To ask why you gave DC his last name?

[Tsort]

If you kept your name/aren’t married, but gave DC their father’s last name (as opposed to double barrelling or giving them you own), may I ask why?

To keep him invested/connected to me and the kid, didn't work

Exactly.

They never answer this because it holds a mirror up to their internalised misogyny and they can't face it.

Denial is a river in Egypt and all that....

I can't remember which country no. I don't think I knew about it at the time, but my step siblings were talking about it recently. They remember being questioned about if their mum knew where they were going etc. They said it was scary at the time, but find it funny now looking back.

I thought way more people would say this, to be honest. You made a considered decision and you’ve got an outcome that works for you. So, excellent.

I wouldn't double barrel unless he did.

A bit off topic, but I’ve always wondered about couples where she double barrels but he doesn’t. What’s the thought process there?

My son has a variation on my surname as his first name though, e.g. my surname Johnson, his first name John.

I think this is sweet. I LOVE my MIL’s last name as a first name and we’re considering it for DC.

I really wish I’d given them my surname rather than my ex’s. Mine is far nicer and his is terrible and I feel like I’ve saddled my kids with an awful surname. Doesn’t bother them though. I was talked into it because he was the last of his line with the surname (only child) and there was plenty of family on my side with mine. My DC do have mine as a middle name and my DD has talked about double barrelling it at some point because it sounds better.

I think it's nice to have links to different branches of the family tree in a child's name, even though you can't keep them all indefinitely. It would be great to have your mother in law's surname in there as a first name, especially if you like it.

A few years ago I started researching my ancestry and I found it really striking how many names there are as soon as you go back just a few generations. Even if you double barrel your child's name, only two out of the four grandparents are represented.

But I did find it sad that I was unable to trace several branches of my family tree back very far because a woman's name was lost somewhere. If you don't know what her birth name was, you can't go back any further. I did my family tree just after I got married and I think it factored in to my decision not to change my own name.

My son has a version of my surname as his first name, my dad's name as his first middle name, and another name which is a family name from his dad's side but also a masculine version of my mum's name as his second middle name, e.g. George after his paternal great grandfather but my mum's name is Georgina. So I'm happy that his maternal line is well represented.

Currently pregnant with a daughter and we are struggling a bit because I want her name to represent her family as much as my son's does.

My middle name is one which has been used down the maternal line for five generations unbroken. When I first did my family tree I thought, that's a bit arbitrary. Of all the women in the family tree who gets to have her name passed on indefinitely, why that one? I was considering bucking the trend and if my son had been a daughter I don't think we'd have used it. But now I've come round again and am thinking that passing a name down the maternal line for six generations is a very powerful thing and I don't be the one to break it. So she will have that as her middle name, plus my other in law's first name, and we just need to decide on a first name.

In many ways I think the choice of first and middle names is more important than the surname and if you actually do your family tree, you might be surprised to find that given names have more staying power than surnames over the generations.

I kept my name when we married, for professional reasons. But it's a pain to spell and pronounce, so DD got her dad's beautifully straightforward name instead.

I always thought it was the woman making a compromise a man wouldn't. I wasn't down for that.

Our names don't even really sound right together but that's not the point.

Because his first name is based on my surname and it would have sounded strange in England.

Do you honestly think every woman on here who made a decision you wouldn’t have (which you clearly think is the “wrong” decision) hasn’t thought about it at all? Or do you think we’re all just fucking stupid?

Love all of this.

Last names in the western sense have only existed in my native country since colonialism and, even then, people only bothered with them if/when they were going to school. So, I’m only the fourth generation in my family to have one and I’m entirely clear on my family tree in that sense. But, also of my family’s history predating that. We take history/lineage/genealogy VERY seriously - possibly too much so!

This worked when everyone lived in roughly the same place their entire lives, and there was that small societal memory. It obviously doesn’t work in 2022, so I agree that finding ways of binding your history to your descendants (if you’re into that - and we clearly both are!) presents an interesting challenge.

Because my ex cared about it and I didn’t. Also his name sounded better with our son’s first name.

I have a big, blended family and due to marriage, remarriage and other things, I only share my surname with my estranged father and one of my sisters, therefore I’m not a person who thinks you have to have the same last name to be family.

I made him, I birthed him, I look after him, he could be called anything and that wouldn’t make me any less his mother. If he wants to change his name to mine when he’s older, or to anything different, I’ll help him.

Can’t say I did much of a deep dive into my thought process to be honest. I just wasn’t that arsed.

Your response when asked why you didn’t care/he did. Direct quote.

So, now you’re contradicting yourself.

So the children have their own fathers surname rather than my fathers surname. It’s traditional isn’t it and also so the children can research their family tree when older.

@AliceAbsolum and @Tsort i wasn't asking in a condescending tone, I was genuinely asking if both people felt "why should I change" how would you come to a compromise.... Can't be arsed dealing with people jumping down my throat for asking a question! Unwatching!

Why is their father’s surname his surname and yours is your father’s surname? Why doesn’t yours belong to you?

And re ‘it’s traditional’ - this post is specifically asking women who kept their last names upon marriage. If you did that, I’d be interested in why you kept one tradition while eschewing the other.

And I genuinely asked if you’d ever asked a man that question. From your response, I’m assuming not.

But I don’t believe that by giving my children their father’s surname as opposed to mine, that I am subscribing to that tradition. And you don’t get to say otherwise for me because I do in fact know my own mind.

No I’m not.

I thought about whether or not they should have my surname or DH’s. I decided I wasn’t arsed.

I just didn’t then go on some massive introspective journey into deciphering precisely why I wasn’t arsed. You’re saying it’s internalised misogyny and suggesting I’m just some brainwashed little woman with no mind of her own, which I find quite insulting.

Tradition - and yes, the irony is not lost on me. I wouldn't do it again, neither would I agree to them having his religion. I have no religion. We are still a family unit, but I feel I compromised too far.

So, no, you didn’t think about the motivations behind your decision or why you’re ‘not arsed’ and he is. Which is what I asked.

If it’s not internalised misogyny, then what is it?

Because we knew we were going to marry. We are now divorced but I'm still keeping his name as I want to have the same name as my children

Because I thought we were going to end up married and all that jazz - we didn't. I now deeply regret it as I'm now a single parent and it pains me that I don't have the same surname as my little girl. If I could do it all over again, she would have mine and if things had been different and we had got married, we could have gone through the process of re-registering the birth following the marriage so we all had the same surname. There won't be a next time with anyone, but if there was, lesson absolutely learnt!