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.

Bloss - "Am interested that no-one has mentioned .... that the male children get his name, and the female children get her name... I don't like it, I have to say." I did! But it wouldn't always work, as I said. If I'd had a boy it would have been absurd to give him the father's name, who didn't reappear for nearly 18 months after the birth!

Was talking about the Ms thing in work today - how difficult it is even to address a letter for fear of offending someone who doesn't want to be called Ms. Maybe Mrs just be used for all over 'a certain age', much like Madame in French.

Lucy you can download the parental responsibility form from the
families need fathers website.
Then just take into a court and get the form witnessed yourselves. You do not need a solicitor.

Doormat - I have the form. Can you go in individually to get the form witnessed? We both work miles from the court and it might be difficult to attend at the same time.

Should just get married and be done with it. No hassle from parents then either.

I think you have to go together I am not sure. Phone up the local county court and ask if you can do individually or even in the post. They can only say yes or no.

Lucy124, don't make the mistake that we did with the parental responsibility agreement. We took along the short birth certificate first time - had to go back with the long version (I know it tells you on the back that you need to take the full certificate, but we didn't realise the significance of 'full' ).

And to tie in with the other direction this thread has been going, I was slightly miffed to get my version back in the post from the court addressed to 'Miss' - particularly since the letter was signed by someone with Ms in brackets after her name!

Like www, I can be a bore on this subject, probably much more actually. And what follows might sound a bit bra-burning-ish & over-excited, but try to imagine it said with a light debating tone, because that's the tone in my head.

First of all, what's wrong with Ms? Why does it sound stupid? Because it's a recently invented word? But so is 'blog, and that's newer AND sounds far stupider, but no one questions that word. And why should "Ms" offend? All it means is "I don't know you if you are married or not." What's more offensive, I would think, is jumping to the wrong conclusion about someone's marital status by using "miss" or "mrs" erroneously. And I, personally, find it demeaning to be identified by my marital status, as though it's somehow a relevant detail about me or who I am. If I had a dp & not a dh my life would be exactly the same but I would be referred to no, identified bya different title. Isn't that weird & doesn't that warrant questioning and changing?

Secondly I'm also a bit bored with the retort that if you don't take your husband's name, then you take your father's name. IT'S TOTALLY DIFFERENT. How can the two be compared? Regardless of the origin of the name you were born into, it is your name. How can it be so easily relinquished to a husband who 50% of the time be around for the long haul? (US divorce statistic)

My kids have my husband's name and I have a big problem with it, to be sure. I know it flies in the face of my beliefs, but I just don't know what the alternative is. Double-barrelling would be disasterous for us, and their taking my surname (as Trifle suggests) is equally unfair to dh. And "making up a new name" as someone suggested would seem not to be respectful to history somehow IMO.

But I guess this is about where you find your identity. For some, nothing is in a name; for others, everything is in a name. And some people, like me, are more pathologically "individual" than others--that is, we view ourselves as a whole, not half of a whole. Others, I guess, do view their partnership as their main identity.

Are you sorry you started this Trifle?

ooh the parental responsibility thing really miffs me-so,my partner and i could have been married at the time of conception and birth and then couple of months down the road we split up,partner has no more to do with us but still has parental rights or,partner and i could have been together for yrs before ds arrives,he could be best and most devoted dad ever and yet he has no rights unless we marry or sign a bit of paper aaarghh!!his relationship status with me has nothing to do with his relationship with his son.

yoko yes i am in exactly the same position. That is one of the main reasons I got married for a second time. The system stinks.
Oh and the life insurance was another.

mmnn,life insurance,now the whole marriage thing looks appealing!!

LOL yoko
It appealled to me

I'm interested in how emotive this subject is. I married when I was in my thirties, so had an established career and had got very used to my maiden name, but I took my husband's name for convenience.
I just couldn't be doing with faffing around with being both Miss X and Mrs Y and having 2 signatures.
However I cerainly don't feel that changing my name has affected who I am - the reason I'm not the person I used to be is 2 small boys.

