Why do children get the father's surname?

FWIW I will keep my name and any future DC's surname will be one of my names + DP's surname. E.g. James Duffy-Miasmas.

A bit like this nappyaddict?

Sounds good to me.

I'm not sure why people talk with hilarity about "how the double-barrelleds will handle the issue when they grow up" - double barrelling may be increasingly common but it's not new. There is a double surname going back several generations in my dad's family for instance, and the choice for people with these names is much the same as for people with one name:

• each keep their own name

• one takes the other's name (Mr Black-Cat and Ms Smith-Jones become Mr & Mrs Black-Cat)

• both adopt new name...

The only real difference is that you're not likely to splice 4 names together, so the new name is likely to be:

• one from each of you (e.g. Ms Smith-Jones and Mr Black become Mr & Ms Smith-Black)

-something totally different, because they're fed up with all the names - e.g. become Mr & Ms Tiddlywink.

I would like to use the Spanish way with a tweak.

Mr Green Smith and Mrs Brown Jones get married and keep their own names.

They have a child called James. They then either get to pick whether to pass on their first or second name or father's pass on their father's name and mother's pass on their mother's name. If they did the latter the child would be called James Green Jones.

The interesting results are not always the ones that take you anywhere, though, AliceWorld. I'll grant you that there is much better recording now than there used to be but then again, there are many more people to record now, too.

In dh's family tree, we were searching for one particular family but found a number of possibilities - it was only when we looked at the couple's children that the fact they had followed the tradition of the day in the names they used allowed us to feel confident which one was the right one.

I'm not actually suggesting that anyone be guided by this in how they choose their dc's names, of course.

"Being an family history/genealogy buff, I wonder how the family historians of the future will cope with the results of today's occasionally whim-based approach to the naming of offspring..."

It will give them something interesting to look at and consider in relation to the era and the attitudes of their ancestors at the time. I think everything is so well documented now and with the wide availability of data they will need something to get their teeth into other than just the tracking and mapping.

I changed my name to dh's when we married. I don't have anything to prove either way - we both know that he does not own me and so does everyone else whose opinion matters to us - and I was content to go with convention.

Being an family history/genealogy buff, I wonder how the family historians of the future will cope with the results of today's occasionally whim-based approach to the naming of offspring...

Also, what I want to know is how the double-barrelleds will handle the issue when they grow up and have kids of their own?

where I come from you get a surname from mum and one from dad

I changed my name upon marriage because I load my father and wanted to erase his name from mine, this was the easiest way.

my daughter got my mother's surname, which I also have and dh's

As and when OH and I marry I intend to keep my name (even the phrasing of that sentence annoys me, it?s MY name why should I have to justify not wanting to change it)
Re: Children we have always agreed to go double barrelled.

As for Fitz didn?t that mean that you were the acknowledged illegitimate child of royalty?

On the whole historical thing of children having their fathers surname to indicate that they belong to him I have always found that, well funny, the same with inheritance laws. I mean until recently the only biological parent you could ?prove? was your mother so if you wanted to keep things in the family to be sure surely it should have gone down the female line?????mmmmmmmmm just one of those things I muse about.

OH and I had a discussion today about which of our surnames to give the (as yet hypothetical) children.

He suggested we have an arm wrestle and the winner decides.

I suggested that, instead of an arm wrestle, why don't we see who can push said child through one of their orifices first and let the winner of that event decide the name.

I have 2 kids different dads. They both have their dads names....why ?? - because I dislike my sir name.

I find it strange that there are such differences across Europe - I would have imagined that what happened here would be the same as in Germany for eg.

Why is that I wonder. Anyone? We're all mixed up from similar stock and been communicating for millennia and are basically christian - what's going on there then? If it's your basic patriarchy/ownership etc then how come places so nearby are including the mothers name?

My DD has both our surnames, hyphenated. Lots of her friends have both her parents' surnames. It really is up to the parents concerned, you know! (in enlightened countries like the UK and France)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrilineal

i always thought that it was because a woman's offspring are usually unquestionably hers, whilst men can't be so sure of others (as if a name guarantees paternity, haha)

it's a stupid system anyway

we've hyphenated ours (so i'm Ms X, hubby is Mr Y and ours are Ms X-Y and Mr X-Y... they can knock off bits when they get married, keep them, take the nice bits only, don't care really).

we did think about changing both mine and H's name to hyphenated at the wedding, but apparently he couldn't do it (it would have to be an official name change outside of the ceremony). seemed crap so we didn't bother

My DSs have DH name as I took it when we married. In my country, the tradition is firstname, father's name (as middle name), grandfather's name (as surname). Regardless of whether you are a boy or a girl! Which means the kids don't have the same surname as either the mother or the father.

So, I kept my father's name as middle name and took DH's surname.

Now DSs have their first name, DH first name (as middle name) and DH surname.

BIL and SIL want to double barrel the kids, with her surname first for a girl and his surname first for a boy. But I think it'd be nicer for all the children to have the same surname.

I've always been baffled when women give thier children the father's name.

But I think the reason's to do with what someone said about babies conceived from flings vs long term relationships. Getting pregnant from a fling suggests a certain level of promiscuity (to some people, not me). So maybe women think that if their children have their name people will think they were liberated slutty. Hence the giving of the man's name to give an air (even if false) of 'we were as good as married'.

Dh wanted to take my surname when we married & I still use my maiden name professionally

The dcs have both our surnames, I assumed we'd eventually drop one but both dh & the dcs really like it.

exactly my sentiment Professor.

I've flirted with the idea of taking a previous family name (although can't get very far back down the matrilineal line, so possibly just the one I like best ) but shy away from it for the same basic reason I didn't change my name on marriage -- my name is mine, it's the name I've done everything in life with, the name I first learned to write, the name I did all my exams under, the name everyone knows me by. The fact that I share it with [insert name of relative here] is a detail. I don't want to lose my name in favour of another one, much as I might wish that I personally had been given another name or that the naming system in this country was different.

I can never make my mind up on this, I was never particularly attached to my father's surname? My Dad actually had both his parent's names, because they weren't married when he was born, which I quite like - though I couldn't be bothered with a double barrel name because dh and I have both got long surnames.

I think in Pictish society children had their mother's name - which I like the idea of, but obviously I don't know the name of my ancestral Pictish gran, if you take your mother's name the name would never change for generations? I like the continuity of that.

I cannot see the difference between keeping my father's name or my husband's name neither appeal to me.

Having been born in spain my DS automatically got given both mine and my then DH surname. You would not believe the odd looks i get when I try to use his full name! People seem to get really confused especially as it isn't meant to be a double barrel ie with a hyphen. My XH was African so the receptionist at the docs always panics when I try to make an appointment for him. ("er! how do you spell that?")LOL