Why are so many kids STILL taking the father's name?

[LefthandRight]

Is this some kind of feminist blind spot? Most kids still get the dads name and I see women saying "it was just easier", "double barrelling was a mouthful", "I don't mind". You even get situations where the mum has not taken the father's name so she has a different name to her kids but "it's no big deal" and it's like... So it's no big deal for the woman but apparently its a huge big deal for the man?

It really makes me angry because I just can't believe women have to go through the effort and intrusiveness/pain of childbirth only to have that ownership "label" whipped off them, it feels unfair

You would be wrong. Men who want this do indeed see it as an ownership issue. Same with their wives.
They assume THEIR wife and THEIR children will have THEIR name and get extremely butthurt if the woman has a different idea. I see it all the time

Maybe. Or maybe it’s a step to a more matriarchal society.

All this talk of ‘choice’ seems a bit disingenuous.

Of course, the bottom line is that women should be autonomous. Feminism fights for equality, and men have always enjoyed more autonomy and freedom of choice than women, so that’s what women should also have.

But it doesn’t follow that every choice a woman makes is a feminist choice just because she’s had the freedom to make it. Some women elect to become ‘surrendered wives’ and live lives of servitude! The very fact that that option exists is unfeminist and springs from centuries of patriarchy!

Choosing to take your husband’s name is not the feminist option. It’s not a problem if you want to do it (as I said, it’s what I did!) but it’d be hard to frame it as the feminist choice. The feminist choice would be to try to even up the playing field in terms of keeping and perpetuating the woman’s name in a relationship. Once the playing field is even, then it’s no longer an issue for feminism at all 🤷‍♀️

It may be a cultural norm NOW but for centuries children ALWAYS had their mother's name. It was just that in many cases that mother had already taken her husband's name before the children appeared. But the children of unmarried mothers did not have their father's name.

Ok, so this is a subject that makes me angry. Me and my abusive ex split when I was pregnant because I finally got the courage to leave to protect my baby. I gave him my surname. My ex took me the court and requested bare minimum contact (every other weekend) and to request for our child’s surname to be changed to double barrelled to include his. Courts agreed and my poor baby had to have his name changed at aged 2. Courts were foul anyway as ex proved to be nothing but a drug addict and an abusive narcissist yet courts enabled him because he’s a man and gave him everything he wanted including the name change. Despite ex never having to have our son in situations that involve the name ie: school, drs etc, the courts still thought it a good idea to change his surname because no other reason than that’s what the dad wanted. It’s awful. When he was born he was born ‘baby mums last name’ so why should it have not stayed that way.

Exactly this. It's funny how so many "feminist" choices benefit men.

Liberal "choosy choice" feminism isn't feminism. These choices are not made in a vacuum.

Because I didn't want my DC to have to spell out and correct peoples pronunciation for the rest of their life.
I even took it when we got married

I double barrelled but I think I regret it now.
Both names are not uk. So she will dump them I think.
Wish I'd taken the name out of work. At least.

Sorry that happened to you. Women are routinely subject to misogyny in the criminal justice system. The court had evidence that this was a man that did not want to provide equal care for your son but still trampled on the decision you made for your baby.

I agree, but I didn’t know what to do about it in my own case. I kept my own name and that was always non-negotiable for me. My husband was fully supportive but, when we talked about it at the time of getting married I said I didn’t care what surname our children had. Partly because I wasn’t thinking much about children, partly because I was so happy about my own name, partly because I felt I’d already pushed my luck in the way society looked at things.

When we did have children he was keen for them to have his name. Part of the reason, but not all, was it’s a rare name that nobody else has. I felt this was too patriarchal but I also knew he would feel a bit silly if they all had my name - that his family and other people would make comments and he would feel like a doormat. I did consider a system where there would be a female line and a male line, ie girls my surname boys his, but again I felt that might make us all stand out too much. While I didn’t foresee any problem having a different surname from my kids because I knew it would always be obvious that they were the most important people in my life and our bond would be above names (and I was totally right about that), I thought they might not like being different from other kids by having different surnames from each other. And if all our children had turned out to be the same sex it wouldn’t have worked anyway. In retrospect it could have worked ok although it would have needed my husband to feel happy about it and I’m not sure he would have done. Societal opinion and all that.

