Not my surname!

[Trifle]

My partner and I have been together for 15 years, have never married nor do we intend to. Both our boys have their fathers surname and, at the time of their registration had no idea how irritating I would come to find this. From their medical, dental, school, nursery, passport, post office accounts etc etc, there is nothing to relate me to them. As I am the one who ends up taking them to most appointments I have to give their name which is completely different to mine. I have mentioned to my partner how irritating I find this and suggested changing their names to mine but he sees this as a sleight on his manhood. With the benefit of hindsight I would advise anyone to give their children their own surname.

I too have different surname to DS who had DP's name. I don't think we will ever get married either (maybe, who knows!) but it doesn't really bother me that much.
Sometimes receptionists at doctors etc look slightly questioning but I just don't care. I'm aware it may become more of a problem when he goes to school but we'll deal with that if it should arise

I never even considered changing my name to dh's when I got married - I'm really intrigued as to why people actually do (that's not entirely true, I went doubled barrelled on my passport but that was for US immigration reasons) - doesn't it feel like you're losing a part of yourself?

dd has dh's name as her proper surname and mine as the second middle name like JanHR. I do from time to time refer to her by my name or double barrelled.

But to be honest I find hardly anyone actually uses a child's surname so what does it matter?

And in our family it's definitely not usually the mother that takes her to nursery or other appointments!

Well PhilipPat, I don't see why I should feel more allegiance to my father's name than to my husband's.

I identify with my first name as a person and my surname as a family IYKWIM.

I remember feeling sorry for DH that he didn't have something like a title or name change to signify his change of status from single to married.

I kept my name when I got married to dh. No one minded except my mother! She was worried sick that someone would think that I was 'living in sin'! When the children came along we gave them dh surname as their surname, and my sirname as a given name. Only after we had done this did I find out that this was a familt tradition in dh's family.

hmb I kept my name when we got married & my mum came out with the same thing! My grandma asked me why we'd bothered getting married if I wasn't going to change my name (?!)

I really really didn't want to lose my identity. It isn't just about identifying with your father & not your husband, your name is part of your identity & it's like that person ceases to exist. Not only that I'd have been swapping an unusual name for a very common one, so instant anonymity.

In our case we double-barrelled when DD came along because I couldn't bear the thought of having a different name to my children. Like hughsie, mine is the first part & it drives me mad when people decide to drop that bit, without asking if it's ok. My DH double-barrelled as well, & it does get long-winded so for normal day to day life all 6 of us tend to use MY name... (even DH).

I can never really understand why anyone would want to be the odd one out in their family with DP & kids all having a different name.

Tallula, I know just what you mean about your maiden name being part of your identity. And I would have been swapping an unusual name for a common one. I had also started work and didn't want to start again from scratch wth a new name. I got several job because people knew who I was IYSWIM. And I tend to use Ms rather than Mrs (old feminist that I am ) I don't do it in school because it confuses the kids!

Trifle I agree completely.
It bothers me a lot that my kids have my dps name, and I don't want to get married.

codswallopini LOL.

What annoys me more than surnames is those boxes which say Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms. WHY do women have to define themselves by marital status. And don't someone say "well you can tick the Ms box" - that's not the point. It should be Mr/Ms or eg. Mr/Mst/Mt/Mrs/Miss/Ms to be equitable.

It was really important to my dh for our children to have his last name. It wasn't really important to me what last name they had. Conversely, I really wanted to name (first name) my children after my grandparents and my dh really wasn't bothered about their first names. So I have two children with my grandparents first names and my husband's last name and everyone is happy! I did not take my husband's last name even though we are married. Though I did the double-barrelled thing for for my first marriage as it was really important to my first husband that have his last name in some way.

I think it's important to consider how meaningful the name thing is to your partner. Perhaps it's worth dealing with the irritation of having a different name to them if it makes your partner feel validated for his children to have his last name. Personally I've never had anyone question the difference in last names.

There seem to be a lot of you who are bothered about your partner and kids having a different name from you. My daugher has my name, not her father's. If I married I can't imagine changing my name (unless it was to Maldini or something ). It would be absurd to change my daughter's name to a stepfather's name so he would be the odd-one out. I can't imagine wanting to feel part of the lineage of a husband's family rather than your own blood relatives.

All very complicated. I used to think the Icelandic thing was ideal - daughters named after mothers, sons named after fathers - but if I'd have had a son it would have been bizarre to give that child the (absent) father's name.

I had final say on 1st names and middle names so let partner have surnames. Not really bothered that they have different surname from me who is odd one out. If I have a daughter one day I might let partner choose first name and she can have my surname a la Tinker and many African and Asian families I meet.

DS has my name as his American surname and DH's surname as his British surname. This his because we re-registered his birth certificate after we got married. Maybe we should have waited until all the children were born to get married... but will probably be a nuisance to DS when he grows up, I must admit.

I use my married name whenever I phone the council!

