Advice on naming our baby

[mowthelawn]

Hi, we plan to give our new baby both our surnames - as both of us are stubborn and won't give way! Anyway, we are not going to hyphenate the two names as we only plan to use DP's name on a regular basis just to avoid the name being too complicated and was wondering if this is ok.

Can we just use one surname even though baby will have two names on his/ her birth certificate? At school, for example, would DC be able to go by just the one surname? Anyone advice/ experience much appreciated.

My DD has both our surnames (ordered by the court to double barrell it.)

She only has her fathers name on birth cert.

At school she is known as DD Double-Barrell but has started to drop my surname and just use her fathers, Which is fine by me.

Just be careful with official things like passports and bank accounts. Make sure you use birth cert name on these.

My dd has a double barrelled name. she usually gets her name and my surname, ex's surname usually gets dropped unless his family use her full name. To be fair her full name is quite long!

Thanks doinmummy. That's what I'm worried about - on which documents do we have to use both names and on which can we just use one. I know passport would obviously need both - and driving licence in the future - would that be it?

Hi MissPrickle, we want to avoid DCs name being too long and that is why we only want to use one name as much as we can. In what situations do you use your DDs full name?

If you use one of them as a middle name, then only one will be the official surname so you can avoid the confusion.

I have both my parents' surnames - my mum's surname as a second middle name and my dad's surname as a surname.

I use all my names on official things like passports and applying for bank accounts and just first name and dad's surname for everything else (eg email address, signature etc).

The names on the birth cert have to be the same names used on official documents such as bank accounts/driving license/passport.

It can be tricky as I opened an account for DD using one name and then the building society wouldn't let her withdraw money because her birth cert had a different name on it. (This turned out to be an error by the BS as they shouldn't have openedthe account without seeing her birth cert first) However, it caused no end of problems.

dd uses her full name for doctors/dentist/nursery application etc (she is 3) but day to day doesn't get called it.

My DD is (firstname)(seciondname)(mysurname)(DPsurname), not hyphenated. Legally, only DP's surname counts. Her passport and birth certificate have the full name, though my surname is classed as a second middle name. Seems to work out.