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,?

I know someone who had an affair, left her husband, kept his name (because of the kids having it too), married the new man, double barrelled her name with the ex and the new husband and gave THEIR child the double barrelled name. So the daughter of the new (affair) husband has her mum's ex husband AND her dad's name.

Some freaky shit. But also a weird family in general.

Its her name. Its weirder that you think of it as her exes name, rather than her name from the point she took it.

Kevin was the name my brain chose!

Whats wierd about a Mum sharing a name with all her children?

This

It’s fine. I have a friend with 4 children by 3 different dads, one of whom disappeared when their child was about 2, never to be heard from again (she’s 25 now) and the other is dead.

All the kids and my friend have the surname of the middle 2 children’s dad (the dead one). She changed her eldest dd’s name when she got married (before he died). And then the youngest baby was a bit of a late in life oopsie. He has the dead dad’s name too because it’s hers.

My best friend met,married had a baby and then divorced her ex
She kept 'his' name and gave it to her next two children as she wanted them to all have the same name
The exs sister went potty about it as she felt my friend didnt 'deserve' 'her' name
She was told to wind her neck in as it was fuck all to do with her
Shes not happy about it at all but did shut up in the end
It's just a name-i wouldn't change mine for anyone

It's not her ex's name - it's her name. She chose to change it and it became her name. She didn't borrow it

Ahhh another thread bashing women who decide to keep their names when their marital status changes.

What would you suggest she ought to have done? Since you seem to think men own names giving them her father's name would have been odd too. Her mother's name? Oh wait, her grandfather owns that. Maybe Ofkeith or Ofmalcolm for the next one.

For the billionth fucking time on MN recently

MEN DON'T OWN NAMES

Just another poster adding their disappointment that she doesn’t have four baby Kevin’s 🤣

I did this

its my name now

why is it weird?

I am keeping STBXH name, though he doesn’t like that.

It’s the name I share with my DC, so I’ve reclaimed it as my own. It’s nothing to do with him, DC and I are our own family.

That said, I can see it looks odd to those not in my position.

OP, I’m with you. This is is very odd and the replies on here are bonkers. The woman has 4 children, only one of whom is the biological child of Mr Bloggs. The other 3 children are not related to him and are also called Bloggs? WTF. They are nothing to do with him and Bloggs is not ‘her name’. It was a name taken upon marriage. The younger 3 should have her maiden name if she understandably does not want them to have 3 different surnames.

I wonder how Mr Bloggs feels about all this.

While I'm not planning on any more kids, I did keep my married name, so if I were to have another without remarrying, I guess that's the name they would have.

I married at 19 and we were together 17 years, so I'd already had that name for nearly half my life and my entire adult life. All my qualifications, work history, bank accounts and house perchesse are in that name, and it's the name I share with my children. At this point it feels more like my name the any other, and it would feel more weird to revert back to my maiden name.

How is Bloggs not her name. It's the name she chooses to use. It's no less her name than her maiden name which presumably was from her father.

It's really not that weird and I don't understand why you would think it was bonkers that she wanted all her children to have the name she's chosen to use.

Not this exactly but this dilemma often comes up on a single mums group im on, where a man has a child with a man she isn’t with anymore then asking if she should name the new child the same surname, often she doesn’t even have the surname herself and was never married to the father but wants the kids to have the same name 😕 I find that more odd

Women taking their husband's surnames on marriage is a custom from an era that didn't need naming rules for divorcees. I don't see much point in trying to decide what is and isn't weird in that situation. People should just do what suits them best, rather than try and graft something onto a tradition that was made for a totally different era.

So yabu.

Me too 😂

When you get married you 'take' your husbands name, and change it legally and permanently. It's not 'using someone else's name for the duration of the marriage'. I imagine after a long time it feels like 'yours' and would feel very weird changing it back. And I don't think it would have been very nice for other children if they potentially all had her name apart from one of th3m

I was hoping for James, Jamesetta, Jim and Jimberley

My kids all had my name despite having 2 different dads . I wanted them to have the same name as each other ( that was a discussion when I was pregnant with DS)

So I can't see any difference. The babe the mum had is her name so makes sense the kids had it

I think it's more weird for umarried mums to give the kids the father's nane

It’s not weird she has her ex-husband’s surname, but it’s weird that she gave that surname to children who aren’t part of that family by either blood, adoption, or marriage.

Me too! Or something like phil, phillip, philippe 🤣

Why? It's her name why wouldn't she use it for her future children?