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Original poster

What's it like if your child has a different surname to the mother?

159 replies

Lozza79 · 01/03/2010 15:11

Hi everyone,

I'm currently 20 weeks pregnant and expecting a little boy. My partner and I are very happy together and we're not married. Whether we ever get married or not doesn't bother me, but if we ever did I certainly wouldn't take his surname. I'm quite happy with my own and at the age of 30, if I did I would feel like I'd be losing my identity just to satisfy tradition. Furthermore, I am the last person in my family with my surname and if our child doesn't get it - that's it.

My partner would like us to use his surname for our son. I haven't really pushed the conversation yet as I'm curious to find out more first from women who have different names to their children. What's it like? Are you treated differently? Do you think it's easier for the man to have a different surname to his child?

By the way, I have no intention of double barrelling our son's surname. The two names would look terrible hyphenated.

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MamaVoo · 01/03/2010 18:04

DS has DH's surname. I carried him for nine months, felt him moving around inside me, gave birth to him, breast fed him and spend most of my days with him. Giving him DH's surname seems (to me) to equal the balance somewhat. It doesn't really occur to me that we have different names and so far hasn't caused any problems. I suppose people assume I'm not married to DS's dad but that's not a problem. Hyphenating our surnames would have sounded ridiculous.

WidowWadman · 01/03/2010 18:20

My daughter had a different surname to me for the first 10 months of her life (until I married her dad) and we never encountered any problems, despite me having had a very German name and hers being very English.

LightShinesInTheDarkness · 01/03/2010 18:22

DH and I have been married for 20 years, I have never been Mrs X or used his surname. When the DCs came along, I actually thought it would be more odd for them to have my surname than his, as people may assume they were not his kids, which seemed unfair!

No-one has ever said anything about it - I just use my name and the DCs use theirs.

janeite · 01/03/2010 18:24

My two dds have dp's surname. I kept my name from my marriage because that was my 'work' name, rather than reverting back to my maiden name. Dp and I aren't married but if we ever do get around to it, I will not take his name. It's fine; never been a problem.

Prinpo · 01/03/2010 18:27

I'm similar to LSITD in that we're married but I use my own name. DCs have DH's surname. I felt that, had they had my name, people would have assumed he was their stepdad and I didn't want that (nothing against stepdads, they're fab, I just wanted him to be recognised as their dad). I've never encountered any problems, apart from one stupid midwife who couldn't understand that I was married but had a different surname to DH - she assumed I must be married to someone else!

FWIW, it's also a useful lesson in feminism for your baby when s/he gets a bit older.

MaMight · 01/03/2010 18:30

Never been an issue for us.

LaDiDaDi · 01/03/2010 18:35

I'm in the same situation, I think, as janeite. I got married and changed my name then got divorced. My married name is now very much my "work" name so I never changed it back. My dc have dp's name as I wouldn't want them to have effectively my ex-h's name nor my never used maiden name.

Never been a problem.

Binkster · 01/03/2010 19:00

I'm married, but a non-name-changer. We will give our children both names (merged together into one), as they sound nice together, but if they didn't we would definitely put both in there, with one as a middle name. Is there any way of combining the two names into a new one?

jellybeans · 01/03/2010 19:02

We are married now but when we had DD I gave her my surname as if we split wanted the same name as her since she would live with me. I really didn't want a different name to my kids. When we married, we both changed to DH surname.

weasle · 01/03/2010 19:27

I never changed my surname on marriage; our 2 (soon to be 3 ) children have DH's name.

it has never bothered me at all.

i like the principle of giving them both names, perhaps one as a middle name rather than double barreled, but my surname has 10 letters and Dh's 11, so i thought the names would be too long.

fridayschild · 01/03/2010 19:37

I have my name, and DCs have DH's name with my name as a middle name. The double-barrelling didn't work with our names.

Everyone has been quite used to mothers with different names - teachers call out to me as "X's mum" when they want to speak to me in the drop off chaos.

I do get called Mrs DH sometimes. This doesn't bother me that much, and I tend to reply "call me Friday".

mummalish · 01/03/2010 20:09

My dp and I are due to get married next month, but even so, I will not change my surname, as it feels as if I may lose something of myself, and don't necessarily feel the need to change it just for tradition's sake. My ds will be my ds whether or not we have the same surname or not. There have never been any funny looks or confused smiles about it at the doctors, nursery etc, as I think it's very common these days for women to keep their own names.

I am glad that we gave ds his daddy's last name as my dp really wanted that. I am totally fine with it. Many of my friends are in the same situation and it bothers no one. Except my mother in law, but that is her problem. haha

Maveta · 01/03/2010 20:16

A word of caution against double barrelling.. i have mum´s surname-dad´s surname. Where i live as an adult has a rule of kids taking dad´s surname (space) mum´s surname.

