Surnames as Christian names?

[MrsHBaby3]

Sorry if this has been asked before but a friend suggested I use my maiden name for my baby boy (she plans to do the same as shes TTC),
Just wondered what general consensus is? Personally it sounds like Im saying a double-barrelled surname and cant decide if I like it.

Names such as
Bailey
Hunter
Parker
Morgan
Spencer..

any others if you like the idea? (I know some will sound ridiculous!)

I'd always thought Lewis was just an anglicized spelling of Louis

Gimmie Isle of Lewis, Scotland.

Stunning place

Imagining the horror if I gave DS my maiden name as his first name. My maiden name was Savage!

Its a Scottish tradition, my dad is called Lindsay. He has met several other men with that name. He got off lightly, he was meant to be called Archibald after his grandfather!
My maiden name is Gilmour. I think it would make a nice christian name.

this thread has flushed all us jocks out
yes mum maiden name as middle or foename,that's ok depending upon name

I love it - think they can be really nice (although obviously depends on the name!)

sqoosh I know, I could'nt believe how long it took my mum to work it out when she was saying about keeping my maiden name as a middle name when I got married...

We have a few in my family:

Allen
Grant
Martin
Austin
Stewart
James
Craig
Connor
Emerson
Paul
Neil

It's actually really common and a lot of names work well, My OH is one of the above and his mum used her maiden name as he looked like her side of the family and was therefore a XX !!

I don't like them personally. I think they sound quite ugly. Each to his own though.

My brother name is a firstname version of my mums maiden name. I think DS got off lightly tbh, although I think I've heard of people with my surname as a first (and its just too silly for words).

I think great as a middle name if there's a family connection.

Not really keen on surnames as first names, a lot of them do sound odd / ugly / harsh. The 'occupation' names make me laugh when you think of what the modern day equivalents might be - Brickie, Plasterer, Hairdresser, Programmer?

Blogger, Chugger... The mind boggles.

I'm from NI, and the surname-as-given-name thing was common among rural families in my mother's generation, but had died out by my day. That may have been the Scottish influence, or possible going further back to an earlier common tradition.

My very posh English boss has one of the names listed upthread as his middle name - it was his mother's maiden name (and she was Anglo-Irish).

Yes you do hear of posh people with first names like Fitzwilliam. For me that sounds uber posh.

KitchenRollRocks thats hilarious! What if they were given occupation names that the parents wanted them to have.. Doctor, Lawyer, but never made the grade?

Badger I'm old fashioned, as far as I know 'first' names were always called 'christian' names in England until recently (10 yrs??) when there was a concious effort to not exclude other faiths, but it's habit to me to continue to call them Christian names, sorry if that offends you.

Great ideas all, I think some surnames work and others definitely do not!! The ones that don't are funniest!

George (our surname), gotta laugh when our hospital had our son down as George George at first. FIRST

He should have been down as Boy George.

Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of surnames as given names. I think names like Hunter and Cooper are quite contrived and faddy, i.e. they will date. However my brother has Mum's 'maiden' name as his name, and it works.

This is probably because it's far more widely known as a first name. It's also (very) Scottish (not a McSurname; we have a McSurname so that really would've been ridiculous!) and given that this is an accepted tradition there, it somehow manages not to fall into the Parker/Hunter/Cooper camp.

Where I live it's very common for children to be given surnames as their given name. I find it very odd as to me it reminds me of when I went to boarding school for a while and the boys (but not the girls for some reason) were called by the surnames so I find it a bit institutionalizing. Plus it's all the old fashioned occupations, so doubly odd really - Cooper, Thatcher, Tanner etc. they just aren't really names to me.

Having said that my ds has a very traditional English name (currently very common in the UK) which is often met with surprise.

DS2 name has come up on this thread a few times as one people think is Faddy/American. But we live in Scotland where it also sounds very Scottish and most people love it. When he was born we got a lot of meh from our English family and friends but most of our Scottish family and friends loved it.

It also seem very traditional historically for women in Scotland to get the Mothers maiden name as a middle name. I know of two women with the mns McIvor and Menzies.

I love them, my DD has a 'surname first name' to be honest with the amount of different names around now days, I don't think names will 'date' as much any more. And I don't care if it does, I love her name and it suits her perfectly. Give me a trendy faddy name over an old lady name any day. The world would be very confusing/boring if we all had the same tastes!

My maiden name is the same as my married name so it wouldn't work. Although, Smith Smith does have a certain ring to it...

Sneezy, it would make it easy to remember, LOL!!