To think that our child should have both our surnames?

[nomoreheels]

I am P with our first child. It's still slightly early days (my 12 week scan is next week) and we have agreed not to do too much "baby planning" until after this. Nevertheless you can't help talking about some things from time to time, and we were having a little jokey talk about baby names.

He then suddenly said: "I'm assuming the baby will have my surname?" to which I said I thought the baby should have both our surnames. He seemed to think this would be awkward and look ridiculous on the birth certificate, cause issues at school etc. He has a real thing about double barrelled names. Ours are fairly normal names and would make a total of four syllables, so not exactly a tongue twister.

He hasn't said no outright, but he wasn't that impressed either. I was surprised he automatically thought this should just happen. He's not hugely traditional in other ways. I found it a bit disrespectful tbh.

(For background, we're engaged, but not yet married as we were focusing on getting P for the last year+. But even when I do get married, I intend to keep my name. I am pretty sure I've told him this, but it's not something you talk about all the time!)

I don't want to have a huge argument about it - frankly there are going to be a million and one choice/parenting issues that come up - but I do believe that a woman's name should be included. Why should people automatically give children the father's surname?

What have other people done? It would really help to have some examples so I can discuss this with him.

I was engaged to my ds father when i fell pregnant, i gave our son his last night and since we have split (4yrs ago) it causes no end of problems such as not being able to fly abroad without his permission and birth certificate, always being called mrs ds name and its bloody annoying.

I wish that i had kept my name and not his for his name.

DH and I had a major stand-off about this over DD1. I've always been Ms/Dr Myname and didn't see any reason to change this on marriage. My preference was for a double-barreled name for DD, but DH insisted that it was too pretentious, too long, too confusing etc. I was furious, but was concentrating on a teeny tiny very premature baby in special care, so wasn't at my most resilient. Had we had a bit of time before and after the birth, we might have been able to agree on Myname-Hisname.

In the end I had to compromise and we ended up with Myname as a second middle name and Hisname as her surname. Actually, I'm amused to note that at our very mixed London state primary, there are loads of double-barreled names and these are probably the least socially advantaged kids.

When I was pregnant I asked DP what our baby's surname would be (we were not, incidentally married. We still aren't). He suggested Myname Hisname. I said no Hisname Myname. And that was an end of it

I have two kids (20 & 8) by different dad's - they both have their dad's sir names. The youngest has my sir name and his middle name (it is a very popular first name too!.

I dont see my sir name as mine - it is just a name ... I am more sentimental about my first name ...even though i dont like it. I am/was surprised at my own lack of interest of my kids having my name as i am fiercely independent...but I just dont care.

I don't think either of you are being unreasonable. You have each formed an expectation so now you need to have a discussion and come to a compromise. There's no right or wrong about names. My DW doesn't use my surname but our child will. We could just as easily have chosen my DW's surname or used both.

I wasn't married to DH when we had our first DC and I gave our child my name with DHs as a middle name.

You never know if things will pan out and I wanted to have the same name as my child. I get really angry at the assumption that children will be given their fathers names, no matter what. It's really sexist.

When I did marry my DH I changed my name, because I preferred his and then we changed our DSs birth certificate. If I hadn't preferred my DHs name, I would have kept mine and given it to our other DC when they were born.

DS has DH's surname (and mine as a middle name so that it appears on his passport). DH and I are married but I am always Ms Myname for all purposes. I would have liked to give DS my surname (and DH didn't have any strong feelings either way), but there were practical issues - DH will be SAHD once my maternity leave ends, and I thought in the end it would make the practicalities easier if they shared a surname since some people are going to be a bit about dealing with him (we've already had one incident with the receptionist at our GP's surgery). Plus MIL, who is lovely and whom I don't want to upset, would have been devastated if DS hadn't had DH's name.

I wouldn't be happy with the assumption that you would change your surname to his or the assumption that the baby would have his surname.

If his reasoning is genuinely that double-barrelled names would be difficult then suggest that the baby should have only your surname. His reaction to the suggestion will tell you what he really means.

Like a lot of others, my DS has his dad's surname with mine as his last middlename.
They don't sound great double-barelled, or I would have considered it.
If we have another DC, it would also have my name as middle name. Not awkward at all.

What is all this "he told me/her that he would marry me/her at some point" surname planning? God, get married or don't. Name your children after both of you or don't. But planning surnames based on some possible distant event just seems silly, sorry.

And, while I'm casting a little cloud of rage over this otherwise sunny thread (:o) you are not naming the baby after its father or grandfather FFS. Does the mother not count for some reason? Wherever her surname comes from, be it after her father, her mother or the family dog, it is HER name. So you're choosing between the father's name and the mother's name. Or both. Or neither of course.

And - I'm sure I've had exchanges with some people on this thread before about the "haha whatever will the double-barrellers do when they grow up" comments. It's up to them, and there have been d-b names for a hell of a long time now, so how about knocking off talking about it as some hilarious hypothetical event? People make their own decisions and have done for a long time.

Am I the only person who doesn't think it's sexist to traditionally have the Father's surname?

Hey harecare, the tradition of giving the father's surname IS sexist, in origin at least. It goes back to a time when the wife and children were literally the property of the man, when women couldn't own their own property, when they had no right to custody of their own children etc.

