Changing names

[acnebride]

Has anyone here ever changed their surname, or considered changing it, for cultural reasons?

I've taken dh's surname (just think it's easier). Dh's surname was anglicised by his great great grandfather or thereabouts when he arrived in 1890. We sometimes think about changing it back, but this would be from a highly standard English name (obviously) to a very noticeably not standard English one. I do wonder about the impact on ds, also TBH on me. Also, even the new version would still not be 'the same' as the original name was in a different alphabet, so perhaps it would just be precious.

Has anyone done this?

It's nice to change to your "real" name, but my experience of swapping an English name for a foreign one is that you will encounter some racism. Example situation could be job hunting, where you send your CV and the first thing they see is your name.

Mmmm, yes. Maybe it could be the one real thing I could do against racism? Takes some thinking about.

Ive decided to give DS my DP's surname, which the English tongue finds hard to pronounce.

The funniest thing (and the most annoying) is people trying to repeat it and failing again and again! Even my parents had to practice! Then there's always having to spell it for people.

But, I did decide to give him that name for cultural reasons. Do wonder about the racism, but consider 2 points.

1. would you want to work for a rascist?

2. Companies are preassured to be equal opps and tick boxes (IYKWIM) the foreign name could actually be more of an impetus for an interview rather than a deterrent.

interesting likklemum, thanks. I suppose I feel that although companies are told to work on equal ops, there's actually very little real pressure on them to apply opportunities equally. Particularly feeling this at the moment due to a double story from a friend - this is about gender, not racism, but still; two male mambers of her professional practice recently had children, one a boy, one a girl. Director sent round an email after each. The boy one was just general congratulations. The girl one gave general congrats and said 'at least now we have some future nursing material'.

!! This could be construed as a joke, if their only female partner had not recently resigned her partnership in order to be able to work fewer hours - the partnership refused to agree her working part-time at partnership level.

My friend is a female professional with a specialist qualification in a popular field that fewer than 50 people in the country hold. So why doesn't she leave? Because the work she gets to do is extremely interesting and involving. So I understand why she continues to work in what, to me, sounds like a poisonously sexist atmosphere.

What a ramble, sorry! your post sparked off thoughts.

I've recruited a lot of people and the stuff that has been said to me e.g. by other interviewers has made my hair stand on end.

Sorry to do a third ramble. Because I have removed a lot of the details from that anecdote, it sounds as if I am denigrating nursing as a profession. This is not the case. The post was supposed to be about assumptions on roles for women. Darn it! Sorry.

Interesting too. In my job, I have noticed that there was a preassure for our 'company' to employ from different cultural backgrounds. But it is a school in South London.

I suppose it might not be such a push in a less multicultural area and maybe in different jobs. The motive here is to help provide positive role models for most of the children.

In terms of sexism, I think that a male teacher is looked on very positively aswell, again to provide role-models.

Hmm, the baby girl comment did seem a little prickly! Why couldnt the girl be elavated to partnership and why cant nurses be male? Infuriating!

We copped out. Our 2 boys have dh's foreign surname and my English one. Advantages - they can choose what ever identity they may want as they grow up. Disadvantages - far too long to say both so we just use the foreign one, nobody can ever spell it or say it. We end up anglicising it on the phone when booking restaurants etc otherwise it's just a hassle. Nobody can ever find us on computers (eg at the doctors surgery) because they've invariably spelt it wrongly and all their teachers mispronounce it so now both the boys do too.

I kept their English surname as well because of the experiences of a friend with an asian name who was constantly turned down when applying for senior medical posts unlike his friends with the same qualifications etc with English names. This was a few years ago now. I hope things have moved on a bit since then.

hiya me and my son both have a african surname which we took from his father who definetly wanted his son to hav his surname.we travel back alot he has two english first names then two african names and his fathers surname. long time withe the registar or what.
i also have to repeat surname. but im used to it now..

Dh and I both have strongly ethnic surnames, although we are from mixed backgrounds so they don't reflect our whole ethnicity. When we got pregnant we started thinking about the surname issue for the first time (have been married a long time but each kept our own surnames until now) and in the end have decided to change our names to a meshed surname. Advantages: really a family name now, not belonging to any ethnicity. Disadvantages: mix of two difficult (to the English tongue) surnames, so still not so easy for most people. Still, it felt like the best compromise.

DP and I aren't married but we had to decide what to call ds. We double-barrelled my (english, but hard to spell) surname with his (obviously asian) one, then we picked a very conventional short english first name - proabably would have chosen something more original if heading off racism hadn't been such a prime concern. DP has grown up with people making comments and assumptions, so he's much less sensitive than me the idea of DS being on the receiving end.

I grew up in the countryside which totally shaped my life in a good way and I would love DS to have the same sort of childhood, but we live in a very multicultural area of the inner-city where DP feels more comfortable (grew up there, doesn't feel the same as I do about fresh air and quiet). I think I picked DS's name so that it might be easier for us to live out in the sticks one day - but we talked a lot about how it would look on a CV as we chose it.

Our children have two middle names. One is a first name and the other is my family name. Hyphenating my dh and my name would have meant two "ham" endings to surnames and been way too long. However, they would have sounded very English.

Having an ethnic name can serve as a protection, you may never have to deal with people who have a problem with other races as they know to stay clear of you or at least to expect an Asian or African after hearing/seeing the name. Of course, discrimation and prejudice has it own problems and having a English sounding name is not gonna protect you from bigots in a face to face situation.