Just a small point on the lineage thing: it's MUCH easier to prove/know for sure who the mother is than to be absolutely sure who the father is. So the whole tradition of tracing parentage through the male line and surname seems pants to me. Ooh, what with pregnancy hormones and a generally bad day, am very tempted to tell dp this baby's getting my name and my name alone and that's the end of it Hey Ms Expatkat, nice to know it irriates someone else too!

dd has my partner's name simply because there are no other kids of her generation to carry it on (he's the only boy). I come from one of 3 sisters however my sister has given all her kids our surname. Strangely enough I don't care (although I will be keeping my name when we marry) but it means a lot to his family to keep the name going so that made it an easy decision. I can see that the different names could become quite annoying though

iota, i don't agree it's more "convenient" to take your hasbands surname. Why would you need to sign two names ? I am not MRS XYZ just because I married Mr XYZ. I am still Ms ABC. All my papers (passport, driving license etc) are in the name ABC and I wouldn't dream of signing XYZ on anything. Surely that's when it would become confusing ?

Message withdrawn

I had no hesitation in changing from about the most popular British surname you can imagine (combined with equally popular first name) to a far more exciting Italian name. But besides that I also like the feeling that we are all (me, dh and kids) 'on the same team' with the same name.

The thing that does annoy me is that when we are in Argentina (dh's country)I officially have to use my maiden name. So while my British passport, driving licence and everything I possess in this country have my new surname, my Argentinian documents have me with my maiden name. I haven't used it for years and it just just doesn't feel like me. As far as I know, you can never change your surname in Argentina. And, surprise, surprise, children get their father's name. They can also use mother's surname followed by father's if they like.

OK, I've read this thread v quickly so pardon me if I've missed any points or repeat any.

I like the fact that all of my family (ie, dh, dd, ds and me) have the same surname. It identifies us as a family unit, belonging together. And it's simpler for other people - it's easy to find us in the phone book, eg!

I don't really understand the point about losing your identity by changing surname. Your first name is more important. The surname just distinguishes you from all the other people with the same first name. And loads of names are part of who you are - what about your mother's maiden name and your father's mother's maiden name? You can't possibly keep them all. And if you're to much of a feminist to take your husband's name, come up with a new one then you can all share a name.

So there.

My name - which is very unusual - IS my identity. I spend an awful lot of time explaining it and spelling it, but it's me. I couldn't change either part of the infuriating multiracial combination it is.

My kids have dp's Bengali surname followed, non-hyphenated, with my Swedish one (cunningly ordered by me, to avoid the situation Hughsie is in - and yes, quite often already they are down under my surname not their father's). I'm sure I could have done something easier but I do want them to have my name, and he wants them to have his.

PS just to make the poor little loves' lives even more complicated they have unspellable first names as well, cunningly selected from different continents to represent their origins.

I suppose I should pack their bags and get ready for them to leave home now, really.

I'm more than just a name.

I've changed my name at home, kept my own name at work. didn't want my children to have a different name to me. could have argued but didn't think it was worth it.

My husband's name and mine are very similar in 'feel' ie both quite straight,purely English and five letters long, so it felt quite a fair swap. As my dh and my stepdaughter already had it, it seemed reasonable that I and my son should adopt it rather than anyone else change. I rather like being part of a similarly surnamed 'tribe'. However, had I a beautiful or unusual surname, I think I may have felt differently. Stephan Shakespeare - pundit and opinion pollster, changed his name as his wife is a descendant of THE Shakespeare, very proud of her lineage and wanted to pass it on the the children. I think that's great. My first name is quite unusual which I also think helped smooth the transition. Couldn't bear to give up my professional name though - that was earned through years and years of hard work and I wasn't going to give that up!

Yes, it's the notion of belonging to a tribe or team that I was referring to in an earlier post--some people need/want to feel part of something larger, some people don't. I definitely don't, and in fact tend to avoid anything that even suggests a "group" or "team." In school I always went for "individual" sports, and also steered clear of cliques. (Still do.) I'm devoted to the needs of my children and dh, but I don't see myself as part of a unit.

I think taking or not taking your man's name is emotive because it can bring up all of these other issues, like identity and ownership (for some).

Thank goodness we have the choice.

soupdragon - we're all more than just a name - its; the inequality of the whole business that stinks.
So no-one likes my idea of combining surnames eg. Ms. Brown and Mr. Smith become Mr. & Ms. Brith (or something!).
A straightforward Mr./Ms I can live with (although I don't like Ms.). It's the Mrs./Miss bit I really hate.

But do we have the choice ... pressures of societal norms and all that ....