To name all of your children after your ex husband

[Caterpillarhopping]

I made a discovery about someone I've been friends with a couple of years. She has 4 children. I know her through work and we get on well but I've never known the ins and outs of her life. It came up today that she was married to her eldest child's Dad and took his surname so eldest daughter is Katie "Blogs". She went on to have 3 more children each by different men. She retained her married surname and gave that to each of the children. Second child only has the "Blogs" surname, the one after that is double barrelled and the 4th Blogs.

I sort of understand Mums logic, that she kept the same name as the eldest child (& it's absolutely not my business) but Is it not a touch weird to be sporting your ex husbands name 20 years later and have lots of children named after a man that's nothing to do with them,?

Which also happens to be HER name.

which is now hers

The name is hers. She gave her dc her name.

The idea than men own names and women don't is innately sexist.

Just deviating a little - I've found when doing family tree stuff that in the olden days, women who were divorced, abandoned or widowed often gave subsequent DC the previous DH's name. Sometimes that man had been dead for years! But it was to escape the stigma of DC being born out of wedlock.

And it was because it was her name.

Her birth name the perhaps . Or else the actual father’s name . It’s not the be all and end all having the same surname as your children .

Sorry but I find that pathetic. My name is my name since birth. Not some man who’s name I decided to take when I married (which personally I didn’t do) my name is literally my name since I was born why would I take some man’s name

Because the woman in question did choose to change her name. Therefore her married name is her name unless she chooses to change it again.

She literally CHANGED her name to a man’s name

Yes, we know it would be the woman taking the man's name. What we're talking about is why, when both parents have the same surname and use it for their child, the surname is more or technically the man's. There's still a big gap where your explanation for that should be, even after reading the rest of your posts on this thread.

Just google do children traditionally take their mothers surname and see what comes up. The answer is very clear . I’m not saying I agree with it but its the way it is

Yes. She changed her name to his. That name now hers.

It's not patronising when we need to talk all the way down to you.

Instead of changing my name on marriage, I had randomly changed my name (as I'm legally allowed to do in England), would you say that is now My Name... or would I just be borrowing that as well, and I'm really Old Name?

Yes. So now it's HER NAME. I just explained this to a four year old just to check at the level of understanding required for the concept.
She got it first try.

Yet again, whether children traditionally take their mother's surnames is not what you and I are discussing.

Mine and your google analytics won't necessarily be the same, so if you think something has come up in your googling that phrase that will explain how the name is technically or more the man's, you can cite it here.

Why would she use her birth name when she now chooses to go by another name albeit the one she used to share with an ex?

I feel like at this point you're just enjoying the argument.

We all know it was his name, not one person has disputed that, and therefore your whole argument is she can't use it because it also happened to be his name. For all we know she's had the married name for longer than her maiden name so why shouldn't she use it? It's like you're just arguing for arguments sake when you don't actually have any reasonable argument beyond it was his name.

you are rude!

No, it's not ridiculous! When she got married she legally CHANGED her surname. She didn't borrow it! It became HER SURNAME which she is entitled to give to HER children. It is not an 'owned by' title children have to mark who fathered them.

its beyond belief this needs explaining in 2026

Misleading?

that they have their MOTHERS surname??

I think 1950 is missing a lot of people ...

Kids with the same name has happened!

I went to primary school with a family who's kids names were: Johnny, Sunny, Felix, Felix, and.. Felix.

Johnny told me his mum decided she really liked the name Felix and just stuck with it. The kids def all had the same dad bc they were a gypsy family.

its beyond belief that people need to change their surname to their husbands in 2026

You must be really invested in this if you are involving a four year old. how sad

They don't need to? Who said they did? Do you think that women have no agency in the decision?

They do have “agency “ but it’s obviously heavily influenced by various factors. Otherwise lots of men would take their wives names which literally never happens. There is nothing feminist about keeping your ex’s name. Full stop

I’m no more rude than the poster who referred to fathers as “sperm donors “. I don’t refer to all fathers as such and find it rude to do so