Foreign surnames and discrimination

[porridgebowl]

Hi, we're currently pondering what surname to give our DD. DP has a foreign surname which is easy to pronounce but clearly not British. It is from a country whose population are sometimes stereotyped or discriminated against in this country.

I was wondering if anyone else had ever thought about this when naming their DC and what did you do? Have you had any problems?

Any general thoughts about giving DCs foreign surnames would be much appreciated aswell. Thanks

Ds's girlfriend has a foriegn surname and I know she does not always find it easy. Could you give her both your's and his?

We have a non-British (German) sounding surname but I actually like that! None of the companies I've ever worked at (mainly large international ones) would never discriminate against someone's surname in my experience.

we have a non-British (Czech) surname, and have no plans to lose it - it is the only real tie the DC will have with their father's country when they grow up and FIL is no longer alive. Plus which, we are the only ones in the UK :o

If we lived in DH's country, we'd have been more inclined to use my surname, to give the DC links with my country.

as it is, we have chosen very popular first names, which can be pronounced easily in either country, and the kids will have an unusual surname to go with it.

I have a non-British surname, but it's made up so not obviously from a particular country. Have never noticed discrimination. But have always lived in big towns/cities, and followed an academic career where people are judged on merit. People have asked where I'm from though quite a lot, though I think that's my brown skin as much as my name.

If you're concerned, is there a way you could double yours and his surname? It'd be a shame not to use his surname if you would both prefer to, and it is part of your children's heritage.

I was happy for our children to have DPs surname alone, it's also unusual and not British (but that's not obvious), in theory I would have liked to use my name too but that would have been a real mouthful! They have middle names that reflect my dad's background.

We have a very German surname which I would fine a pain in the UK to spell etc. My maiden name was a pain here. I prefer to keep in with the country I am in, but would never expect others too.

It's nice to have a name that reflects your culture, so long as you can be bothered spelling it.

I have a polish surname & I like it. Everyone always asks where its from. My Grandad was polish and his wife was italian. I was going to have a totally foreign name first name was going to be italian GM she died before I was born but parents where worried I would end up being picked on at school cos of this and this was early 80's.

I do feel sometimes there maybe some discrimination as ive gotton older and reflected on certain things that have happend in my life but that might just be my imagination. My name is my only link thats left of my foreign roots as everyone has died now infact if I got married I wouldn't change it much to DP annoyance.

DD has DH's foreign surname, and so do I. I haven't ever been aware of any issues, but people do get the spelling & pronunciation wrong all the time - even though it seems pretty straightforward to me.

We had the same dilemma. We chose to give our dcs double barrelled surnames (my English one and dh's foreign one, but without a hyphen to allow the dcs to drop one name if it's all too long). Most of the time the dcs just use dh's surname but they both have their 'English' surname and middle name if they feel the need at some point in the future to avoid racist stereotypes.

I would give the baby your name, if you are not married to your dp. I know that you didn't ask this, but some women have found travelling abroad difficult when their name differs from their child's, because they've had to prove that the child is theirs.

I think I would probably give both, as Slambang suggests. I don't really like that the mother's name usually gets lost in the naming process and think it is nice for dc to have both.

DP's surname is not British and not easily pronoucable to the British tongue. Both ds's have his surname (but my nationality), but we anglified (sp?) it slightly to make it less obviously from the country it is. No real problems aside from comments that "that is an unusual name". However, my surname is so regional, I get that too in other parts of the country. I wanted the ds's to have dp's name though as they have step-siblings and I wanted the ds's to feel as much siblings to them as to each other.