Last name indecision

[Moonfather]

Hi All, First time posting on here so be nice please.

My Partner is due to give birth to our first child in November and we are struggling to decide on the last name. We are both in agreement that double-barreling is the best approach but cannot decide on the order.

The most important thing for us both is that her name is not dropped off because it would defeat the point of double-barreling.

Could anyone please provide input on the first of the double-barreled names being the female or male name? Which is most likely to get dropped in your experience?

I'd say them both out load and decide which way flows best

Depends on the names, which way does it sounds better?

If they’re hyphened neither should be dropped as it’s one whole name.

Order is irrelevant - sound is. So for example Ormsby-Rimmer sounds better than Rimmer-Ormsby. Likewise Galliers-Edwards sounds better than Edwards-Galliers. And one will almost certainly be dropped for ease, so you might as well get used to it...

My partner and I double barrelled for our DC and we said it out loud and figured out which sounded better and more like it flowed. It’s never been dropped to just one.
Incidentally it was mine first his second but that was purely because it sounded better!

Give the baby the mother's surname and the other surname as a middle name.

Say it out loud and whatever flows best, go with that.
If they are both long namesjust use mother's name if you'renot married.
You dont want a name that ends up sounding like bernadette rostenkowski wolowitz

Have you thought of mixing both your names eg if your surname is Charlton and his is Wood (Charlswood)

Neither get dropped. We went for the order that flowed better.

You are able to choose an entirely different surname — Joan Baez did this back in the day

I would just stick surname as the middle! I think that's what we're going to do. Honestly, I would pick the last name based on which sounds better. Like if my last name is Smith and the other person's last name is O'Hara, I would go with O'Hara as the last name because I love how fiery it sounds. Or if you have a child's name picked out, that can help you decide too :)

Why not use your name as middle name and have the mother's as the last name? Especially as you're not married, or if you are and she's not planning on changing her name.