So my son is dad´s surname (space) nana´s surname-grandad´s surname. His first name is 4 letters and his combined surnames 8 + 5-7 letters! eek. poor babe, sadly there was no way around this as i was more than happy for him to just have his dad´s name to make a nicer name combo. But hey ho, them´s the rules. Luckily day to day most people just use their dad´s name, but it makes filling in those standard box forms hard!!

CeliaChettam · 01/03/2010 20:20

When ds1 was born, I vaguely imagined I might some day use dh's name (I have no idea why, we were already married and I had a public profile under my own name), so we gave him dh's name only. I think I also thought that since the baby was so obviously mine, dh needed to be recognised in the name. 4yrs later, having realised that I was never going to become Mrs DH and that ds1 is less obviously 'mine' as a schoolboy than he was as a breastfeeding baby, I insisted that ds2 had both names. I now regret not hyphenating for both boys, and we often talk about changing ds1's name so that he has both like his brother. So I'd say you might want to make sure your name is in there somewhere.

Oh, and dh gets called Mr Chettam much more often than I get called Mrs DH, because I book everything and of course I use my own name.

muttonchop · 01/03/2010 20:32

My DDs have DH's surname. We're married, but I didn't change my name. There has never been the slightest issue with it - I've done tons of travelling with them and it's never been queried. No need to go looking for problems.

My own mother frets periodically about how strange it is for me to have a different name to my girls - but she's never got her head round me keeping my own surname. It really isn't a problem for any of us.

puffylovett · 01/03/2010 22:02

I have a different surname to my two kids, and I hate it - being called Mrs x and having to correct to say ' no actually it's Miss y'

Aren't the registering rules along the lines of - if DC's are named for the mother, the father has to officially adopt and change the name. If they are named for the father, they cannot be changed back to the mothers surname.

That's always struck me as a bit although I can see th reasoning - sort of.

seimum · 01/03/2010 22:19

I have always kept my maiden name, so the DC's have DH's surname (with mine as a middle name). Never really had any problems - though at DD1's first school the head informed me that they referred to all parents as Mr/Mrs 'child's surname' regardless. This is no longer the case, as all schools (including catholic ones) have coped.

I have sometimes referred to myself in letters as:

Ms Myname (Mrs Kidsname)

i.e putting DH/kids surname in brackets treating it a bit like a job title, to make things clear to officialdom.

Different surnames is not a new thing - my DH has had a different surname from his mum for most of his life, as she was widowed and remarried.

GuntherMcKilocodie · 01/03/2010 22:25

We are married, but have used both surnames for the DDs. They are not hyphenated, so either one could be dropped. I would hate hate hate for my children to not have my name and wasn't prepared to change my surname when we got married. You don't have to double barrel names.

tethersend · 01/03/2010 22:27

My DD has my surname as her middle name.

PressSend · 02/03/2010 08:19

I so wish I'd done precisely that Gunther... 2 sur names, not hyphenated.

smileypigface · 02/03/2010 13:57

I kept my married name (the same as my 3 children) when I divorced. When I re-married 18 months ago I took my new husband's surname. My, then 9 year old, son was concerned that my name wouldn't match his and his sisters any more and suggested that my new husband might like to change his name to their family name instead!!!!

I thought that was a very sweet thought! This was from the boy who was concerned on our first night after we'd moved in with my new husband, when my son was 7, that my new OH would feel left out as he was the only one not a "jones" like all the rest of us!! Awwww

Since my surname changed I've just had a couple of occasions when my son's school have telephoned and the teacher has addressed me as Mrs "Jones" instead of Mrs "Smith" - they have been a bit embarrassed (even though the kids school records have my new details on!) but I've just laughed it off and said not to worry, that mother of "Jones" children is on my job description!!

dolphin13 · 02/03/2010 14:20

I never married my dd1s father and she took his name. When we split he married and had 3 children. It wasn't a happy split and knowing my dd now shared a name with his new family made me feel very much a loner. Having now married and taken my husbands name with our dc I sometimes feel that dd1 feels the odd one out in our family.
I would say give the child your name vu really never know what the future holds

displayuntilbestbefore · 02/03/2010 14:24

Curious to know why are you giving your DCs your DP's surname and not your surname?

I know it's commonly done but if there's no marriage, then why give the DCs the surname of the father?

WidowWadman · 02/03/2010 18:49

displayuntilbestbefore - why not? They're equally his children.

In our case it was for several reasons, firstly he felt more strongly about passing his name on than I, my maiden name has an umlaut in it, which makes it a nightmare to spell living in the UK and thirdly my maiden name wouldn't have worked with my daughter's first names at all.

mathanxiety · 02/03/2010 18:54

How about giving your surname as a middle name or third name for the DCs? You don't have to hyphenate it. Since you're the last in your family with the name, I think it might be very nice to pass it on even as just an initial to all intents and purposes.

Plus, being held up as officials try to make sense of who belongs with whom at an airport is not pleasant and it's a pita to have to bring birth certs with you if you travel. You never know when a little detail like different names is going to cause a major hiccup.