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

It's interesting on these discussions how women will insist that they and their husbands considered all options but that their husband really didn't care whose name the children took. And yet somehow, it always ended up being the husband's name. I imagine a lot of these men would indeed have cared if their wife had insisted on using her own name.

If anyone's rights are seeing around 50 years' worth of progress rolled back in less than a fifth of that time, it's women's. If you really don't see this then you haven't been paying attention.

Why is it ? Why do you assume these women are lying?

I can't want for young Alpha Beta Charlie-Delta to marry Echo Foxtrot Golf-Hotel, and have children named India Juliette Charlie-Delta-Echo-Foxtrot.

I don't like my name but I haven't gotten rid of it, it is my name and all i have known. Plus my professional career is heavily linked to your name. I even kept it when my partner and I had our civil partnership. That said there was no way I was giving my daughter that would have given her ridiculing and bullying so she has the same name as my partner and I have my family that I dislike. I also dislike my first name and did nearly change it by deed poll but I didn't want to upset my mum who I have a difficult enough relationship with with adding to it with something that isn't that important to me. For unimportant things like reserving a table at a restaurant or giving a surname when signing for a parcel I use my partner name even though it's not mine as it's easier and I don't have to spell it out

Due to my daughter taking my partners name we couldn't name her after his grandmother as this would have given her the name of a murderer. We ummed and AHHed between his relative first name my surname or name we like his surname and when it came to it we preferred the second name.

Did your DH sire you then?

It’s equally interesting that we have 40 pages of squabbling over father’s or husband’s surname. As if one was more feminist than another!

No it doesn't. It comes from the old Anglo-French or Old French 'surnom'. (sur = over, nom = name).

Apologies @LefthandRight

@Willyoujustbequiet the above message was for you. Please don’t try and dictate to women what they should choose to do, putting narrow and constricting limitations on them.

Women should no more keep their married name than take their husbands name. It is up to them and they should not feel pressured either way. To do so is a retrograde step in equality.

Nope. My dad did and I use his name.

No difference between women habitually changing their name from birth name (inherited from father) to husband’s / FIL’s name, more than once if they remarry, and men keeping their birth names for life and rarely changing them to the person they choose as next generation family?

It’s not a ‘gotcha’ point for me, and if you had read some of the posts on this you would know why.

You've misquoted.

It was me who said that and it absolutely is the done thing for a woman to keep her own name in my profession.

No one has dictated anything. I stated a fact.

Do you not have your own name?

They’re all men’s names at the end of the day whether inherited or adopted.

Yes, it’s the one I use. It was still my dad’s first. I didn’t pluck it out of thin air, did you do that with yours?

Stop misquoting.

At no point throughout my posts have I dictated anything.

I stated a fact. It's the done thing because it's normal/usual/typical/accepted. It's just an idiom for shorthand fgs.

Because it's a choice. I also changed my name, I didn't like my maiden name

My view of feminism, and what I think a lot of people are trying to get at, is not that women should dictate to other women what choices they make.

Rather, I am trying to highlight the fact that unfair traditions exist that women might be blindly following, to their detriment, and that to be truly free to make choices, you have to truly see what conditioning you have been subject to.

Be a stay at home mum if you like (I am). Take your husband’s name if you like. Lovely. But first consider if it’s what you really want or if you’ve drifted into it because it was expected to and even, perhaps, you had no viable alternative.

I would have hated being a SAHM if it had been required of me. I have been able to enjoy it because it has been a genuine choice and other people have been free to choose differently.

If all women blindly follow the patriarchal traditions, that limits the ability of some women to choose otherwise because it creates a culture where difference is not acceptable.

That's fine. It just read like you didn't think it was yours - you said you use his name. There was discussion earlier when one poster ridiculously tried to insist that womens' names didn't belong to them.

The only reason my surname is important to me is because I’ve had it since birth. Like my first name. To change either would feel like an attack on my identity. The fact that my surname came from my father (or that my first name was chosen by two people who did not share my tastes in anything much in particular) is irrelevant.

@Willyoujustbequiet

Professionally I also have my maiden name. It made more sense, as that is the name my qualifications are in. More importantly, the reputation I built was in that name.

However, passport/family holidays/ anything outside of work I have same name as husband

It's interesting on these discussions how women will insist that they and their husbands considered all options but that their husband really didn't care whose name the children took. And yet somehow, it always ended up being the husband's name. I imagine a lot of these men would indeed have cared if their wife had insisted on using her own name.

Maybe as some posters have said, as I have, repeatedly,that they don't/didn't feel it's that a big a deal anyway.

Despite 40 pages of arguing over semantics etc

Maybe the menz do care more but they're not represented on here.

Tbh you make a lot of sweeping presumptions. @IcedPurple

It’s irrelevant to you but not to others. You’re entitled to prioritise your feelings, as are other women. But there’s certainly no one more inherently feminist set of feelings over another.

*Good to hear a tight little unit can succeed without dad’s sole name!

Will wonders never cease*

The whole tone of this thread is so sneery and sarcastic. Right from the off.

A further, related question: what does that infuriating phrase 'having at all' actually mean, and why is it never, ever used in the context of men?