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,?

But the mother has the “sperm donor” of her first child’s name. Ridiculous comment

Why are children “meant “ to have their mother’s surname ? What a load of crap sorry. My kids have a different surname to me. Hasn’t made any difference to my life or theirs so far I have to say

I did wonder if she’d called four children Keith. Now that would have been unusual.

This poster is correct that historically the child's surname was meant to be their mother's. Obviously these days there's no hard and fast rule.

I disagree with your statement.

You’ve literally just explained the key reason for her doing what she did. Her family (her and her own children) all share a name. Their family name. She clearly wanted all her children to share a last name. If she had done differently, she wouldn’t have adhered to your ‘family name’ principle…

Another one who expected four boys called Steve. Disappointed.

But it's not "his surname". She hasn't borrowed it like a library book. It became her name. And I can totally understand why she wants her family to all have a shared name. She can't change her oldest child's so if they want one name, that's it.

Thank you, but I'd have to have known who I was to be able to pick one that felt better. I knew what I wasnt - a true sibling, a kid with a father, somebody who didnt deserve to be lied to until those half siblings put me straight and she finally spoke about him when I was 19 and she wasn't receiving benefits for me anymore.. But I didn't know who I actually was until he had also died

You know, this has made me think about this from a different viewpoint.
I think children should have their mother's surname. End of it.
For whatever reason we are still giving them the father's surname, for people to criticise whether sibblings have different surnames, or the same or more than one father or whatever bullshit flaw they can spot on someone's live just from their names.
I think it is enough. Let's name the child after the mother and the mother only. All accross the world.
She carries them, bring them to this world, nurse them and raise them. Her surname should be it.

That's being eroded anyway. And it's not like the custom of women name changing on marriage ever seamlessly accommodated divorce, because it wasn't supposed to.

But the nearest available option in a situation where a woman has already name changed, given the child that name and then has more in different relationships is for her to keep using it. If you want them to have a family name, this is it! And you clearly articulated the 'something' that it means.

Huh?
That is their family name. Or are you complaining about women not changing names on marriage now? What even is your point?

A lot of people do this for all sorts of reasons, mostly sonyhe children don't feel different from having different names.

What part do you disagree with? It's a factual statement?

Nothing to do with you. Doesn't affect you at all.
You just came on here with a judgemental view of someone in the hope everyone else would agree with you and also judge & condemn someone they don't know.

Maybe reflect on that?

No it isn’t

People do what’s important to them and honestly that’s fair. I wanted to share a last name with my children, I told my husband if I took his name and we used it for our children he was never getting it back if we split.
I believe it should be society norm that children automatically get the mothers name but it’s not, so here we are.

It means that she is less likely to be asked to prove they are her kids when she is going through passport control.

What does Mr Blogs think about it?

It’s shorthand for ‘this was the tradition that we followed for centuries’. You can obviously do what you want, but the expectation that kids have the surname of a non-resident non-primary carer is very modern and, I’d argue, suggests that the mother’s heritage, convenience and authority are less important. A lot of young women erroneously feel that they have to give their children the father’s surname (not legally but by tradition and expectation). This simply isn’t true.

But children have traditionally been given their father’s surname for centuries not their mothers. Not saying I agree with this but it’s generally true. If you marry someone and take their surname and then give your children your married surname I would not really call that “giving the children their mothers surname “.

That’s not true. They’ve always been given their mother’s surname, but most children were born in wedlock, so their mother had already taken their father’s surname. Children born out of wedlock did not take the father’s surname because it wasn’t the mother’s. So few people seem to know this now.

Can you provide articles to back up that it’s “traditional “ for children to be given their mothers surname

PS
It’s also an important bit of power that a mother has to build her family as a unit with a shared name. So many fathers insist on passing on their surname as if it is a right, when they haven’t done the responsible thing (marry the mother of their baby and provide her with the support that a mother deserves). Thankfully an unmarried father can’t register the birth on the mother’s behalf, so the process of legally registering the name protects the mother’s right to choose.

Google is your friend. Or spend a bit of time on a family tree website looking at christening and birth records. Until 1926 children born out of wedlock could not be retrospectively legitimised and the laws on inheritance meant if someone died interstate (without a will) their illegitimate offspring could not inherit until 1969. For clarity: they could inherit from their mother but not their father. By contrast, a child born within marriage but as the result of an affair was legally the offspring of the husband, regardless of paternity.