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.

Xausted, to me my surname IS who I am. In our case, because my name was important to me & DH didn't feel his was to him, he decided to take my name when we got married. Fine, all happy. Then he told his parents. Despite being the youngest of 3 boys, & there already being 2 grandsons with the (very common) family name, his parents went ballistic at the idea. Threatened to disown him etc. (20 years later I'm wondering why we didn't just say fine, do what you like..).

Caused a bit of a wedge between me & them because it made our lives far more complicated than they needed to be. When we had DD & double-barrelled, the solicitor doing the Deed Poll insisted on interviewing DH BY HIMSELF, to check he really wanted to do it!! (I didn't have to sign it, incidentally, because the form says "take this name for myself, my wife and wider issue"... ie I still don't count!)

Since then, all my family, and the PIL have managed to address us as Mr & Mrs X-Y, but his brothers, uncles & wider family have refused to do so, which TMM is very rude. Fair enough to send cards to Mr Y, but when they send me things to Mrs Y (not my name) or worse Miss/Master Y it really puts my back up.

The first time I heard DH on the phone saying "this is Mr X" I was surprised, then quite annoyed that he could have saved so much hassle by sticking to his own ideas in the first place! He is Mr X at work, I am Mrs X at work... DD refuses to use DHs surname at all, & registered herself at school using only mine....

OK, now to make myself really unpopular. I hear a lot about "I" on this thread and not much about "we". Married or not, if you are in a long-term relationship with children in it then you may be still and individual but you are part of a family unit and I think that all having the same name as far as possible is an important part of that.

Well, I am with Xhausted here. I had abxolutely no problem at all taking my husband's name ... and I went from an unusual name to a very ordinary name. I had quite a lot of flak from two particular friends who gave me all the 'You will lose your identity' thing ... two friends who, incidentally, refuse to wear wedding rings ...
I never ever felt that I would lose my identity when getting married ... frankly I don't get that argument. I know who I am ... I know who my parents are ... and I am proud of my lineage ... I have not changed as a person AT ALL for taking my husband's name ... I do not need to keep my maiden name to keep my identity. My first name, however, is important. I hate it when my mother writes to me as Mrs John Smith (made up name obviously) .. I tell her that I married my DH and took his surname but I didn't change MY name ... IYSWIM ...
Oh and ... I think WWW mentioned this ... historically, the reason children traditionally take on fathers' names is because before the days of DNA testing paternity was very hard to prove and so it was the only way to show paternity and link the child to its father.
Don't know what all the fuss is about either ... I would hate to be faffing about with one name for me and one name for DS etc etc ...

A precious maiden name is only your father's name, its nothing that special. I can't understand all the fuss about keeping one's independence and identity. I couldn't wait to be Mrs X and I had a nice maiden name. I also don't get the splitting of finances.

What I meant, its only a question of choosing which MALE family member's name to use.

Message withdrawn

No Bloss ... you don't understand ... it has nothing to do with 'not caring' about my name. I care deeply about the name that I was born with ... it is my lineage and my heritage. I don't think that taking your husband's name when you get married should make you feel that you 'give up' who you were when you were married. I know my mother's maiden name, and her mother's ... I know about my mother's lineage as much as my father's if not more. I think it is just a matter of how you look at it and how, as a family, you treat the matter of 'names'. My DS will probably know more about my family and my family's name more than his father's because tbh we (my DH and I) like my family more than his ... ... and my family have more of a sense of family than DH's family ...
If you are into tracing family trees ... it does make it easy when there is a family name to follow ... (ie. along the male line) that doesn't mean that the women get discarded ... if you want to find out about the women, look at their names and trace back their families.
I think that double barrelling and making up new names would make tracing families a real headache for historians/geneiologists (sp? I think that is the right word?) of the future. Some people don't see that as important but being a boring history boffin I think it is important.
This is all IMHO of course ... each to their own as usual ...

I took my DH's surname gladly !!
Both mine and his are unusual, but mine was much longer and harder to spell. After years of people getting it wrong, having to repeat myself over and over,or thinking they had misheard the first time, it was quite a relief to get rid of it !!!

Ghosty, I think I know what you mean ... maybe it was because my parents divorced and I had no more contact with my father that made me happy to take on my dh's name (incidentally, for some strange reason he spells it differently from how it is written in his birth certificate - I spell it the 'right' way! ) ...
So I hardly know anything about my father's lineage, and our family has skipped past both sets of grandparents - our family tree is based on my great-grandfather's name on my mother's side.

Motherinferior - are the names put together continuously then? That wouldn't work for us and also as there are no males to carry on my family name I am hoping that the boys may one day want to drop their fathers!! I also do think that names are becoming less important and people call themsleves what they want these days and change their names to suit their circumstances so I imagine a family name will fade as time goes on - bit sad really!

I was not married when DS1 was born, so he took my suname, much to then DP's disgust. At that time I was very unsure if we would be together next week let alone see it thirough to marriage. He eventually came around and came with me to register him. His name on the birth certificate was more important than which surname he had. When we did marry 3 years later, we re-registered ds1 and his birth certificate says DS1 DH surname as though it had always been that way.

