lesbian mums - hyphenated last names?

[chachamum]

Anyone got any thoughts about whether to hyphenate the child's surname with both mums last names? Does it make any difference if you do or you don't? My partner and I both have surnames that are averagely long, and usually need to be spelt out letter by letter over the phone, so is the equality of a double barrel surname worth it? If we have one of our surnames as a middle name instead, are there any disadvanatages to that option?a

We've given DS a double barrelled name, two syllables each, both need to be spelled out. We figure he can drop one if he wants later, or pick which to use unless he's being formal. Leaving out the hyphen was possibly a mistake as DP's name sounds too much like a middle name and so tends to get dropped. Big advantage in DS having both names as, as DP is supposed to be taking over as DS's primary carer and people have enough trouble believing that he's DS's dad and he's had a few incidents where people have been suspicious of him (including one very strange one where some woman seemed to be trying to abduct DS in the street). I think the alternative would be DP having to carry a copy of DS's birth cert with him just in case of accident or say, taking DS for a vaccination; we both really doubt that people would believe that DP has parental responsibility without DS having his name as well, so we're glad we did it.

We have two difficult surnames - not a great choice, and would be awful double barrelled. So DS had my surname as a future embarrassing second middle name, and DP's name as surname (I'm bio-mum). Feels fine, but I've no idea whether it was right choice - didn't feel like there was a 'best' choice - he'll cope. It was nice giving DP an obvious link with DS before legal stuff came in.

We've got friends who used one of their surnames as the children's middle name and their other surname as the children's surname.

We created a completely new surname for our children - it's a combination of mine and dp's surname and I like it because it's a literal symbol of the boys having both of us as Mums.

Dunno if this helps at all, but I grew up with (technically) a double barelled name and I have given my kids one also.

I really think it gives kids the choice. The thing is, if you have both names in there, you will normally be able to chose to use either one at all but the highest offical levels. You do need your double barelled name on a passport/driving license, but for pretty much anything else, you can choose either name. The bank will accept cheques in either name, IME. My utility bills were always in my "mum's" name, for example. I did add my dad's name to dp's name for the kids, more because it scanned better than anything else.

Other alternatives, eg changing the name by deed poll later in life, can be a PITA, I think.

The thing is, you can always just USE one name. But I'd get both names in there on the birth certificate.

Hi just another thought could one of you change your name by deed poll?
My dp and i did this so we now all have the same name.
We now feel after our civil partenership and the birth of our son that we are now a family with a family name.

I'm not a lesbian, but if I was in a committed same sex relationship, here's what I'd do...

There's no arguing over who is the birth mother, so give the child the other partner's surname to reinforce the fact that they have that significance in the child's life.

Forget double-barrelled hyphenated names - they're poncey imo.

Sorry - just realised that poncey is probably deperately poor choice of words...

fortyplus - but what if you have more than 1 child and each woman carries one each? That's why we came up with a completely new surname that's an amalgamation of mine and dp's - because we knew we wanted to have at least one child each, and we've been fortunate enough to have that happen.

I don't know... would it matter that the children had 'opposite' surnames?

I would've thought that whatever they grew up with would seem normal. Lots of single mums or step families have children with different surnames in the family unit.

I really thought you'd get more of a response - there are quite a few lesbian mums on here, aren't there?

I guess whatever you do is about the 2 adults feeling comfortable with their choice. The child will accept it as normal. I really don't like double-barrelled surnames - they seem so pretentious, but that's my problem!

I think it would be very hard for the child to 'drop' one of the names later in life. Assuming that the parents are still together it would seem very disloyal wouldn't it?

And Dottydot I quite like the idea of a 'combination' name! After all - what is a surname? It's only a label - it doesn't define who we are. I'm married and started using dh's surname when the children were quite small. They had his name and I liked the idea of having the same name as them - I was never particularly bothered about having the same surname as dh. But maybe I'm just odd.

Actually I am odd, come to think of it!

My DW & I joined our surnames with a hyphen, which will become our kiddo's surname.

We gave ds my surname and my partner's surname as a middle name. Both of our surnames are very unusual and hard to spell so we never considered double-barrelling them.

my wife and I got double-barrelled when we had our civil partnership. We both like it, but we think its a bit long to give a child
I cant find anything on the net about whether it is legal to give the baby one of our maiden names instead. Anyone know?

Hi there,
Just joined Mumsnet so sorry for late add to this thread. We chose my partner's surname as she was the bio-mum, and my surname as our daughter's middlename. This was 4 years before our CP btw!