To not understand why some parents give their child a horrible or embarrassing surname?

[carbarella]

Just because it happens to be the dad's surname? Why don't they just use the mum's surname instead?

Someone that I know is currently pregnant. Her DP has an awful surname, and she is worrying herself silly about her child getting teased at school, they are constantly trying to think of first names that go with the surname and don't sound awful with it. She has a nice surname; I don't understand why they don't just give that to the baby instead.

There is a girl in DD's class at school with a really horrible surname, that sounds like a word you would use as a huge insult to someone. She gets the mickey taken out of her because of it, and hates it. I don't understand why in that case the parents didn't just use the mum's surname for their children?

Why is the mentality always that the baby has to have the father's surname?

I went to school with a Woodcock and an Alcock. Nothing too unusual but they were best friends and referred to by all (staff included) collectively as 'The Cocks'

Well my dcs and dh share a surname that has embarrassment potential but so far no issues. (I kept my own name when we married)

We did deliberate about it before deciding to go ahead. Dh is not so keen on his name himself and did endure teasing about it as a child. But he did feel quite strongly about wanting to give his children his name (I don't share these feelings, to me it doesn't matter so I was happy with this).

Interestingly ds1 did get bullied a bit a couple of years ago but it was about something else. I do tend to agree that if a child wants to bully another they will find something to pick on.

A friend of mine has an embarrassing surname and his wife uses her own surname - They had a baby last year and the baby was given the mother's surname.

My married name is one that gets a lot of daft comments and teasing and my DD hated it at school - however, my DS was never bothered by it and did not really get teased much at all because he was so confident and outgoing

Names are not the problem - Stupid, rude people are the problem.

Ooh Peachy I have an unusual surname too - I use it for work but my common married name otherwise! Just me, my brother, his wife, their three children & our mum with the surname as far as we know. If my dad's grandfather hadn't been illegitimate, the name would have died out in the 19th century.

I think I'd need a definition of parental responsibility!! STBXH pays maintenance through the CSA but has very little contact with DC's.
And I don't want my degree awarded to me in my married name so I'm wondering whether to change it by deed poll before then or wait til he pays for the divorce...which knowing him will never happen...

I think stbxh will have PR, rock. Sorry.

You can change your name separately if you want!

What about foreign names? Before i got married, my surnames was rather peculiar. Not that it had any embarrassing connotations, whoever heard it, was this reaction... wtf?

I know a Dr De'ath. His DC have his wifes name though.

I wouldn't give my kids a horrible name.

A friend of mine was born Miss Ball and has just become Mrs Cox! I kid you not.
Funnily enough they decided not to hyphenate

I've always thought "Bumgardner" is a corker of a surname, especially if the first name is Randy There is a "Randy Baumgardner" in the US. I can only imagine that the word "randy" in America doesn't mean the same as it does in Britain.

Nope, it doesn't!

Baum is German for "tree" so that's probably the root (ha ha) of that one.

I have a friend who, when she got married combined a part of her surname with a part of her dh's surname to create a new surname that they both took. I thought that was kind of nice.

Cockburn at least isn't pronounced the way it is written.

I know a family with a dodgy surname who gave the children the dad's first name as a surname. I know another who picked a completely new surname for each of their children, nobody had the same surname.

You can just make up whatever surname you want for your children? I thought it had to at least match one of the parents.

Years ago, as my mom was leaving a job, she finally got up the nerve to ask a female client if she were born with that name, or married it.

Funsucker (married it, in the 1950s)

I will confess to having a mildly amusing surname ... and to have whoolly accidentally, with pregnancy brain, managed to give DD a first name that makes it worse.

Serious parenting fail.

I wonder if he people who are bothered about this are also bothered about email addresses?

I worked at a place that took the first initial and first four letters of the last name, some of the results where very interesting.

My mum used to have a customer called Mrs Fluck - I felt so sorry for her children as they were tased a lot in school.

Cockburn can be pronounced as Coburn.

The film star Diana Dors' real name was Diana Fluck.

There is an apocryphal story that she was once invited to open a fete in her home town. The vicar who had to introduce her was nervous about mentioning her old name in his speech so he just said," It gives me great pleasure to introduce Miss Diana Dors or as many of you will remember her, Diana Clunt ".

I knew a Goodwilly, a De'ath, Pigg and Ramsbottom (more commonly known as tups arse) I think Barsterd is pretty mild to be honest and I like it particularly if your DH is called Alan.

I had a surname mentioned on here and it was absolutely no big deal at all. A couple of kids and friends at uni tried to make a joke of it but it never caught on. I never liked it at all but by the time I got married I wasn't bothered by it. It ended in 'cock' but mine was one of about five others similar. But I admit we did all snigger aged 8 when a girl joined our class from Sus'sex'!!

Can I ask for opinions on Seaman?

I've spent the last ten years regretting taking DH's name, but I'm not sure if it would be weird to change back to my maiden name now, or what to do about the dc.