Walking into a surname disaster?

[Minimoon123]

Ok, so I'm a FTM, 40 weeks pregnant today and don't know if I'm having a boy or a girl. Looking for thoughts on whether I'm heading into a world of surname pain or not because...

DP and I not married. He's Irish, I'm English. He has no family - both parents passed away, no siblings, basically no one to carry on his name whereas there are bazillions with my surname. So months ago I said baby should take his name. He said he didn't mind. But now seems to mind!

Didn't discover until a couple of days ago that he considers that the baby will take the correct Irish version of his name depending on their gender. So if a girl, instead of his surname: O' XXX, would be Nic XXX. (O' means 'son of' and Nic means 'daughter of' apparently). To complicate matters further Nic is pronounced Nee. And to complicate matters even further, the first name and surname of our potential daughter also involves a lot of Nee Noo and Naa type sounds. Basically she would sound like an ambulance siren.

(Slight side note, I already caved on the first name as he played the 'the only name I like is my dead mother's name' card. So we're in fully Irish territory here with first and surname despite the fact I'm English and we live in England.)

So: I held firm (not easy as DP is super stubborn) and have refused to agree to Nic XXX but instead have managed to agree a compromise on just dropping the O' so it's as close to DP's surname as possible while still making sense to him (and she has to have Nic as a middle name). But what that effectively means is:

DP will be O' XXX
DD would be XXX
DS (if/when) would be O' XXX
And I would be YYY

So the poor child would have a slightly different surname from anyone else. Is this going to cause problems? Travel? etc? I thought it would be ok but I can tell my mother is worried which has worried me!

Obviously it might all be moot if it's a boy but then there's always a chance of a girl in the future so I guess good to know!

What do you think? (Sorry post got looong!) I don't want to reopen the argument with DP but equally I don't want to wander into a mess with my eyes closed.

But if OP is already thinking about future children. I'd have thought that level of commitment would lend itself to getting married at some point.

No. No it doesn't.

See any of the gazillion threads here on Mumsnet posted by women who were strung along by a man who made vague noises about marrying them at some point, who had several children with him, gave up work or scaled back their careers to take care of the children and then were left with no money and no rights when he buggered off after a few years (or decades, in some cases).

The OP has grown this baby, she will give birth to it, and she will be responsible for it for at least the next 18 years, whether the father sticks around or not. The baby should share her name. If the father actually puts his money where his mouth is and marry her, she can change her name and the baby's to match his if she wants to.

Likes all his own way, doesn't he?
I think it's a crock of shit that he only likes his dead mother's name.
Time to remember that your child will be born in England, raised there and has an English mother, whose culture is equally important. Locate your spine OP aad start asserting your own views.

To answer your question though, I gave ds1 my name because dh and I weren't married at the time of his birth and it was really easy to change it when we did get hitched.
He has a new birth certificate and it's as if the first one never existed.

I would say that it's all very well being traditional, but tradition generally includes being married before having dc. He cherry picks a fair bit, seemingly. But actually, you are probably better off not being married to someone who isn't recognising your involvement at all.

Just to repeat OP that it's very common even in Ireland for all family members to have the anglecised O' than Ó/Nic/Ní etc. Especially so among English speakers and you shouldn't feel bad if you want all your children to have the same name. I admit I would assume someone could speak Irish at least reasonably well if they had the Irish version. It's quite common for people with certain professions in Ireland to change to the Irish spelling later on, primary school teachers for example. But this is because they are expected to have good level of Irish fluency!

Either way surely a child takes its fathers surname

Have we travelled back 100 years this morning?

I think one parent one name is fair. So if he get the surname you get the first name and if you use your surname he gets to chose the first name.

If he's Ó then baby should be Ní. It's only if he's Mac that it changes to Nic. Just so that she doesn't have something nobody has in Ireland either...

Surely you're not trying to tell us that this man, for all his insistence on doing everything "the Irish way", doesn't actually speak Irish properly himself, Apile?

Well I never...

As he has chosen the first name I'd use your surname since you're not married. If he wants any say in surname then he should get married. Also isn't it Ni not Nic?

Apileofballyhoo - I think that's my ignorance. We only had a verbal conversation about this, not written, and I assumed it was Nic because his mother's maiden name (which she went by) was Nic. You'll be correct though that it's Ni.

Obvs me not understanding the language - or knowing the required keyboard shortcuts! - is all part of what puts me off!

