Mixed race baby. Double barrelled surname?

[Rose429]

I’m Vietnamese and my DH is British. We’re living in the UK.

My surname is Nguyen (pronounced like “win” with the /w/ sounds more like /ng/). It’s the most popular surname in Viet Nam but I find most Brits understandably don’t know how to pronoun it. My husband’s surname is a simple English word with a meaning starting with D.

We’re thinking of giving our baby double barrelled surname Nguyen-D with no middle name to keep it simple. We want to honour both our heritages, but can’t help thinking we’re making life difficult for our baby with the hyphen and the spelling of Nguyen. Any thoughts?

Do it! It's your baby too. I think you'd regret cutting out your heritage.

Personally, I'd consider
British First name, Vietnamese Middle name, British Surname
or same but with first 2 names swapped.

As you say it will make spelling names over the phones easier, but may also help avoid racial bias.

It'll be fine once people have been told how to pronounce it! If people can learn how to pronounce "niamh" or "siobhan" e.g. then people can learn to say nguyen.

I am mixed race indian with an indian first name and english surname. English people butcher my first name all the time. I correct and move on! It certainly hasn't disadvantaged me and it's an important part of my heritage.

My friend is Swedish and her English husband didnt want their children to have any Swedish names nor to teach them the language - I think that's really sad but it's not my choice.

Most likely if it's double barrelled and longer your child can choose a preferred surname if wanted to avoid racial bias in hiring for eg

Without being too outgoing, but my cousins are mixed race and have a double barrelled surname - one very obviously English and the other very obviously Asian. Never bothered them or anyone else as far as I know, it's a lovely way of acknowledging both of their heritages.

Either double-barrell or use it as a middle name.
It's a name that people might ask you how to say it, but they'll only ask once.

*Without being too outing even!

Please don't consider using your surname as a just a middle name as some have suggested... that's as good as hiding it. It's your baby too and your heritage is just as important.
Double barrel sounds lovely x

Just want to add we definitely are keeping Nguyen in some kind of way. Another option is using Nguyen as middle name and keep D as surname, but honestly you don’t really use your middle name 🤷🏻‍♀️

I have seen a lot of mixed race footballers for example with double barrelled surnames but their surnames all sound English/easy to spell compared to my Nguyen.

I would double barrel it - as others have said, it's a lovely way of honouring the heritage of both parents.

My parents chose an unusual but traditional first name for me, to go with an unusual surname. I've always had to spell both my first name and surname out for people and it's just second nature now.

It’s such a common surname I think most people will have met someone called Nguyen before. I’ve met several.

Also ... I hate it when a man's name trumps a womans name.... that can fuck off for starters!

If I were of mixed heritage I'd be proud as punch to have my non-English name on an equal footing to my English name.

I also disagree with those saying to use Nguyen as a middle name as anyone who lives in a city (or has even a slightly international network) will have known a Nguyen, it is very much a surname.

I live in the whitest of areas, no multi culturalism at all. But there are 2 families I know of with this surname. Just double barrel.

We felt the same as you and wanted our dc to have names from both our backgrounds. We went with a 2 name surname but without the hyphen eg. John Garcia Smith This has meant that our dc have been able to drop one of the surnames in daily use such as at school and be known just as John Smith but have their full name for official paperwork, passports etc including in their dual nationality which requires a name from the country of origin.
We've had very rare occasional issues when computers have put in a hyphen of their own volition and then dont recognise us but on the whole it's been the right decision.

We double barreled our surnames. We both have surnames that need spelling out, so not exactly made it wleasy for them! I have told them they can change it to whatever they want when they grow up, but they love it. I did also deliberately give them first names that are say as you spell them to make day to day easier. You don't know what country your child will end up jnxas an adult, so it could end up being the British part people find harder.

I have a doubled barred name… don’t do it! I hate it.

my parents were of the same nationality it’s just that my maternal grandma insisted on their name being carried forward.

to add insult to injury as they say, they also gave me a first and a middle name.

so I have a very long name, doesn’t fit into most forms, get asked questions all the time, doesn’t fit on credit cards, you name it, it’s a bother.

an elegant solution to your dilemma is to give one of the surnames as a middle name. And make sure that all together is not overly long.

That’s the thing, I still use only one of the surnames in my signature or wherever possible, but you can’t do that for anything legal, like work contracts, even on my work email they kept both!, council tax, other bills etc.

it’s really annoying

the child will end up using only the English one (if they will live in England) and will be annoyed every time they need to sign something official, or every time they notice ppl forget to add it on official contracts. Or forget to add the double barrel. Or forget the middle name as everyone is already too long. Etc etc etc.

My council tax, my electric bill - I needed to go back to them to add it, as otherwise some might argue, in case of any problems, that is not me… so many complications

having the Vietnamese surname as the middle name honours their heritage but doesn’t create any issues

My daughter is mixed and has a double barrelled last name.

One half is the most common Korean surname and it would have felt wrong to relegate that to a middle name, especially as we also wanted her to have a Korean first name as her middle name to use around non English speaking relatives

Double barrelled names are widely used now and I’ve never had an issue with forms, etc (despite long first and middle names). In other countries this is the norm and it’s nice that you get your name from both parents. There are plenty of ‘British’ names that are hard to spell and pronounce so I wouldn’t worry about that aspect. Most people only need to be told once how to say a name, unless they’re being a twit!!

I love double barrelled names to represent both parents.

I know Nguyen as a Vietnamese name. I think everyone knows! That said, I don't like hyphenated names and we went with English first name, Chinese middle name and Chinese surname.

Oh I mean English surname.

It’s fine - the baby can decide to drop off other one when it’s older. You don’t have to have a hyphen but most double barrelled names do. None of this means you can’t give it a middle name as well,

It is more attractive to have Nguyen as the second name. It is quite common to have the mother's surname as the middle name as a mark of respect. Hyphens are no fun.

My kids are mixed white/ south Asian and have a double barrelled surname. It works well.