Double barrelling would have been an option but as my main motive was one of principle, to be part of a sustainable system which would work for society as a whole, I didn’t think that was the answer.

i just want it to be fair really. I think fathers are central to children’s lives as much as mothers. I don’t want them removed from the picture entirely. On the other hand, men have had it their own way a long time, maybe it’s our turn now.

in the end he said that, while it was causing me a lot of stress agonising over it, why didn’t I just decide to let it all go and give in to him on the basis that I was doing something kind that would make him happy. Great way to win an argument! But he always does a lot of kind stuff and gives up a lot for me. So I did.

i still don’t know the answer really. In Spanish-speaking countries children are given both parents’ names, father’s first then mother’s. Everyone has two surnames. The mother’s name is subsidiary, however, and is lost in the next generation. But better than nothing - better than what we have currently. Perhaps we could put the mother’s surname first! It’s arguable whether first or second seems more important anyway. It’s just the dropping in the next generation that makes the difference.

The reason you get judgement is having a double barrelled name is inherently a sign of wanting to be thought of as posh, because the implication is that the 2 family names are so precious to local or wider society.

My dp did. We both agreed his surname is awful so our children have my surname. I can easily believe it would happen the other way round.

My surname is constantly misheard , over the phone or in person. It's an English word but I constantly have to spell it out. Multiple times over in the same phone conversation. It's so very frustrating. DC have their father's name for simplicity. I'd have loved them to have mine if only it was practical.

I feel sorry for the women who would like to include their own surname in their children’s names, but are pressured against it by those around them. And also for the women who regret that their children only have their absent, deadbeat ex’s surname. These situations don’t happen in a vacuum - the decisions made by millions of parents have created the status quo.

So I’m unsettled by the idea that a majority of women make the decision to follow a patriarchal tradition because it’s the easier/default option and they don’t mind.

I know there are plenty of women who say that their DH’s surname was nicer/ easier to spell and pronounce/ came from a kinder family/ was near the start of the alphabet etc. and I’m not disbelieving any of them. But these women must be in the minority, because otherwise the percentage of children with their mother’s surname would be close to 50%.

I’m very distrustful of tradition. I can think of far too many traditions in the UK and elsewhere which are harmful and actively preventing social progress. I think that before making a decision to carry a particular tradition forward to the next generation, each person should ask themselves if they think it has a positive, helpful impact or one that’s harmful in the long-term.

I think it’s also interesting to consider how the centuries long depths of societal norms have conditioned men to very likely feel more emotionally attached to their names than women do. Whether they are bastards or not, enlightened or not, an emotional connection is probably near impossible to remove, the same as creating an emotional connection that is not there for a woman. So when, at the end of the day, it’s two people who love and trust each other coming together to make a decision, those emotional connections or disconnections are most likely going to have heavy influence on the outcome.

It was just a given in my family, I never gave it a second thought. I never imagined they would have my name.

@Minglingpringle “I also knew he would feel a bit silly if they all had my name - that his family and other people would make comments and he would feel like a doormat”

this is the problem isn’t it - stereotypically a woman isn’t considered a doormat/weak-willed/under the thumb etc for giving her kids the dad’s surname or changing her surname to match his. So if society is equal why is this the case for men and not women?

I remember a journalist writing about how she’d changed her surname to her husband’s, simply because this mattered far more to him than it did to her. Like many journalists, she thought she’d still use her maiden name for work, but her husband seemed aghast at the idea. Thus, she became Mrs Smellie.

It's here in the first sentence of the OK Gov site:

https://www.gov.uk/change-name-deed-poll

My neighbour took his wife's surname as his wasn't particularly nice and hers was glamorous. Think "Timothy Boggs" to "Timothy Lavelle".

For one of my friends it was because her name was embarrassing and she had a lot of stick at school.

As for names being about ownership, in some Arab countries women keep their name on marriage but when their first son is born she changes her name to something similar to, "mother of son's first name".

I have come across men who took their wife's name. Not often but it does happen.

Pakistani women usually become 'Begum' at marriage.

Back in the day of indentured apprenticeships the apprentices took their master's surname when the apprenticeship ended. Hence the names Smith, Jones, Taylor etc being so common.

