Not your usual BN question - if you married but didn't take dh's surname, what surname did you give your dc's?

[phdlife]

We gave ds dh's surname, because it sounded right with the first names we'd chosen, but if #2 is a dd we're thinking about giving her my surname.

Anyone else done anything like this?

I caved and changed after I said I wouldn't - but also don't feel like I sold out by doing so.

In fact, have enjoyed symbolically leaving my old name and family connections behind, but that's another story.

We are married. I have kept my name. The DCs have DH's surname, and my surname as one of their two middle names.

We didn't think about the double barrelling too hard, the combination just sounded daft.

This is not really relevant to you, phdlife, but we gave DD her own surname - different to both of ours. I had read about people doing this in the 1970s and we both liked the idea.

I didn't want DD to have her dad's name by default, but i also wasn't that happy with the idea of her having my name and not his. Our names would not double-barrel at all well.

Part of my reasoning was that if we had another child, they would both have the same name.

Unconventional, and the lady in the registry office was very but it worked for us.

We were married for 8 years before DS was born. I kept my name. When I was about 6 months pg I changed my surname, because I wanted to have the same name as my DS. There was no way that DH was going to let him have anything other than his surname, and I wasn't really that bothered.

I am Mrs MarriedName at home and Dr MaidenName at work. I am not sure that I would have changed my "home" name if I could not have legitimately been Dr MaidenName at work (although possibly doing a PhD was a bit of an extreme way of solving this problem!). I also have 2 brothers, one of whom has 2 sons, so no danger of fairly unusual maiden name dying out just yet.

I didn't change my name when we got married, and DS is DShisname. My name is actually my DH1's surname, just to complicate things. I wish I hadn't changed my name the first time round, I wouldn't do it at all if I was getting married for the first time.

DS does sometimes want to know why grandma and grandad have a different name from me, and I am afraid I have bottled it and just said that "because they do".

I kept maiden name at work, but changed at home as was warned by financial advisor that in the event of sudden death of either of us the estate and all bank accounts etc would probably be frozen due to different names. I am still shocked when my married name is flashed up at the doctors etc, and we've been wed 8 years!

However, if we hadn't been married kids would definately have had my name only. I've got too many single mum friends that have different names to their kids. Also a lot stuck with name of ex husband to avoid further upset of kids after divorce.

Life is complicated, no?

I have kept my surname. We aren't double-barreling but my surname will be our children's middle names.

I've kept my surname. DCs are double barreled - so Fred Hassled-DH'sName. The difficulty is that an awful lot of their friends are the same - when the next generation starts breeding, do they quadruple-barrel their kids' names?

I kept my name. For a while I stayed Miss Myname and flirted with Ms Myname - but for some reason loads of people took that to mean I was divorced and/or lesbian and I got sick of explaining. So now I am Mrs Myname and DH is Mr Hisname. The DCs have my name as a surname and DH's surname as a middle name (not hyphenated or used as a surname), DH didn't care, but I wanted them to have his name as well.

I do feel quite strongly about the dcs having my surname - I have several friends who have been married a couple of times and have dcs with various different names of their exes, personally I would hate that, not that I am planning on getting divorced

I have double-barrelled (for professional reasons) but the dcs have dh's surname only.

we're not married. DS has my surname as, after long debate, DP and i decided it was cooler he has DP's name as a middle name so he can always switch later in life if he wants.

I have myname-hisname and our child will just have hisname. I didn't want to subject child to being double barrelled but wanted to keep my own name and have my husbands.

I kept my name and DD has a double barrelled surname. I kept my surname as there are only about 50 of us left in the UK and my brother is never going to carry on the family name. We went for DD myname-hisname as it sounded better than the other way round.

i always thought i'd be happy for my children to have their father's name because my connection with them was naturally stronger. When it came to it i felt quite devasted and we ended up adding my name as a second middle name and agreeing all dcs would have my second name as a second middle name - a kind of silent double barrel. Neither of us were keen on double barrel but i would have gone for that. dp was adamantly against it though. He did suggest your idea of giving dss his name and dds mine but i hated the idea of the children having different names. if we ever marry i will take his name for some things and keep mine for others. it's a minefield - good luck!

I would have happily double-barrelled if our surnames weren't each 3 syllables long.

We ar enot married (yet) and no way would I change to dp's name (I dont like it anyway). I suggested that dp change to my name and he was . Dd is first name, 2 middle names, My Surname, His Surname so she has as many names as me. I did actually want to go teh Icelandic route but dp wasnt keen.

I'm not married but wouldn't change in any case. Inferiorettes have both names, non-hyphenated. Which takes a lot of spelling.