If you kept your surname, what about your children?

[MonsteraCheeseplant]

Just that really. Assuming that you are not Spanish, and that you are married to your spouse, but you have different surnames. Double barrelling is the obvious solution but if you each have three syllable surnames it's not really acceptable is it?

We used my surname as a middle name, but it is a surname which could also be a first name

We're married and I've kept my name. I'm pregnant and baby is due in July so we're going to double-barrel so that all three of us have both names with a hyphen.

I don't mind if my name gets dropped when they get older and get married. I've tried to think of myself as Mrs His Last Name and it's just not me so this is our compromise. My surname is unusual and his is a boring colour. Not happening!

I have two friends whose husbands/fiancés have offered to change their names and ironically the women didn't want that.

Brown?!

Theyve got english first names and danish surname. Denmark is not great at employing people with foreign sounding names so we thought the danish surname would carry more Danish weight. Denmark is totally cool with families having different names though.

I was always going to keep my surname. It’s a big part of my identity. My dd got my DH’s surname, it was important to him and not to me.

His name is tricky to say and spell, mine isn’t. Now he has to listen to her complaining that my surname is so much easier and nicer. It annoys him, he didn’t really think ahead much!

Don’t get caught up with having to have the same surname as your kids. It really isn’t an issue. My kid’s friends have a really crazy mix of double-barrelled, professional names and old partnerships in their surnames. No-one finds it strange or inconvenient at all. Certainly don’t tie surnames to showing extra love or connection, that’d be a bit batshit. Parents of firstborns can get a little cray-cray over names, truth is nobody cares once it’s announced (and forever more).

The number of women who proudly tell me that, oh no, they didn't change their name on marriage but become a little sheepish when I ask whose surname their kids have...

Again, I really don’t think it’s the same. Changing the name you already have, and have had for 20+ years, to reflect the fact you are now married is to me a much bigger deal (and much more patriarchal) than choosing the father’s name rather than the mother’s for a child. Of course, in a truly equal world, the mother’s name would be chosen as often as the father’s but it’s not nearly such a big thing for me as the name change on marriage.

But roughly equal numbers of men and women will have the same 'nice' names. Yet on threads like this you'll always hear women say that their husband's name is 'nicer'. Almost never the reverse.

The ones who say their husband’s name is nicer are using it to justify using their husband’s name, to an audience mostly against that. The women who used their own name have no need to justify their position, and so no need to mention if it was because their name was nicer.

Don’t get caught up with having to have the same surname as your kids. It really isn’t an issue.

For the vast majority of men, it certainly is an issue. Or would be if women weren't usually so happy to go along with it.

They got my surname, there was no way after carrying them and giving birth to them was going to not let them be called after me. Dh sulked but I stood firm.

I kept my surname on marriage but my children (three of them) have my husbands surname.

My own specific reason for this is that I'm NC with my entire family of origin. I'm comfortable with my own name because it has always been mine, but it's not a common name and I didn't want my children to have any association to that family or be traceable using that name.

Has that not been the case they would have had my surname.

The ones who say their husband’s name is nicer are using it to justify using their husband’s name, to an audience mostly against that

That's kind of my point. The 'nicer' is an excuse. If it were all about who had the 'nicer' surname then men would change their names as often as women do. But in reality, men almost never do, because name changing has deeply patriarchal connotations, which are skirted around with the 'Oh but his name is so much nicer (or easier or more exotic or more unusual or whatever)' line.

We’re not married but kids have DPs surname. A) cos mine is dreadful and I hate it (but would never change it and have no interest in getting married anyway). B) cos my kids still know who their mum is even with a different surname. C) no-one else in the world has even had an issue with its

^This

Damn cross post! I was agreeing with IcedPurple

IcedPurple is right.

My DC was going to get my surname, but in the flush of hormones after birth I felt it wasn't fair so she's double barreled. We're known colloquially as the Level-DH's even though DH and I only have one surname.

We merged our surnames together. So half of his and half of mine to create a totally different surname and then both changed our name via deed poll. Baby was given the new surname too. Obviously this doesn't work well on all name combinations, but did with ours.

Oh, and my sister's DS got her surname. When she married her DP he took her surname. His was boring, think 'Smith', ours is rare.

Double barrelled. It's long and sounds ridiculous but there was no way my kids weren't having my name and DH felt the same so it was the only way.

My kids have my husband's surname which is a common but inoffensive name that presents no pronunciation difficulties in English or in other European languages.

I chose to keep my name (because it's mine) but not to inflict it on my kids (it's the sort of name you have to spell every time you give it).

The 'nicer' is an excuse

So if your name was Slut and your OH's name was Jones, which would you choose for your children?

I'm always curious to know how far feminism goes.

When we had our first we were engaged and I have DS my DP's surname thinking I would also change mine when we got married. But when we did get married I realised I didn't want to change my name after all 😳

I like the kids' names with my husband's surname and it doesn't bother me that we have different names. The advantage of DP "getting" the surname is that I got very free rein on the first and middle names!

Both last names, no hyphen - [myname] [hisname]

DH was vaguely against it in my first pregnancy and I knew he’d fight me so I left the conversation until directly post birth in hospital when I knew my stock would be highest. I won . DH regularly grumbles about it now and sometimes suggests going to change their names back to his via deed poll (haha as if) but it’s done now.

The ones who say their husband’s name is nicer are using it to justify using their husband’s name, to an audience mostly against that.

That's incredibly condescending tbh.

I have kept my name and changed it in various quarters. The DC have Dh’s because they have foreign first names which they generally have to spell and my surname had a number of letters in succession that made it difficult for people to ever get right unless using the phonetic alphabet and I chose not to create that for them. It is the second middle name though because I could give it up totally. I always think of myself as my name-DH name and sign docs that way.

Me too Badge3r! I got first and final say on the children's first names because they didn't have my surname and we picked a middle name each (all our kids have two middle names as do I).