Different surname for full-siblings

[Bananabreadandstrawberries]

Should full-siblings have the same surname,

DH and I have 1 baby boy, who we have given a double barrelled surname (with mine first, in the spur of the moment DH said he didn’t mind whose name went first). I have not changed my surname, we are married.

Since then DH has had some regrets about this and wants children to have his name only or his name first.

I am now pregnant again. DH has said “ah second. Child can have my name!” Joking - not - joking.

What would you ladies do? I want to be fair, but think it would be odd for siblings with same parents or have different surnames?

IABU: Husbands name for next child (or DH-my surname).
IANBU: Same surname for full siblings

Yes the next generation will have to make a choice as well. I don’t mind how the children choose when it’s their time (not that I would get a say!)

It's not true that people drop the first name out of a double barrel, particularly if hyphenated so can't be confused with a middle name. On school registers (for example) they'll be listed from the first one.

Eg if she's Anna Adams-Jones she'll be listed under A not J.

My kids are mumsname-dadsname. My dd has the same name as another girl in the class and they call her Anna A [first surname initial] not Anna J. I was expecting Anna A-J

So it's more like the second name is almost dropped.

I am not sure if it makes a difference, some more context (maybe irrelevant):

DH and my occupation is a bit male-dominated, and he seems to have workmates that all have very traditional wives (stay at home, change their name). Very annoying when he tells me about how they don’t have to do any baby caring/housework etc.

DH is from a farming family.

My dad was thrilled, as he thought his name wouldn’t be continued.

Thats interesting, how does DH feel about that, does he mind? How did your family discuss the naming order?

If these people are real and not the hypothetical couple that always gets cited on these threads then they are silly. In many many countries across the world children are given two surnames automatically and nobody adds 4 surnames together when they have kids; there is a choice made about which surnames are given to the children, one from each parent.

She Does legally have mine but I've been told written down it looks like a middle name so no
one uses it and unlike PP my experience is the first one is dropped but there is no hyphen which is probably the difference. She is not aware her surname is different as didn't want to cause any upset/ confusion so she's only aware of my surname so she doesn't feel different to the other children (she's autistic and wouldn't understand) she's still too young and I plan to change it when I no longer need exes permission!

deed poll website even says it.

@momtoboys its tradition in Nordic countries to double barrel and they deal with subsequent generations by choosing one name from each side and combining.

Haha he doesn't mind but we did have a sort of similar discussion to you and your dh.

Before dc1 was born, dh and his family were of the opinion that our names "sound better" in the order dadsname-mumsname. His name is two syllables, Longshort. Like, Manson. Mine is one long syllable like Blair. Everyone was adamant that Manson-Blair sounds better than Blair-Manson.

I was like, I want to have the first surname, I'm the one being pregnant and giving birth etc.

We left it till the birth which turned out to be very traumatic and there were moments when I or the baby could have died. When we were finally ok I was holding the baby and I turned to dh and I said "it's gotta be Blair-Manson." And he was so relieved we were OK he'd have agreed to Mickey Mouse lol

Still I was surprised years later when I saw dd's name on a handwritten list at nursery and she was simply Anna A not Anna A-J. Dh has never mentioned it since. Dd has known since she was really young, like 2yo, that one of the surnames is mine and one is dh's.

That’s amazing, thank you for the link!

Ps there was never any question for us that dc2 would have the same surname. It's just so unusual for full siblings to have different surnames.

The only exception I guess is in countries where men and women have different surnames like -ov and -ova.

Haha what a lovely birth story, your situation sounds like ours (except for the traumatic birth), so glad you are ok now. And LOL at Mickey Mouse!

We are similar, mine is short, his is long.
We didn’t name our baby until 2 weeks after he was born. I think seeing me go through that was partly how the naming came about.

Have DC2 surname the same as DC1. DH can have his name first when he carries and births the baby. Honestly, don’t know why he thinks he should have his name and his name only when you’re the one carrying and birthing the baby!

If the names are hyphenated. So Adams-Lee for example, then the whole thing is usually used and Billy will be Billy A. If no hyphen, Bill Adams Lee may well be referred to as Billy L.

British tradition would be to have the father's surname. It was a tradition to use the mothers maiden name as a middle name, but that wasn't used as part of the surname. If you do any genealogy, this is well illustrated.

Hes being daft. We're female-male also short-long which flows better. Sometimes things like doctors prescriptions are under F and sometimes M, but no definitive which one gets used/dropped more.

Though I should stick to your guns OP and keep the same name as DC1.

This 👍🏻

Every family is different and this won’t apply to all, but for ours this was really important to our kids. They are all biologically ours but don’t have either DH or my surnames but they all have the same surname (that they love and is really important to them as it is ‘theirs’). Even as adults the feedback was that they were genuinely fine with it as kids and loved it but the important part was they all had the same name, like a tribe I guess? As I said, was the case for my kids but won’t necessarily apply across all families I guess.

Thank you 🙏

Wow interesting, how did you pick their name? Was it an amalgamation, or an old family name?

Has to be the same! Madness otherwise

It's not exactly relevant but you might like to consider that members of the peerage in the same family often don't have the same surname since this is derived from titles. So a father, first son and other sons might all have different surnames from each other. Also, when the senior ranking man dies, the surviving men move up a title and thus change their surnames. Google Duke of Marlborough for examples.

You can see this a little in the current royal family. When William was a child and before he married his surname was Wales since that was his father's title. When he first married he was made Duke of Cambridge and thus was 'Mr Cambridge'. I believe that George, Charlotte and Louis use Cambridge still as their surname but now that William is PoW, his surname is actually Wales. Charles' surname now is effectively England. Reportedly, when she was a small girl, the late queen referred to her grandfather as 'Grandpa England'.

Just ignore him. Or give him the option of either same surname as older sibling or just your surname. Anyway I always think the mother should have the deciding vote after doing all the hard work.

Seems so odd that he was so meh the first time round, but now apparently its emasculating to not be first 🙄 what a turn off

Wow interesting, how did you pick their name? Was it an amalgamation, or an old family name

We took letters from both names and just made a completely new (very cool) one😁. We just thought DH’s name was his, my name was mine so they needed something that was theirs.

Edited to add that at the time DH’s father was ropable and carried on about ‘that’s the end of the line for this family’ and so on. He didn’t seem to be able to grasp that his bloodline still existed (as weird as that concept is), it didn’t cease. We didn’t care a jot as he was a silly old fart.