I agree with judetheobscure about titles - it is one of my bugbears, too. It is the best thing about having a PhD -- I can just put Dr, and no one knows my marital status or my gender. People invariably assume I'm a man!

I think personnal experience can influence your decision. I grew up in the 60's to a single mother who (very long story) but in short gave me her maiden name, kept her married name (not my father) then remarried.... I never had the same name as her or my half brother/sister. It caused me so many problems that although I know it is now common for 'family units' to have different names I always wanted for my family unit to have the same name. Having said that I didn't marry until I was 36 so gave DS my surname as his middle name DH's surname as his surname so he could chose if he wanted to when he was older. I also kept my maiden name at work and used married outside work until changed country and job last year because everybody knew me by 'my name'!!!! I guess once confused always confused!!!

When we went to register dd, I was horrified to be told that if we gave her my name, it could be changed at a later date, but if we gave her dp's name, that was it - no changes. Can't be right in the 21st century, surely?

I like it that we all have the same name - and that ds has the same name as his sister (my stepdaughter). I feel more part of the family that I made than the family I was born into. However, as I keep my maiden name for work I feel I haven't let go of my old indentity and would agree it would feel strange to me for my old 'self' to vanish in a puff of smoke after marriage. I also quite like having a demarcation like that between my personal and professional life. Lots of my friends do this too.

I think that's wrong, Pimpernel; I think you can ONLY? re-register the child if you get married after the birth to the father. That's what we were told. Maybe it varies by where you live in the UK? My DH was thinking about taking my name when we got married, which is one reason DS was registered in my maiden name.

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I do the same as you, aloha. I use my maiden name at work, and have a bank account in that name, but have a joint account in my married name, and use that whenever I sign anything/ fill in forms to do with the children. I don't mind being called either, really.

Zebra - I'm sure you're right. All I remember is being offended that there were different rules depending on whether we gave dd my name or her father's name. But she was only three weeks old when we registered her, so I wasn't really at my most awake!

I'm a ms and didn't change my name on marriage. Just as well since it didn't last...Since ds has ex's surname I do sometimes get addressed as Mrs Ex Dh though, hrrummph. We may go with double barrelling surnames for me, dp and new dd though and then double barrelling ds's surname so he's - first name, My surname (currently his middle name)-Ex Dh's surname - (which is the one he uses now). I just don't see why my children shouldn't have MY surname too - I'm the one who gave birth to them! I can live with both children having some of my surname and some of their respective fathers surnames too though. That seems fair enough to me. And I know my surname is only my own father's name but I still want to keep it, it feels like part of me. sorry, I know I've posted this before, v. boring if you've heard me go on on the subject before!

We gave DS DP's surname and I don't like having a different name from my child but I do want to get married at some point (DP isn't quite ready yet despite being a very loving and committed partner and father) and didn't want to have to change DS's name at that point.

My mother doesn't like DS not having my name and even suggested I changed it to double barrelled (no way). But I felt when DS was born that to have given him my name would have made a big negative statement about my relationship with DP. Also DP stayed at home with DS until he was 11 months (I went back to work at 3 months) and it made life a whole lot easier for him.

Not married and have not got round to getting a Parental Responsibility Agreement at the courts (it is such a hassle!). So legally DP should not be signing for all DS's innoculations but the health visitors and doctors, having a scarily inadequate knowledge of the Childrens Act, have said that as DS has DP's surname they are happy for him to sign for his MMR etc!

All a bit of a potch really and one day I'm looking forward to being Mrs DH (NHS Direct call me that anyway!).

On that MMR etc point Lucy124 (btw, do get you confused with Lucy123 except when I realise you don't live in Spain, which she does), ex dh had no problem at all taking ds out of the country (to India) at the age of 4 even though we are separated and he didn't have my written permission, and presumably this was partly because they share the same surname. No-one asked for any proof of parental responsibility or anything. Maybe that's the way it should be but OTOH it's a bit scary that no-one cared at all. Our separation wasn't amicable to begin with...so in theory I could have disagreed but as long as ex had ds's passport and the same name no questions asked it appears.

I think the thing about Parental Responsibility is that if you are married to the child's father at some point then they will always have parental responsibility. I believe as soon as I marry DP then we don't need to worry about the parental responsibility (although we do need to re-register DS with my new married surname - why?!).

I only found out about Parental Responsibility because a friend is a family law solicitor and most unmarried parents I speak to are completely unaware that without a simple form witnessed at the courts unmarried fathers have absolutely no rights or responsibilities over the healthcare or education of their children. Legally speaking if I decided that I wanted DS to have no innoculations and be educated at home DP could do nothing about it. Also if I die then apparently DS becomes a ward of court and DP has to apply to the court to have custody of him! We MUST get this sorted out but with the court only being open during office hours and both of us working it seems like a system designed to cause maximum hassle to everyone.

Mumsnet - is this a good topic for a specialist opinion on the subject? I have tried reading various websites and it took me ages to get the address of the court from the council but no one really seems to know much about this.