Surname change after marriage

That’s quite funny bling! It sounds like you are a healthy, equal and open household. What better example is there for kids.

Unexpected consequence is that I often have to get the children's names changed. If I'm the one approaching a school/doctor/group etc, I forget to mention the child's actual name and turn up to see DCName Loving on the sign in sheet!

@bananas - DH is already going a step further and regularly makes comments to the children about how they can always choose to have my name one day if they prefer it!

Both of us do hope that while we made this choice, we can highlight a better variety of choices to seem "normal" to them as they get older. And on some level it is clearly working - DS doesn't understand why one of his teachers now has a new name because he knows DH and I are married but I still have the same name I had before. So baby steps are being taken I guess.

Ha ha!

'My wife was happy to change her name. It's nice that everyone in the family has the same surname.'

Also, as an observation.

Can you IMAGINE a thread like this but roles reversed. With lots of men saying that they didn’t like their name anyway. With most men saying that they were happy their kids had their wives name as it meant no hassle at airport security?

Mmmm seems very unlikely!

@bling - encourage your kids to think about giving the kids the mothers name as an option. I do wish more women had given their kids their name. I feel like I stick out! There’s so few of us. Thank you @kennehora I feel less of a crazy person that I’m not the only one to give my kids my name. I don’t want my kids to grow up to feel it’s so unusual and weird, or be ridiculed for my decision. We need more women to be brave!

My wife was happy to change her name. It's nice that everyone in the family has the same surname.

Yes I do think that the traveling is made out to be a much bigger issue than it is. Anyway you just need to carry a parental guardian signed consent if you are worried - much easier than changing names!

I’ve travelled with my step kids without their Dad, many times, and also travelled with a child without his parents who was a different nationality. That was the only time I was stopped and asked, and I had a signed form but couldn’t find it, so they let me off anyway!

@kennehora - I know!

Although let's be honest, the vast bulk of children do tend to have their dad's name. If even "rabid feminists" like me gave the DC my DH's name, I guess it's not surprising really. Part of me wishes I'd agreed with DH and given DD my name.

Wish I'd never changed my name. I'm on husband number 3 and it's a right pain filling in "previous surname" boxes on forms. Keep your name and screw anyone else. If some one questions you about it just say "oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realise it was some of your business"

www.gov.uk/permission-take-child-abroad

It's not about different names at all. If going abroad with one parent you are supposed to have permission from all those with parental responsibility.

Never had any issues re travelling. Presumably if this is a thing it affects step children / re- marriages or is it exclusively women who don't change their name?

@kennehora - have answered that upthread. I did it fully aware of the feminist (or lack thereof) implications. It came down to the fact that I didn't want to have that fight. Makes me weak and a bit pathetic, but I try to own that and accept that we can't all fight all the battles!

@annasgirl - Abso-bloody-lutely. This boggles my mind. SIL did this. Her reasoning was that her DP had no family and it was important to him?

DH and I bought a house. We originally started looking when we weren't married. It was clear to both him and I, that if we'd bought at that point, the house would be in my name as I was paying for it. Ditto, if I'd had a child before we married, that child would have had my name. I do find it weird.

To be fair, as previously stated, I find it weird that we always give DC the man's name anyway (and I did it myself, fully aware that it wasn't a particularly feminist decision). But still. Why?

Namechanging is an issue I have some mixed feelings about for me personally - even though I completely recognise the inequality of it overall.

I changed my name when I married DH. My family background was a bit messy:
Mother and Man A had DB1. Man A was off the scene and due to some bizarre family crap was given the surname of mother's step dad. This was not mother's name...(nope, no abuse although poor DB1 thought that might have been the case for many years)

Mother then married Man B and had DB2. DB2 and mother took married name. She also started using married name for DB1. As an aside, it's not a terribly nice name.
Mother and Man B divorce after a few years

15 years after DB2, mother and Man C have me. I'm named with man C's surname. They then split up, mother behaves like an arse (par for the course!) and she starts using her surname (Man B's) for me too.

By the time I'm getting married in early adulthood:
-I'm estranged from my mother who's refusing to even attend the wedding (raging narc!)
-DB2 has turned out to be an abusive git
-DB1 is lovely, and has changed his name back to his birth name
-All of my documents are in mother's married name

I felt no link at all to "my" name by that point, so I changed my name to DH's. I don't regret doing so, I like the name and it works for me.

But I totally see the feminist side of it and almost feel a bit guilty for doing so and I've had a couple of people give me a hard time for changing my name.

I suspect if I'd been getting married 10 years later having built a career I wouldn't have change to DH's, although I'd probably have done as DB1 did and changed to something else before then!

The only consideration is do remember if you have kids, you have to remember to always carry their birth certificates to prove you are their mother if they take your husbands surname even traveling together, (when traveling alone you need a letter from him and vice versa anyway)

That's easily avoided by giving the kids both your names, or your name alone.

That's really not true about travelling together. We do it a couple of times a year for 16 years and Ive never been asked for their birth certs or to prove they're mine.

I do take them of travelling without their same-name father but, again, have never been asked.

Only time one of them has been asked to produce a letter was when they were travelling with neither parent going away with a friend and friends mum - she got asked who he was and showed the letter we'd written.

The only consideration is do remember if you have kids, you have to remember to always carry their birth certificates to prove you are their mother if they take your husbands surname even traveling together,

Have flown extensively with DD and never had a minute’s grief. Don’t think I’ve taken her birth certificate more than once. Have never been asked for it, nor to prove she’s mine. (She has my surname as a middle name so it is recognised on her passport. Maybe that’s enough.)

It's your choice but it's odd for the older generation who automatically changed it. The only consideration is do remember if you have kids, you have to remember to always carry their birth certificates to prove you are their mother if they take your husbands surname even traveling together, (when traveling alone you need a letter from him and vice versa anyway). My friend didn't change hers but now wishes she did, but not being British it's not something that is easy to do (they have to do it within 3 months of marriage)

Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott have a song called “The Future Mrs Heaton”, but all of Jacqui’s parts are about “the future Mr Abbott”. :)

'And the ever- irritating Beyonce made a world tour song and dance about being Mrs Carter'

Oh god, I had completely forgotten that. Awful.