To be upset DS is going to double barrel his surname when he gets married?

[MsArgent]

DS is due to marry his girlfriend soon and they have recently announced they’re going to double barrel. I am not against double barrelled surnames and I do of course understand that it’s 2025 and more of a modern concept to keep it “fair”. However it’s truly just too long. Her surname is really quite long, along the lines of Williamson and we have a 2 syllable 8 letter one! I have asked him what he wants and he said originally he didn’t consider it and did think it would just be his surname, until she spoke up about what she wanted and he was open to it and said yes. I asked if he responded to it at all and questioned the practicality and he just says no he didn’t because it’s not a big deal. I think he is completely undermining how much of a burden having to keep repeating and spelling the double barrelled names will be, especially as they are hoping for children one day. I get it’s his life but what is the general opinion on this? I am curious if he would change his mind when realising what people will actually be thinking behind his back. Grandparents are horrified but I have tried to explain it’s more usual nowadays and DH doesn’t like it at all but hasn’t said anything yet

This is so out of order. I don't think you appreciate how badly you are behaving or how difficult it is to have a family who behaves like this.

Your son is a grown man. He doesn't need your approval, your permission, your "concern" or your opinions on the decisions he makes in his life. He clearly feels differently about this than you do, otherwise he wouldn't be doing it. He has reached a compromise with his wife-to-be, which is what people in healthy relationships with good communication do. By involving yourself where you shouldn't be, you are trying to stir up trouble in what sounds like a happy relationship at what should be a very exciting time for them. That's not love and concern. That's overstepping, meddling and interfering (at best) and actually quite calculated and sinister at worst.

The bit where you said "I asked him what he wanted" particularly stood out to me as this is one of my FIL's tactics. If he gets a whiff that DH and I have compromised on a life decision, or - shock horror - that DH has just gone along with what I wanted, he is there straight away cornering DH with the faux concern and "but what do you want?". We have been married for almost 2 decades, very happily. Sometimes I get my way, sometimes DH does. Sometimes we compromise. It's just such a transparent attempt to sow discord and we can never fathom why a parent would want to do that. Why wouldn't you want your children to be in healthy, happy relationships? Why is the need to feel that they are in control or have the upper hand all the time more important than knowing they are happy and in an equal partnership? But mostly we cannot understand someone who feels they have the right to involve themselves in a couple's relationship like that. It's utterly bizarre behaviour.

You need to leave them alone - all of you - and let them be happy.

If only this had been asked and answered many times on the thread by people with lived experience that it’s not ever been or ever will be a problem!

Key point is @AlmostCutMyHairToday is there a system? Or do people just keep collecting surnames in your culture? How do they fit in to a passport? A person’s name is a legal document, there needs to be a system, forename, surname. Everything else can go into the middle name if needs be

This type of comment exemplifies the ridiculous suspicion that some English people have towards anyone who steps outside of their expected place in the social hierarchy. Women should just be happy to take a man's name and heaven forbid anyone emulate the upper classes by adding two surnames together - height of 'chaviness' apparently

@MsArgent

I don’t think he should give up on everything he cares about

This sentence jumps out too. Why is it you think that him double- barrelling his surname is the same as him giving up everything he cares about?

He's not giving up his name, he's adding to it. And I highly doubt his name is the thing he cares about most....

How do you know that @pelargoniums ? This is a new trend in the western world and these kids are only coming of age in recent years. I’m going to a wedding to two people who have double barrelled names this summer.

Greenwood-Williamson seems perfectly normal to me.

Taking the man’s surname harks back to women being men’s property. It’s archaic.

Youre allowed to have an opinion op and it’s fine to point out to your ds that such a long name sounds a bit impractical. But if they’ve both considered it and are happy with it then that’s as far as you can go with it really.

I don't understand your issue. The fact that he would compromise and doanything for her is lovely. You should be proud.
Please don't make this an issue - it's really not.

They choose one name to add to one name of the other parent. It's how Spain has done it for a really long time.

I regret the kids having their dad’s name and not mine. I didn’t want to double barrel, and it’d have been WAY too controversial just to give them my name. So actually I think I wish we had doubled. Or started afresh.

long surnames are a minor nuisance for little kids learning to write, and no issue thereafter!

Katerina Johnson-Thompson, there you go!

I don’t know how old you and your son are, but I’m 60 and have been married for years. I kept my name and my DH kept his. My brother changed his name to his wife’s name. Some friends double-barrelled. All very normal.

People get over these things very quickly. My brother took his wife's name on marriage for several reasons, including him being bullied for his as a child, her being much more bothered than him about keeping it as its a name which is a clear link to her heritage, but mainly because both her parents passed before the wedding and she wanted to keep a 'piece of them' with her with them being non longer there. My brother got a few comments from his mates in jest, my parents weren't 100% happy about it (although never said anything apart from to me) but everyone accepted it very quickly afterwards.
If they don't go well together, as my brother and SIL's didn't, the other option is they could just take hers, or his name become more of a middle name.

As a fully grown adult hopefully “what people think about it behind his back” won’t bother him one bit.

If its along the lines of those two names only people who are extremely dim would have trouble saying it, spelling it, or realising it is a two name surname. If you think its unfair for him to take her name, but not her to take his, it does show very clearly what you think about women.

Because I’ve had a double-barrelled surname since the 1970s, as have my siblings. There are four of us and two of us, including me, have partners with double-barrelled names. We all have children, and we’ve managed the surname issue just fine. It’s not a new trend at all, you’re mistaken.

That’s not how it’s done in Spain. In Spain there is a clear system which make family trees possible. Choosing one name is hurtful, especially wrt divorce etc. there needs to be a system that a culture follows.

What happens in the future when DS offspring meets someone with an equally long name? Have 4 names as no one’s prepared to compromise? Where does it end. It’s over done these days and generally not done by upper class folk any more. If it wasn’t done 100 years ago, at least, it’s now considered a bit unnecessary and showy. Most women just keep their own name at work. Lots of people did use the woman’s maiden name as a middle name for a baby but it wasn’t used every day. My DF had this.

The op will just have to put up with it.

You don’t think it would be fair for your son to completely lose his surname? But you’d be fine for her to change hers I assume?
What name do you have? You say “we” have a long surname and mention your DH so I assume you are married and changed your name when you got married? Why is that fine for you to do, but the same would be “unfair” on your son?

Don't be that mother/mother in law. Just don't. It's their life, leave it it's not a big deal

There's no system, people can choose whatever surname they wish according to their family traditions - they add some and drop some along the way. I don't even know where some of my dad's names have come from. Yes, the names fit onto passports - you can have more than one part on the surname. If people feel strongly about tradition they keep it going even if it's a bit more laborious. (my parents didn't feel as strongly as their ancestors did as they shortened mine to just two surnames)

For my own DC we didn't give them a middle name and instead gave them two surnames - I felt this keeps it pretty short and is most fair, and I don't mind if in the future they decide to use only one part of their surname, like I do.

Loads of couples do it now they want to show they are "equal" good for them, one of my Dc has a doubled barrelled married surname I don't think it's the issue that you think it Is op.

Right so you and your siblings manage just fine and therefore the entire concept is fine? Okey dokey. So what’s the system? What do your children do wrt surnames? Or is it a chaotic mess where one person chooses x and another chooses y and the ability of future generations to trace history is ridiculously hampered by self regarding individualism

Could you possibly name this culture? I want to see how their family trees work out?