Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Money matters

Find financial and money-saving discussions including debt and pension chat on our Money forum. If you're looking for ways to make your money to go further, sign up to our Moneysaver emails here.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

Can child's mother change her surname without father's permission?

41 replies

Moomin · 07/09/2007 15:59

My friend's fiance has a dd from a previous relationship. The dd has his surname. Now dd's mother has met someone else and wants to change the dd's surname - either to that of her new partner or she has said she will compromise by changing it to a double-barrelled name of the two surnames. She says she's doing this so the dd won't feel left out if she (the mum) has more children with the new partner.

Can she change her dd's surname without the permission of the child's father anyway though? I'm leaving my own opinions out of this one and said I'd just try to find out where they stand legally! Anyone know?

OP posts:

superalienstitch · 09/09/2007 00:04

ellie, i thought your first post was to me!

elliek · 09/09/2007 00:08

sorry

it's not often i'm rude on here but it's exactly that sort of small-minded attitude that leads to children getting bullied

TippiHedren · 09/09/2007 00:15

how do you go about changing a childs name?
Sorry for hijack!

elliek · 09/09/2007 00:17

we asked a solicitor, who drew up a deed of something-or-other, and that was it, £100, and it just goes with his birth certificate

TippiHedren · 09/09/2007 00:20

So the name on the birth certificate cant be changed? From mothers to fathers when they marry and mother takes husbands name.

islandofsodor · 09/09/2007 00:20

My best friend had to wait until she was 18 before she could change her name to her step-father's. She had to make a statement in the solicitors about being known from then on as etc.

elliek · 09/09/2007 00:22

If the father and mother were unmarried when the birth was registered, then later marry, then yes, I think you can change it, I have the details somewhere, will find them .........

elliek · 09/09/2007 00:24

here's the legal stuff

Peshatlast · 09/09/2007 00:29

I changed dd's name over the internet by deed poll and it cost about £25. Did not inform father as he wasn't on the scene at the time and does not have parental responsibility. She also had my surname to start with anyway as my xp had not liked his own surname so was happy for her to have mine!

TippiHedren · 09/09/2007 00:31

Thank you!

RosemaryWoodhouse · 09/09/2007 00:36

The thing is little children do have small minds! I'm sure we all remember the speccy kid who was bullied mercilessly. The ginge who was tormented relentlessly. The fatty. Children who have lost parents sometimes get taunted; it's terrible, but true. I think its reasonable for parents to try and take their children out of the firing line. I could have got married ten years ago but my lover was a coppertop. I thought he was very handsome and striking looking but he went on and on about how bad school was because of the bullying. It was even worse at secondary because the other boys made fun of his pubic hair. I geninely worried what would happen if our children were ginger too - in a way it was like knowing you were a CF carrier and you could be inflicting a miserable life on them. By just marrying another man with normal coloured hair would spare them all that childhood misery. So I have to say if I could spare them being bullied by making sure they had the name of the man they lived with then that is what I would do.

elliek · 09/09/2007 00:37

piss off. please.

McEdam · 09/09/2007 00:48

tempted to tell RosemaryWoodhouse she's barking. Arf.

superalienstitch · 09/09/2007 02:43

tippi, as far as i know, the name on thebirth certificate cant ever be changed

we changed dd's first name before her first birthday. and were issued with a new short certificate. but were told her original long certificate would stand. probably something similar with parents gettingmarried subsequently

seeker · 09/09/2007 07:28

My poor dd has no hope at all then - long bright red hair and a name that's different from both me and her father. I'd better put her on the psychiatrist's waiting list now!

Blackduck · 09/09/2007 08:26

Okay, my 2ps worth. Dp does not have PR as DS was born before end of 2003 (that was the change over date...) To get PR automatically after that the father has to be named on the birth cert or go to court and sign as detialed. However, dp IS on the birth cert and the registrar was at pains to point out to me that legally I could not change ds's surname once the birth cert had been drawn up. Infact she pointed ut the only name he could be changed on the birth cert would be dps surname (ds has both our names) in event of me marrying dp. So even if I married someone else ds's name on his birth cert would always be dpblackduck.

Flip

1 2