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 was not put in any family name when i was born.
My mother gave me a random surname.

I also imagined Mark 1, Mark 2, 3 and 4! Using her last name is fine as it’s her legal one at the time of having her kids.

The key here is CHANGED her name when she married. CHANGED it, not borrowed it. There's no obligation to give it back if you get divorced. It's HER name & can give it to subsequent children. It does not mean the children have anything to do with him.

Why, are you easily confused?? Do you think they should be know by sperm donor name, not their mothers name?

Surnames don’t belong to men, they belong to the people who use the name.

But it's her name now!

It doesn't cost anything to change your name.

God I loathe this notion. Like it's his name and she gets in on loan while they're married? What rot.
She changed her name and from then on it was as much her name as his name. She has children, she gave them her name, perfectly normal thing to do.

The premise that she "named them after her ex husband" is idiotic.

Do you think she should have reverted to her maiden name and oldest child had a different surname and younger DC her maiden surname? I don’t think it’s odd at all, it’s her name now. She hasn’t named all her children after her ex. Sure plenty of other people carry the same surname too, not just her ex.

Do women never get to own their own names then? Would you think it odd if she'd changed her surname for some other reason?
Once she changed her name that was her name. She had every right to keep it and give it to her subsequent children!

I think that poster was being sarcastic about the typical responses people give to any decision a woman makes about surnames

Baby Keith. What a great thread that was!

When I married the first time, I took DH's surname. We subsequently got divorced and both of us remarried, but I kept the surname of my first DH as I didn't want to change it for various reasons. I then went onto have two DC by second DH and they have his surname.

A friend of mine got divorced and decided to keep her married name so she still had the same surname as her DS. DS then decided to change his surname to her maiden name, so they have different surnames now.

Dhs ex left him for another man. She married OM, She kept dh surname ( no problem at all ) then gave this surname to kids with OM. I don't mind but I do wonder if her new DH is a bit hurt ( his sirname is a bit quirky tjo).
I have kept my maiden name as it is the same as my dd and I am a Ms. My choice.

Shes not named them after her ex. Its her name and she wants all of her children to share the same name. Nothing wrong with that.

I changed my name when I got married nearly 30 years ago. It was a complete bloody ballache. Like fuck would I change it back again if me and my husband split.

Tbh, if I had my time again I probably wouldn't have changed it in the first place but I did and it's mine now and has been for longer than my maiden name. I feel like I don't have the right to say that our names are ours and not on loan from one man or another because I changed mine when I married, but thats how I feel now.

It's really annoying that's it's often women coming up with this 'it's his name' bullshit. If a woman agrees to change her name on marriage to match her husband's it then becomes her name just as much as it as it is his. She has no obligation to change it again just because they split up if she doesn't want to change her name. I didn't change my name on marriage because I work in a smalliah industry and was reasonably established and it also looked like a faff - but if I did there is no way in hell I'd change it again with another 20 years of career under my belt.

But what about the tradition of family names? We live somewhere where there are long family histories so to me it's normal for family names to mean something. E.g. let's go up to the "smiths" farm. The Humphreys own that....

Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people.

You seem really weirdly invested in what name this person chooses to use. These are her children does the concept of family tradition in your eyes only relate to the father's name...

Many countries would shut that down. Feels abusive to do this to your kids!

This honestly isn't the big deal you think it is. My mum married three times and each time kept the name of the last husband until she married the next one. Some people aren't super attached to their surnames, any one will do, and hate paperwork. Simple as that. And why wouldn't she want the same surname as her children, and for them all to have the same surname? Having one with her married surname it makes sense to carry on.

Honestly I'd be more concerned with the fact she keeps on having kids with obviously incompatible men and then breaking up with them, thus complicating her children's lives unduly. 4 kids by different dads? Stop picking blokes lass, you're no good at it!

Well it does still belong to the Smiths. She and her children are still Smiths.

Presumably If the Browns bought the Smiths Farm you would say “let’s go to the Browns farm”, you would keep calling it the Smiths farm. If someone looked puzzled you’d then elaborate that the Browns have bought it. Thats like people still calling something Woolworths when it’s now a Boots and Woolworths stopped having shops ages ago.

But what sort of world do you live in where children all having the same last name as their mother is odd? Or what sort of world are you in where women can’t own names?

Do you not mean you live somewhere where there are long traditions about men’s names, where men’s names mean something? Because that’s how it’s coming across!

No it’s her name. Very normal and sensible to give the children her surname.