I think you all make valid points. I will give more thought to either a girl or a boy having my surname for now. In DP's defence - he is not as bad as he clearly sounds. There are many other things I have got my choice on. But I know from previous experience that relationships can go tits up in a way you never expect. Food for thought.

If you aren't married why are you giving any DC his last name?

Maybe he should change his last name to yours?

Your daughter needs to have one of her parents surnames its as simple as that for her sake

Its yours or the Oxxxx

It won't cause issues. The slight changes in surname for different sexes are common in many cultures.

Everyone on the posts about 'shall I give the baby my or dp surname' always says it's easy to change to married surname at a later date, much harder if you're lumbered with dp surname for baby and you split up.

I would also say I've lived in Ireland 14 years and I've never actually come across anyone called ni or nic anything! I think it must be confined to Irish speakers.

Since you're planning on having more children, just alternate.

DP and DS1 have the same surname, DS2 and I have the same surname - we travel a lot, and we've not had issues (raised eyebrows, and we have to be accepting about things like letters home from schools getting it wrong for one of us fairly often - although then firm if it really matters like on applications/id)

If he's had his way entirely on the first child, it's only fair you get the same on the second.

BTW, I had to veto the idea of DS1 having DP's name (and his father/grandfather's name) because it already caused them hassle (and it was a boring name), we compromised on it as a middle name - but perhaps I was lucky that he was open to negotiation...

Give the baby your last name. Problem solved.

Can't comment on the Irish angle to the names.

However, our DC have a slightly different name to both their parents - DH & I both have double-barrelled names (although DH rarely uses his and goes by just one of his names). We did not want to inflict a double barrelled name on the DC so they both have one of DH's names.

It doesn't make any difference in day to day life, but on passports I am Ms A-B, DH is Mr D-C and the Dc are just Mr. C.

And it's given us no problems at all. Except the rare occasions when the DC were younger when I was travelling alone with them and was asked to produce a birth certificate as we had different names.

My great grandad had a very traditional Irish spelling of our surname.
It was simplified and 'Scotiscised' by the priest, when he married my great-grandma in Edinburgh
It was further simplified when my grandad married my grandma. By which time it was not an attractive name at all. I hated it when I was growing up.
I was very glad to marry DH and have his very Yorkshire surname.

I am pretty traditional and we have a super traditional set up. I'm Mrs DH and my children have DH's surname. We had a brief discussion about the "Mrs DH" thing before the event - no big deal for either of us. Kids had his/our name without question.

But.....there's no way I'd have gone for that if we hadn't been married. No way at all. I used to have a colleague who had a daughter from a previous relationship; every time they went away she was queried at passport control. And she was (eg) Claire Palmer and her daughter was Lucy Edwards. If you are attempting to travel with a child with a clearly non-UK surname, you can be sure this will happen to you. And if you do end up splitting up down the line, you'll find this bloody irritating at best. Stick to your guns.

Just to add, the reason we decided to give the DC one of DH's names not mine was because it was by far the easiest to spell, and sounded best, not anything to do with them "taking their father's name". And we weren't married when we had DC1 but were by the time DC2 came along.

Give the baby your last name. Problem solved.
Just that. If he wants to give the baby his surname, he marries you and it follows automatically. Otherwise s/he has your surname.
I'm sick and tired of reading about men who want to pick and choose which responsibilities they accept. If he loves you enough to have children with you, he will want you and the children to have the legal protections of marriage. Then he gets to carry on his family name.

Lulu- that’s the most complicated “I hated my nasty women’s last name and couldn’t wait to have a nice men’s one” story i’ve ever heard!

I would give any children my surname and cross the whole family name bridge when or if, we got to it.

that’s the most complicated “I hated my nasty women’s last name and couldn’t wait to have a nice men’s one” story i’ve ever heard!

That’s a bit unfair. I hated my surname too, was very glad to take my DHs name. The men connected to my surname were fucking awful

If you give the baby your surname and then get married it is easy to change the child’s name with yours and his agreement
If you give them his choice of surname then split up you would need his permission to change it to match yours- and it doesn’t sound like that will happen

KenandBarbie - have you never come across Sharon Ní Bheolain on the news?

KenandBarbie Few people in Ireland go by their Irish surnames, but the Anglicized version of the name usually includes the O or Mc and men and women both use the Anglicized version, so you'll hear that. You'll only hear Ní or Nic or Uí or Mhic if a woman is using the Irish version. So that's only half of the total people using the Irish version, making the numbers even smaller.