To think women should think more carefully about giving children father's last name?

[Mrsnothingthanks]

This.
In light of the case recently where a (male) judge said a child whose father was found to be a rapist still had to keep his last name until she was 18 (or father consented to name change).
I married young first time around and was incredibly naive - one of my biggest regrets is giving my sons ex-husband's last name alone.
I am now remarried and Ms HisName-My Name, my husband is Mr HisName-MyName, and our daughter is Miss HisName-MyName.
So much happier with this 😀

My maiden name was one of the most common in the UK (top five, definitely). My husband’s name is one of the least common in the UK - fewer than 400 adults have it. For us, it was a choice between the anonymity of my name - which is useful at times - or the scarcity of his - which is also useful at times - and I liked his name better, so there we are. I hope my DDs would keep our name because it is so unusual (and actually quite beautiful, I think), but it’s their right to choose.

I know lots of couples who have double barrelled on marriage (both man and woman), and I also know a man who changed his name to his wife’s because his surname was embarrassing and he said he was sick of it and was glad of a reason to switch!

Yup, its going to get ridiculous 😂

@aWUBBAWUBBA Why didn't you db?

Also, if one has a very embarrassing last name, why wait until marriage to change it?

It might be the case that the woman has insisted on it for those reasons; it doesnt change the fact that we've had hundreds of years where it hasn't been the case so it still appears as if there was conflict.

Yes, some of the Spanish make a good attempt at holding as many for a couple generations, but inevitably the names get dropped.

This is absolutely what I came here to say.
The first step is not taking your husband's name!
If you want to change your name ( for example to distance yourself from your own parents) then choose a name you like that goes with your given name......if your husband is so worried about the family having the same name then he can change his.

You know to some people, their lineage is important.

@BeCalmLilacLion Exactly. And yet another reason I didn't get rid of my family name.

No they don’t, they take one name from each parent.

Well in my case it was easier than my maiden name so I was glad to be rid of it but I was always going to change my name when we got married. I'm not a massive traditionalist but it just seemed like a normal thing to do, all of my female friends have done the same.

I don't care what other people do, change your name, don't change it, double barrel it.

If I were in a relationship where I hadn't changed my name and had kids I would potentially double barrel theirs if the names worked together. If I was single and ended up pregnant then the child would take my name.

All four of us have the same surname, we are a family unit and I like that we are linked, especially me and the kids. In the event of a divorce or after 20 years my husband turns out to be a mass murderer then we might want to change our names but it never occured to me not to change it just incase it happened.

There are many things I wouldn't do that other people do but it's their life. I'm not going to sit and point the finger if something goes tits up and say they should have done it my way. Nobody can predict the future, all we can do is the right thing for us at the current time.

To men, you mean, but never to women?
Why should a man's attachment to his lineage trump a woman's?
The only reason I suggested choosing a new name is because I know that some people do have an issue with their birth name (absent/ deadbeat father, abusive mother, ridiculous or unpronounceable name).....

My children have their dad’s name. We’re not married but I have no relationship with my father and his name does not deserve to be carried to another generation. I have toyed with changing my surname but it’s my identity and too much hassle to change everything over. So it will die with me and I am happy about that

Our DD has my DH’s surname. It is not my surname because I didn’t change my name on marriage. She has my surname as her middle name. It is likely a fair compromise but honestly, I wish I had given her my surname. My DH really wanted to give her his surname and I didn’t think it mattered. But actually, as time goes by, I regret it. That has nothing to do with my DH whom I am still married to and love very much. I can’t even really explain why it bothers me, but it does.

Not to women, apparantly!

My DC have a double barrel. I’m married but kept my own surname because I have published work and want to keep the credit professionally. Double barrel is the best of both worlds.

But the part of the double barreled name that gets passed on to the next generation is the paternal part.

I had a name that was embarrassing as a kid and led to much snickering. As an adult people didn’t bother and I was used to it so I didn’t feel the need to go through the aggravation of changing it. When I got married I wanted to have same name as OH and for us and any kids all to have same name later on. As I wasn’t keen on mine we went with tradition and changed to his. We did discuss taking a brand new name but came to the conclusion we didn’t care enough to absorb the expense of changing 2 sets of all our documents and the inevitable confusion from family. I think a lot of people are a bit ambivalent about it and just go with the status quo in the end. If I’d loved my last name then we likely would have gone with that as my husband was pretty ambivalent too though his parents definitely would not have been and would have banged on about it incessantly (one of the reasons we didn’t pick a brand new name). In the end there is no right answer for this but we should acknowledge there is a definite element of just following convention in it. We all do that with lots of things without giving them a huge amount of thought.

It's a family name. One thing I'll point out; you realise your name is your father's name, which is then also your grandfather's name, right?

Not wanting your husband's name to replace yours is okay as long as you understand your name came from your father and grandfather. All surnames come from men and there's no way to change that unless people stop marrying into other families.

@YorkshireGoldDrinker No - it's my name, not my father's. I was given it at birth in the same way my brother was.

Of course, but where did that name come from? Did someone take or think up a random name at the time of your birth and that of your brother's and then register it?

I don't have any friends who took their husband's surname on marriage. But they have all either double barrelled or given kids the husband's name.

My kids have both surnames but without a hyphen. They can choose as adults what to do, whether to pick one, pass one down etc.

For our daughters’ sakes, the only way things will change is if we challenge conventions that don’t serve both sexes fairly. It really shouldn’t be the default to take a man’s name or to give the children only the man’s name.

Most surnames originated from men, but we can change this going forward, like any outdated tradition. Women never used to be allowed mortgages, but we don’t carry on that tradition, because it’s not fair, right? My name was my father’s (just like my husband’s was his father’s) and is now mine. We both changed our name to include both names, which we have passed on to our daughter and I’m sure she, as a fellow feminist, will pass her name (or half of it) on to her children. They, like her, will have either just their mother’s name, or both their mother’s and their father’s name.

I know a couple of women with children where the marriage has been a disaster and think it must be awful to have the child have the father's last name as they do.

One of the fathers has no contact with the child. It makes me sad (and it's really nothing to do with me)