That old unmarried surname dilemma...

[alittleteapot]

throughout pg was very clear LO would have DP's surname. When it came to crunch i found it very painful when it came to crossing my name out. Am going to add my name as middle name which you can do easily within 12 months. Now wondering if I really wish i'd gone for double barrel after all (not keen in some ways but have talked to a few friends who like me gave their LO their DP's name and have found they mind more than they thought) - but adding a surname would be a bigger deal as would involve changing LO's name by deedpoll which seems a bit heavy.

So, in compromise, wondering if it would be silly to have my name as a middle name and sometimes use it double barrel style and sometimes not? or to use it as a full name even tho not official?

yes exactly ALiTTLETEAPOT

I put his just name and then instantly regretted it

it was only after dc2 was born that i added my family name and have never looked back

no one even questioned it when we applied for passports!

Tom has daddys surname. We are engaged, have been since way before Tom was on the scene. We will get married (one day) and I will take the same name. Saves faffing around with changing Toms name on everything, will have to do so myself though.

Tom would probably have my name if me and DF weren't together. My cousin gave her son her name and she is no longer with his dad. My mum doesn't like it that Tom doesn't have our name!

My friend had this problem and just gave her son her last name as a middle name instead of double barrelling the surname if you see what I mean. It actually sounds really nice in her case but it depends the upon names in question!

DP and I are in this situation as well - first child due in August, we're not married and each have a distinctive three syllable surname. I like them both but can't bear the idea of our kid not having my name somewhere, for various reasons (it's a really important part of my identity/I'm the only one carrying it on now brother has died/hairy-legged feminist reasons). So I guess we're double-barrelling, but it's going to be a right mouthful! At the moment we're leaning towards letting the child pick which one it uses later in life...I suppose if it's got both then at least it's got the option to choose.

On the upside, it makes picking a first name somehow easier, since basically it's got to be short and to the point - no Aramintas or Zachariahs here

my kids both have a different surname from me, and different surnames from each other!!!
so when i have to make appointments for the 3 of us, i have to give 3 different names, but i dont mind!

whats with all this stepford wife stuff - ie "oh i like my children to have the same surname as me!"

whats that all about?

my friends's husband left her for another woman, and she hates him with all her heart, yet she refused to change her surname when they got divorced so she could keep the same name as her kids. Why would you want to keep that bastard's name??

hanaflower - yes, it's getting both our names, this is non-negotiable. They go well together so I don't think it's a big deal - it's no different to friends who've had a long first name and a four or five syllable surname IMO.

We had this dilemma and in the end it was all down to who had the nicest/most interesting surname...

DS has dpsurname-mysurname as his hyphenated surname.

He loves it that he has a name from each of us, it's completely obvious what our family relationship is whern we all put our names down together somewhere...and these days because of so many unmarried couples and / or women choosing not to adopt a man's name, double-barrelled names aren't even pretentious any more.

But he does have a one syllable first name and no middle name!

This thread has been so interesting. Thank you. i'm now sure i want to change dd to double barrel. will only be three syllables in total and i've been playing with it in my head and now feel sure it's right - it's who she really is. just have to persuade dp now... but having made the decision feel SO much happier.

I've always used my own name. The deal when DD was on the way was that girls would have my name and boys would have DH's.

I didn't want my name disappearing - as the woman's name usually does. Of course it's still a man's name, but you have to start somewhere.

My dd has dp's surname - mine is used as an extra middle name for her, which is nice but i do feel weird that she has a different surname from me.

I am married but did not take my husband's name and don't see why our DCs should just have his name and not mine (esp given that I will be doing the rather important "giving birth" bit!)

We're having our first LO in May and have decided to go down a slightly different route of using both surnames but not hyphenating them, so our baby will have 3 names in everyday use rather than the usual 2. I have come across quite a few people at work who have 3 names in this way and I think it sounds lovely in a kind of old-fashioned way.

Of course, it might be a bit of a palavar for the LO having to explain his / her 3 names to everyone all the time and in future he / she may decide to drop one of the them from everyday use just for ease which would be fine with us.

Now begins the debate about whose name goes first and whose goes second...

novicemama, exactly the same for us! It's the way forward

That's all fine, but what if your mothers had thought the same way, so you had two names? Which of your two surnames would you give your child? What if your husband had two names too - which combination of the four names would you pick?
The mind boggles. Personally I have found it hard enough keeping my maiden name at work, people ring up and ask for "Mrs Married", get confused by my voicemail etc. I like all 3 of us having the same name, it took some time to get used to my husband's surname but I prefer the traditional approach.

Someone mentioned Spain earlier, and I just wanted to clarify. Here, no one changes anything when they get married. Everyone has two surnames - father's first surname and mother's first surname, in that order.

So, if Pedro Campos Suarez and Juana Garcia Soto have a baby, he would be called e.g. Juan Campos Garcia.

It works! And, because it is the norm here, no one has any trouble working out family connections.

However, it doesn't get around the issue of patriarchal lines, because after one generation the mother's input is lost, i.e. when little Juan goes on to have a baby, he will only pass on Campos, which came from his father. The Garcia will be lost.

If my mum had given me her surname as well as my dad's, there would have been no problem picking one over the other - one is very cool, the other is really not

I dont understand why it is so hard to give dc the fathers name??? I gave my son my DPs name, I would not have felt right if i gave my name to my ds, i mean aside from tradition its his child too. No one can assume that the child isnt yours, but if the kid doesnt have your dp/dh's name then its as if he has no connection to child.

Personally, I am not a big fan of double barrelled names or 'made up' surnames

We double barrelled our first daughters name because we wanted to both be on her stone. The registrar said if it wasn't for the fact she was registering the birth of a baby who had died she wouldn't register a double barrel name.

It's a Scottish tradition to give the baby mum's surname as a middle name. My DSS has his mothers name. I think it's nice, especially when the couple isn't married.

TinkerbellesMum how sad for you.
They seem quite strict about this is Scotland, loads of dmsurname-ddsurname (or vice versa) round here even saw a triple barrelled the other day!

My youngest has mine and her dad's surnames as her surname but not double-barrelled and to be know only by my surname. Everyone's happy

I don't believe you have to do a deedpoll to change your surname. I switched to my mum's surname at 18 - my parents split up when I was born and my mum went back to her "maiden name". It took time and I had two surnames at university - cheque books still in my dad's name for some time and when I finally got it sorted they once got really suspicious of my signature because I was getting confused....

My brother and sister had their dad's name in childhood but then also started using my mum's name when their dad left our mum.

There is a catch with double barrelling - cousin (mum's sister's daughter) was known by her mum's surname as a child and then decided to hyphenate mum and dad's names after parents broke up (it was perhaps more her mum's decision to split) and also her dad died 10 years ago. She now has two daughters of her own - different fathers too (hence dads have different names) and you can't really hyphenate indefinitely!

Some people mocked as it is that ds has 3 middle names - a family first/middle name each plus dp's surname as a middle name, then my surname.

Having gone to the trouble of changing my name once I've no intention of ever doing it again.

I am not married to my partner (yet) but I wouldn't dream of my baby having my maiden name. If we split up the baby is still my DPs, you can't just pretend he had nothing to do with it because the surname isn't the same. Plus I wouldn't wish my surname on anyone!

I did the same as novicemama. When I got married - at a fairly ripe age - I didn't want to surrender my name so tacked my husband's on the end but with no hyphen (a la Hillary Rodham Clinton). My daughter has the same double surname as me. Double and double-barrelled names are much more common now and no longer the preserve of the aristocracy. If/when my daughter marries (or before) she can choose what to do with her name - the Spanish model or a version of it seems a good way to go.