Child with two surnames? Anyone with two surnames?

[Chipmonkeypoopoo]

Is it unreasonable to give your child two surnames?

First baby due in the next day or three. Ideally we only wanted to give the baby one of our surnames but due to a paperwork error we made a few years ago we're in a position where we're forced to give baby both DH's and my surname OR spend 900 pounds to change the name. We may or may not be successful in our efforts to change the name. Seems it might work though. We're not in England - hence the faff. There is no way around the legalities of this.

My question is especially to those of you with two surnames: Is it a total pain? One name is very English and is 5 letters long. The other is very "foreign" and is 9 letters long. We are sad we can't do what we wanted but are also wanting to not create a nightmare scenario for our child.

Thoughts?

Many people have double barrelled names which is basically two surnames with a dash in the middle.

Can your child not be registered as, say, Tchaikovsky Smith and just go by Smith on a day to day basis?

Spanish people have two surnames. One from the mother and one from the father.

@Soup - your suggestion is what we were considering. Surnames/names are such huge deal where we live though that I'm not sure how easy that would be.

@Nottonight - absolutely agree. I guess for us it isn't what we wanted so we're trying to get our heads around it.

@Happy - yeah. We've talked about that as an example of where it works. Culturally it's just weird in the country we're in.

It just makes us sad I guess. 900 pounds seems a lot of money.

All of my DC have two surnames. I didn’t drop my maiden name when I got married so gave them both.

I’ve got two surnames (hyphenated) and I like it. I now live in a country where double barreled names are also very unusual and it hasn’t caused me any major problems (sometimes people assume one must be my husbands name but it’s easy to explain).

I have the Spanish two surnames. I just use the first one on a day to day basis and only put both on legal documents

My DD has mine and DH's surnames with a hyphen in between. There was actually not supposed to be any hyphen , but the registrar saw fit to add one to birth certificate. My name has no hyphen. Anyhoo we both often just use the second surname as it is such a faff due to the fact that my maiden name is also a Christian name ( think Thomas ) and people think it is our middle name. Yeah right like two females would have that as a middle name. Anyway feel free to just use one of the names on day to day life as this would be perfectly legal.

My kids have two surnames (born in Spain). One English and one Spanish. It doesn't cause us any problems, can you not just use the first one? In Spain people usually put the father's surname first, but I know someone who put the mother's surname first because they preferred it.

Ive two surnames. I double barrelled after I got married. Its a but of a non issue to be honest.

I have two surnames (no hyphen). It’s never caused me a problem except if there is no space on an online form, then I just put one. Sounds like you are overthinking it

Thanks all. Not really overthinking. Didn't even realise it was an issue until recently.

My ds has 2 surnames, making 5 syllables.
We use his full name for everything, never shorten it and have never had any issues with it.

I and hence my children have a double barrelled name.
My surname is historically important name (but long) and due to the predominance of females in my generation we have all( well there are only 3 of us) kept pur name as it is important to continue its history.
DH and I concluded when children are older it is up yo them if they choose to use one, other or both names.
Interestingly, teenage son writes the shorter surname on his school work but introduces himself as, and uses the very long name. True convenience!!
Your child may welcome the choice when they are older to have two surnames.
It's relatively common to have 2 surnames even if not double barrelled in London.

Quite a lot of people have their mothers maiden name as a surname (eg James Benson Palmer)
Would that work for you?

I've got 2 surnames, sort of - no middle name so moved maiden name in to the middle when I got married so looks like Christian name, surname surname when in full. I quite like it.

My son has two.
name-middle name-my surname-dad's surname, on his birth certificate (and passport, which is useful). But he's generally known as name-dad's surname.

OP - genuine question: why is it sad that DC will have both your names?

All of Spain manages as do some Scandinavians. It’ll be fine.

I chose to have two surnames! Didn’t want to change my name to DH’s and erase my own surname (also my dad wasn’t very impressed as in my culture women keep felt own names post marriage) but I knew that DH would have liked it. So I added DH’s surname to the end of my own without a dash. I use his on a day to day basis but like to have my own in there too, makes me feel like I’m part of both our families and not just his. It’s never caused me any problems despite me now having 4 names

I grew up with a double barrelled name and it never bothered me. I changed it when I got married and I still miss it though. It's more and more common these days.

DS has survived with 2 surnames. Really it's no big deal. And you are both his parents so nice to keep both.

I and both dcs have 2 surnames, no hyphen. Never been an issue.