@EnoughNow2023

My mum had an unusual name, she started seeing someone who had an unusual name, but ended it in case it got serious.

My dad has a boring, easily spelled name.

I like the Spanish system.

Everyone has two surnames (from their mum and dad).

A child is given their father's first surname and their mother's first surname.

When a woman gets married she keeps her current surname and doesn't change to her husband's surname!

The person who said give baby dad's surname to flatter him into being an involved father - that's manipulative, desperate and doesn't work. I'm a Registration Officer and I've met too many mums with different baby daddies who think the name will give them some kind of power. It won't. He expects baby to have his name anyway, so you can call your baby whatever surname you like - if he's not bothered about being a dad, he's not going to be convinced by some cutesy name nonsense. Him signing the register page gives him parental responsibility though (Google it) so if you want him involved and to have a bit of legal clout about it, get him in that appointment.

I didn’t change my name when I got married. I wanted the last name of the family I actually, biologically belong to, and my mom didn’t change her name either, so that felt normal to me.

My kids have my husband’s last name. I don’t see this as some patriarchal convention; I see it as a man acknowledging that, yes, these are in fact his children, and he takes responsibility for them. It’s obvious who a baby’s mother is, but not immediately obvious who a baby’s father is. If I meet a family where the children don’t have the father’s last name, I assume he’s not their biological father. And though other people’s experiences may differ, in my experience, that assumption is usually correct.

If a child’s father isn’t solidly committed to the mother and it remains to be seen if he’s going to be a good father, I see the argument for the child having the mother’s surname. But if you’re married to your baby’s father and the baby doesn’t have his last name in any way, shape or form, I think it’s just awkward. Like…what, didn’t he want his own child to have his last name? Doesn’t he want to be easily identified as the father of these children?

I'm a Registration Officer and I can tell you that it's low key very important to the majority of couples. I see double barrelling but it's unusual for mum to keep her name if she's English, and unmarried mums almost always go with dad's name in my experience. I'm pretty sure parents are more likely than ever to be unmarried and yet children still usually have father's surname by default. Unmarried mums often think that the name is what will give the child some rights in terms of parental responsibility but it doesn't, it means nothing. If she gives baby her surname, it can be changed after she marries, but if she gives baby father's surname and regrets it she will need a deed poll and potentially court order to change it. This is related to the archaic shaming of unmarried mothers that has changed relatively little since records began - upon parental marriage, a child is reregistered as if their parents were always married and their original birth registration becomes null and void, allowing the child considerably better social stature as a 'legitimate' child born in wedlock.

Women used to be considered property to the extent that our forenames weren't always used, and we were buried as 'daughter of -' or 'wife of -----'. Make no mistake, your name is your identity and it does not exist in a vacuum, our expectations have been shaped by centuries of men coming first. You're either your father's or your husband's. Names have interesting meanings as well, of course, eg a 'Baxter' came from bakers centuries ago etc but I see so many interesting women's names get lost. I write death certificates for women with multiple previous names because of her divorces, while a multiple-married man has no indicators of past wives on his certificate. No one gets married thinking they'll get divorced but it happens for an awful lot of us. There is shame attached to that for women in a way that there isn't for men. Don't tell me that we have the same attitudes to men and women, that a name's just a word and it doesn't matter.

When I got married I really wanted to combine our surnames and make a new name. My identity is important to me - I'd had my name all my life, I think changing it is a big deal. I wanted us to be our own little team with the children we'd have but I didn't want to double barrel as I felt a long name would be annoying. Husband disagreed but didn't pressure me to have his name, so I compromised and double barrelled. He kept his name at first but changed it after 3 or 4 months. We're getting divorced now but we're both keeping the double barrel. If either of us remarries we might lose the name we share with our child for the sake of our new family. If we'd changed it to a combined, made up name instead of double barrelling, that wouldn't be a problem, so I do wish we'd done that. But then we would have lost our two long-established family names for something without historical meaning, so there's no perfect answer.

Different cultures do it very differently and in many countries women don't change their names, but that's not to imply that any countries don't have male dominance woven into them. Unless we start afresh with a whole new naming system, I don't see it improving anytime soon in the UK.