Double barrelling of surname...

[larnieperty89]

I am 25 weeks pregnant and am discussing with my partner whether we should double-barrell baby's surname. My mother, the baby's Grand mother is pushing me to do this but if I'm honest I just think our names seem too much of a mouthful and don't know if I'm overly keen, but then it does bother me that my baby will have a totally different surname to me.

My partner has a traditionally Kenyan surname, which I just don't think sounds right with my Scottish surname...its a bit of a mouthful and it wouldn't be your normal Jones-King double barrelling situation!

Has anyone got an opinion on this or had any experience with this dilemma?

All responses are appreciated :)

I thought about double barrelling (I haven't changed my name so DH and I have different surnames). However in the end we decided the baby would have DH's surname and my surname as a middle name. So my surname is still in there but it avoids a very long surname or the issue if they are very different.

Of course we could have gone with my surname as surname and DH's surname as middle name - but I think DH's surname is nicer so was happy for that to be the surname!

What about just using your surname?

Fwiw we used my surname and a family middle name from dh's side.

We discussed all sorts of options, and ended up using both surnames. Mine is a British surname and his is Indian, so I expect the combination is unique! But in our child's class, there are children from a range of ethnic backgrounds, and nobody's batted an eyelid. If our child grows up to find it cumbersome then they can adapt it as they choose. It's a very emotive issue though, so good luck in working out what's right for your family.

We decided not to (I wanted DD to have the practical option of double-barrelling on marriage, like I did) but actually she's now decided to use the same double-barrelled version I do.

It's not difficult and requires no paperwork beyond filling in the "other names I am known by" on official forms. You just do it.

Don't do it. I have double barrelled. No-one can pronounce and people have always thought I'm posh. Absolutely fucking hate it and was delighted to give my DS the nice, normal, non pretentious surname of my DP, even though we're not married.