Not to say that everyone who makes this choice now is doing is because they are sexist. There are a lot of reasons, and children have to be called something. Yet often, it seems to be that the father kicks up a huge fuss/sulk if it's not his name (although I am to hear about the man on this thread who resents his wife's name even being a middle name!), whereas women just can't be bothered to argue.

If your child has a double name what will happen when he or she has a baby. Would get ridiculous. I like the Icelandic idea - I think that boys take their father's name and girls take their mothers..... not sure about that mind phmm]

Orm - see my post above. People do have double barrelled names already, and have done for a long time. A person with a d-b name can either:

• give the baby their partner's name
• keep the baby their own name
• give the baby a name from each parent (depending on sentimental reasons/what goes together)

With all these options (pretty much the same as someone with a single name), why on earth would they go for the four names option? AFAIK only bonkers aristos with a need to mention everyone they're inheriting from in the family name have ever done this. Sorry but this really winds me up. People are not stupid, most of the time

No, in Iceland boys and girls both normally take the father's name, just with -son or -dottir on the end. Either boys or girls can take the mother's name (similarly with -son or -dottir on the end) but this is relatively unusual.

YANBU

Tell you dp if he doesn't want to double barrell them you'll just give the baby your surname When he comes back down from hitting the ceiling he may just be more amenable to considering a double barrelled name

As for what people with double barrelled names do when they marry that's their decision but there are various options such as taking one or the other's name or choosing one from each d/b and d/bing them. They could even choose an entirely different name if they want.

DB had a college friend was was Mothersname-dottir. I thought that was normal. Clearly not.

I lie awake worrying about many things - money, deadlines, world peace, the stubborn refusal of several spare tyres to shift - but whether my children will wibble, at some unspecified point, about the surnames of their putative babies, that would be a no.

I am 14 wks pg and me and DP have always said that our future kids will have both our surnames. Not double-barrelled, just 2 surnames. That way, they can drop one when they are adults, if they feel like it. It's perfectly legal to have 2 surnames and gets round all the silly arguments about double-barrelling that people come out with. DP is quite offended at the idea that my name wouldn't be reflected in our child's name.

Pregnancy can open up all sorts of cans of worms that would otherwise stay closed (or closed for longer) - OP, if your DP is being unreasonable about the surname issue and you feel that it's down to sexism or being v trad about stuff, then maybe you should have a chat with him about his ideas on other stuff, like division of roles and labour once the baby is here, things like that. Just to get things straight between you.

If you feel strongly, as do I and many others, that the mother's surname should be given to her child as well as the father's, then stick to your guns. Your surname has equal rights (in fact more so legally, if you're not married yet) to his and him feeling daft about writing it on a form is much less important than you and your beliefs about these things being respected.

DP and I are currently having this very debate. We're not married although we probably will get married at some point, but I would keep my name anyway so that doesn't solve anything.

For years now we've joked that the boys will get his surname and the girls will get mine. But now it's real I'm less keen on that because I'm not sure I want my kids to have different names from each other.

I'm no fan of double barrelled either, but both names are going to be in there somehow.

One of the things we're thinking is that it might be dictated by whichever sounds best with the first names that we choose (in particular, mine has one syllable, his has two. So if it's a multi-syllable first name it might sound better with mine, and if it's a single-syllable it will probably sound better with his).

I dunno. It's tough!

I think double-barrelled names seem a bit pretentious - sorry. Especially when they're chosen, rather than inherited. I like the fact that we have one family name (wouldn't matter if it was mine or his), so we're the Smiths, or the Harrisons etc.

Thanks for all the new posts. It's very interesting to see all the different thoughts. It's good to know that you can give two surnames with hyphenating them, that might be the road to go down.

As for double-barrelled future problems... the likelihood of my child shacking up with another db named person probably isn't that great.

I'm still not sure what is pretentious about having two fairly ordinary names joined together. And some people give their children 3-4 middle names, which on paper can look just as lengthy. If we give our child just one middle name, then they will have 4 names total. That's fewer than some of the babies I have had announcements about of late!

There would be no question of giving the child my surname only - but this can work to my advantage in helping him see that if he doesn't like how that feels, then why should I? I'm sure we can reach an agreement. He is very excited about being a dad, and maybe nerves made him react the way he did.

I'm going to talk this through some more with him and canvas my friends for their thoughts too. We have 6 1/2 months to sort it out...

I kept my name after marriage, and we double-barrelled our kids. I didn't think having them named just after him was an option! They actually have my name first, just cause it sounded better, as it's onesyllable-twosyllables. Twosyllables-onesyllable sounded like two separate names rather than a single surname. DH had no problem at all with this .

BTW once you have kids you get known by lots of people as Mrs Kids-surname just because they don't know any different (or just X's mum lol), so if the kids have DH's surname you'll get called Mrs DH rather more than you might like.

DS has both our surnames, MyName-DPname, and he loves it. He loves having one name from me and one from his Dad - but then of course I havn't changed my name, and nor would I if we married.
8 out of 30 kids in DS's S London state primary have double barrelled names, it is not a symptom of 'posh' any more, but of women keeping their names.
DS's name has 5 syllables, and has never caused any problems or issues.

Quint: In the U.K a parent or parents of any marital status can give their child whatever name they like!