My sister told her DP(!) she was pregnant and he scrpered so her DD took her surname. She eventually married last year and had her name changed by deed poll to her step father's name. No-one knows she is not biologically his, and she is not left out.

A friend of mine has 3 children the first 2 have her ex's surname and DS3 has her DP's surname. She says in works quite well. If she get a phone call asking for Mrs A she knows it is somthing about DS1 or DS2, if they ask for Mrs B then she knoe=ws it will be about DS3, if they ask for Mrs/Miss C then no children are involved. What made us laugh was a school outig we both went on. The teacher called out a few names and said you are with Mrs B. Then she called a few more names and old them they were with DS1's mum. She then asked if I was married.
We just find it funny that I am married and she asked if I was, but assumed my friend was when she isn't just because she is older than me.

I would also llike to add that surname seems to afect grandparents too. I am 1 of 3 girls so none of my parents grandchildren have their name anymore but this doesn't bother them. Their genetic link is more important than their surname. Dh is one of 3 boys, but my children are the only one with his father's name. As DS1 was a my name before we married, at one point none of DH dad'd grandchildren had his name. This did bother him and he tolerated all of them but never took them out or bought htem presents etc. Now my dss have their fathers surname, Dh dad takes them out, buys them sweets etc. I feel as though he is being very shallow and petty. They are his grand children no matter what surname they have!

Hughsie - they are Name Secondname Hissurname Mysurname. As in Bloggs Bloggins. Mine marginally harder to spell, but it's a close-run thing.

Oh dear; I think I do have some difficulties with thinking of us all as a 'unit' - maybe this is because dp and I only got together in our mid-30s after a lot of bruising and painful breakups on both sides. I do think we're together and linked together permanently through the girls even more than through our relationship, but I also think of us as two quite separate individuals. And my lovely lovely daughters are separate people as well - I am lucky enough to live with them and share my life with them, but they are people in their own right as well (actually I feel that last point very strongly indeed but won't labour it here). Their two surnames bring their parents together while not conflating them - and are something special, and particular, to them.

Sorry. Realise what a nasty person this shows me to be. Will definitely get on with packing their bags.

You dont sound nasty at all - what have I told you about putting yourself down!!! Changing your nickname would be a start!!

Message withdrawn

motherinferior - you don't sound nasty! i feel the same way in a way. We are a family unit and we do things as aa family unit, but at the same time we are five individuals who do things separately.

Uh oh! I was brought up in a family of "individuals" and we are NOT a close family now. I rather envy people who have interfering parents (not often though ) The reality is that I was given lots of freedom but left to my own devices and to make up my own, "individual", mind about things. Saved my parents having to take too much interest in what I was doing and meant they could get on with their own "liberated" lives........

I'm not a joiner at all - my only membership is of the National Trust! But I do enjoy feeling part of my little family with the same name for family purposes. Dh and I are very different people and I know that my son will be independent of me probably sooner than I would like but for now it feels good to me to have the same name. Of course, I think these decisions are personal ones and all variants are fine IMO. I also feel though that my 'maiden' name is definitely me too, and would HATE to see it just vanish, which is one of the reasons I keep it for work. Actually it has both emotional and professional value to me. It feels like part of my identity, and is my 'brand name' if you like, as it appears on everything I write.

Oooer! Just reread that. Didn't mean to imply that families who don't share a name are necessarily like mine. Being a member of this group already implies care and attention towards parenting and it seems that everyone here gives it a lot of thought. I just had parents who gave it no thought but I think that was fairly typical of their generation.

I had no problem with taking my husband's name, but did object to the assumption that I would give my ds the same first name as him and 8 predecessors. Not only would that mean that our boy had no input from me into his name, but that his identity would not be unique from his father and grandfather. In the end we wrote a big list of all our family names and then chose something completely different.

The only real trouble I've found with keeping my maiden name is at airports. I've been stopped at Brussels airport and Milan airport when travelling alone with ds1 (who has my husband's surname). Both times, immigration officials wanted proof that ds1 was my child. And by proof, they meant a copy of the birth certificate with my name on (which, needless to say, I didn't have...).
Still, given all the options outlined below I'm still in the "keep you own name, give your child your husband's name" camp.

Well that's interesting Lorien, sounds like I could be in the same situation then if I were to take ds anywhere long haul...

Love my married name but use my maiden name at work still (same reason as Aloha as it's the name that appears in print). I remember reading somewhere that women never have their own surname anyway as generations before them will have changed their maiden name when they married so the female names will have disappeared long in the past. So even thogh I use my maiden name at work, it's not 'mine' because it's the name my mum took from my dad when she married.

Maybe there's something to be said for coming up with a new surname when a couple get married. This would show that not only has the wife left her parents to be married but so has the husband left his - they are now a new family unit of their own.

Ooh, mine's the 100th message - do I get a prize?