Those who are not married, does DC have your surname or the fathers surname?

[Sam2002]

Me and Ex split when DD was born. DD needs to be registered and ex wants her to have his surname. I am unsure wether to do this or not, I know he’ll be in DD’s life, but where our relationship is so uncertain I’m worried about giving her his surname. I feel as though I’d be doing it solely for him and his family who want DD to have their surname too. I feel really pressured or am I making this a big deal for no reason? I feel like giving DD his surname to shut everyone up. Any advice please?

DS has mine.

Now married to DH and expecting our first. It'll also have mine. I've never bought into baby automatically taking the man's surname anyway.

I carried DS and gave birth to him and did the vast majority (all) his care. He can have my name.

DS (age 1) has his dads surname. We will be married within the next year and I’ll also be taking DPs name. For us it wasn’t really that important who’s name he got as long as we all end up with the same name - DP would quite happily have given DS my surname and taken my name himself when we get married but his surname sounds much better with all our names than mine does 🤷🏻‍♀️

Personally, if I wasn’t with the father of my child from birth then the child would have my name (or at least both names hyphenated)

Give the child your surname. It makes travel and admin at school easier. Also their surname usually lasts for life. Its long time to always be explaining the connection between you, especially when you've done the hard work of bringing them up.

I'm married but neither of us changed our names. Our kid has both of surnames, hyphenated, with mine first. He came from both of us; I strongly feel he shouldn't be labelled as being just a product of his dad. This is something I feel pretty passionately about as a feminist.

Their dads. Its never been an issue despite people always claiming it causes no end of problems.

Having said that, if we had split up before they were registered I would have given them my name.

Mine. Don't give your baby your ex's name.

DS has mine.

Mine. Only If I were married would the child have their father's surname.

Mine. We're together but not married. They would have had mine even if we were.

Yours.

If you have another child then he/she can have the same surname.

As a compromise hyphenated maybe.

Mine. We're together and DP is a great dad but having carried and given birth to a baby, there's no way in hell I wasn't giving him my name.

Mine. You have split up, give your baby your name 💯. You don't have to put your ex on the birth certificate (though he can go to Court to be added). But absolutely don't even think about using his name after you split up

Yours not his. It's about what you want...not about them!

Definitely your surname. DD has mine and, 24 years later, with zero involvement in any way from her father since she was five, I cannot imagine how galling it would be seeing his (admittedly much more interesting) surname as part of her name.

Yours! Traditionally baby gets the mothers name.

It’s your baby, give it your name! I’d never give a baby exes name. Even less so because his family were pressuring me.

Even if married they can have their mother’s name whether she changed it or not

In your shoes I would give the baby my name

We're unmarried, still with the dad, but both kids have my name - there was Never any doubt in it for me and OH knew it so didn't bother trying to argue! A softening factor in him accepting it (I believe) was that I am one of three daughters to an only child, one sister no children and one married with children talking her H's name - I wanted our family name to continue for dear dad. 😊

But no matter what Anyone else did, if you're not with the dad Your Baby, Your name. Don't give in to bullying ex's family, I guarantee you'll regret it.

Dd has my surname.

Do not give your baby his surname.

Mine. He would have mine even if we were married, and I wouldn't dream of changing my name. We've been together 15 years so it's not because I'm not sure about the relationship. I decided a long time ago that my child would have my name.

I would have considered double-barrelling - but with mine first - if we had shorter names.

In your situation I would give baby my surname, in my situation where we are not married but also not having any relationship issues I decided to use his surname and mine as a middle name. If we get married we will double barrel our names.

DD1 had DH’s name before we were married. DD2 and I both have his name now too.

You are not with him though so I would say give baby your name.

Both (non-hyphenated). We're still together though. If we had been split up before she was registered, I would have given her mine only.

We gave our daughter both, if we had split I would have given her just mine and probably registered her without him.

For people not yet married, you can change the birth certificate later if you get married so even if we had a date set I still would have given her both for now.