If your child has 2, unhyphenated, surnames does their school use both or (which?) one?

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My DDs were born in Spain where everyone has a double surname consisting of the father's first surname and the mother's first surname, in that order. So if my partner were Mr. C D and I were Ms. A B then our DDs would be known as the Misses C A.

So, in the school office the other day they asked me if they should use one of the surnames or put in a hyphen and use both. I said they could use both of them or just the first one - 'C', but that I didnt want to add a hyphen where there isn't one.

Today, first day of term in Scotland, DD1 comes home with her reading log notebook and it has 'A' as her surname.
So effectively they have put my 'maiden' name as her surname.

If you are in this non-hyphenated double surname situation how have you dealt with it?

Just to clarify, I don't actually have 2 surnames. Just one, which they have written on her book as her surname.

I have hyphenated it to make it easier for DS, although he is normally known by his name +dad's surname.

Having the hyphen in it has prevented school, hospital, etc to think that his first surname is actually his third given name.

OrangeFish - yes, to confuse things they both have middle names too...
I just would prefer not to put a hyphen in {whispers - it seems so upper class, which we aren't...}

The other problem is both their names have accents. On one you can leave it off and it looks and sound fine but on the other it looks naked and people already have trouble pronouncing it with the stress on the right syllable. Gah!

Make it easier for yourself and mostly, for your kids's sake, forget about the accents, people do not even know how to insert them using a keyboard. You would avoid a huge life long confusion if you just ignore them for the time being (I normally request for my name to be writen meticulosuly correct when it is going to be displayed in official documents like diplomas and things of the sort. But for the day to day I use one of my given names and my first surname. With DS is more or less the same.

And yes, I leave the accents out

I'm almost wishing I'd given DD2 a different name now...it looks bad without the accent...

Don't worry, nobody will notice, really, and accent or no accent she still will need to tell the people how to pronounce it

I would just tell the school what you want the child to be known as. I can't imagine there will be a problem with this. This was a just a mistake, probably.

Yes, I feel for her, I have spent my life spelling my surname. You'd think I would have chosen something easy to write and pronounce for them...!

said - yes, I'm sure it was a mistake. I need to decide what I want them to call her tho and whatever i decide will be for good, iyswim.

Well, I'm in the same situation and we just use my name.

I put a hyphen in when registering the names, although technically not meant to be there it just makes things alot easier. Its complicated enough explaining why everyone has different surnames! (Not Spanish naming system here but Arab which is similar).

Tell the teacher what you want her known by as well. She would probably have labelled the book going by the names given to her at the end of last term and wouldn't necessarily been give an update by the office.

Agree about hyphenating for ease, otherwise the surname will default to 'A'