Giving DCs different surnames?

i wanted to do this but gave in to the hysteria everyone had (my mother was particularly focused on the "people will think they have different fathers" line - particularly ludicrous in reality since they look incredibly alike and are 2 of about 20 kids in the town that are mixed-race...).

IMO, do what you want. my older DC wanted to have my surname for a while when she was about 6-8 but it never comes up now as a topic. people live complicated lives these days - step, half, foster, adopted siblings all cope with the concept that their names don't match.

Why not hyphenate?

My children have a different surname to me (their dads) they hate it and beg me to let them have my surname but I can't because my ex won't allow it. Please don't do this I really do think it is not fair on the children and unnecessarily confusing for them, why not use your surname as a middle name?
Having two children with different surnames is confusing for the children and for everybody else. I think it would be you projecting your feminist views onto your children and not thinking about how it would affect them to have different surnames.

As long as you don't mind the automatic assumption of people assuming they have different fathers which will occur. I kept my own name for everything but school as I like the fact we can easily be referred to as a unit - 'the virtuallyheres'. If the kids have different surnames less of the teaching staff will automatically know they are siblings. All depends really what matters to you.

Well, I grew up with my mum who had one surname, my half-brother and -sister who had the same. Me and my dad had his surname.
I hated it! Made me feel disconnected. I begged my parents to get married. When I was 10, my mum and dad married and had one surname and my brother and sister had another (their dad's).
Can you not double-barrel? It sound stupid suggesting it as an adult but I did hate, as a child, multiple surnames.

We have all got different surnames and its fine. We didnt do it idealogically - well I did with not changing my name but the childrens just worked out that way. One has exps surname and I wasnt making that mistake again so dd has mine with dh's as a middle name.

Its really no biggie.

You could also call both of them your mums maiden name iyswim to get round it - you can do whatever you like.

Oh and 10 months down the line I'm bloody glad I stuck to my guns but the agreement was that if the boys hate having different surnames when they're older they can always change them. It'll be up to them.

We've done this. I'm married but kept my own surname. On being pregnant with DC1 we agreed if it was a boy it would have DHs surname, a girl would have mine. DC1 was a boy. When it came to DC2 I wanted it to take my name. DC2 was a boy. DH wanted him to take his name again but I dug my heels in and so DC2 has my surname but it wasn't an easy decision. It's the only time I've ever started an AIBU thread! Search on my name and you should be able to bring it up. There's more back story and you'll see the responses. Hope that helps

It's surprising how much angst could be solved on the toss of a coin.

I think that's a really nice thought, they way you're doing it. I've heard of people doing that. I suppose one feminist argument against it would be that it differentiates along gender lines, but I think it's a good compromise.

Lots of siblings have different names - because they're step or half siblings, because mum and dad got married after one of them was born, whatever. I think you'd probably find lots of teachers assumed they were step-siblings, but it wouldn't be hard to correct.

You do have time to think - to be honest, if you register the new baby as 'Baby SoMuch' and by the time she's a year or so you've found out it never caught on and she is always referred to as 'Baby DHsName', and you've made your peace with that, you can change it. She won't know anything about it!