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

[Lozza79]

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.

When I divorced xh I never got round to changing my name back. Both dds have his surname but my maiden name in the middle(as did I). When I remarried I changed my name to dhs as it would have been weird Mrs XH and as we are having children together I didn't want to have baby xh IYSWIM.

Our baby will have my maiden name as a middle so there will be a link between me, dds and new baby.

I was also the last of my line with my maiden name and we don't meet many people with that name.

I am married but do not use my DH name... and our DS has my last name. The reasons- well, I am the last to have the surname and as a mother I do most of the dealings with schools,doctors, forms etc and I wanted to have the same name to stop any confusion and also my DH was not that bothered either way. I get a few raised eyebrows from people. Not just older ones, friends of ours especially the husbands think it is strange that my DH doesn't want/need his name passed on. Quite a few people just ignore it and write cards to DS as DH lastname + My lastname. It does annoy me a bit....

oh yes DS has two middle names both come from DH family and the second one is DH last name. if that makes sense.

I would think a lot of children have different surnames to thier mothers. Mine all have. My eldest two have thier dads surname, my youngest has her dads surname as will my unborn baby. I will have 4 children by two different dads. Shocker.

Never been a problem so far. I'm glad actually, I was bullied for my surname in school

It's been great to read everyone's responses, it's helped me a lot. Mind you, we still haven't reached a decision yet - on first names OR surnames! I've told my boyfriend that I want my name to continue somehow, which to my immense surprise I'm not sure he understands. This is a big issue for me and yet he doesn't seem to understand why I think the tradition of only following the patrilineal line is old-fashioned and rooted in inequality. It's strange what you can still learn about each other after such a long time together.

But tryingtoleave, I was the one who didn't want to get married in our case! (DP agreed mind you, and we did have a different event instead of getting married, which serves to prove commitment etc). The way you said it makes it sound like it's always the woman who wants to get married and the man doesn't always want to because of lack of commitment - I don't suppose you mean exactly this but it's how it came across to me...

(That's separate to the actual point about babies' surnames, where we're looking at using both surnames, so not just his - or just mine.)

Really interesting to hear of other people's experiences and opinions on this, as I figured we couldn't be the only ones in this type of situation (married, didn't change my name, both want to use our surnames).

Our surnames don't really work together but I've also been thinking that using both as surnames will make it difficult for dc when/if they meet someone and have kids of their own. What if 2 surname child falls for another 2 surname child, does their child have 4 surnames? And so on.

Great post from Barbaraaxt about dropping the surnames you don't like but doesn't this risk offending some of the grandparents?

Our dc will have both our names, one as a middle name. The question is which one. Flip a coin?

I have a different surname to my son and partner but we came to the conclusion that we will eventually marry and regaurdless of what life throws at us his dad will always have that surname (I personally don't plan on keeping my surname forever though.) I must say I am always called by my boys surname anyway, despite not wearing a ring everyone always presumes i'm Mrs... Maybe you should use both names? I know my partner would've been really upset if our little one didn't share his name but I suppose if I felt strongly we would have had to discuss it. My friends actually thought he should've had my name but like everything to do with your family it's your decision and you'll do whats best for you