in surnames to your children?