Child’s surname - thoughts?

[Mumofamadam]

Hello! So I have a question and am genuinely curious to know what your opinions are! My little girl is a year and a half now but I still often find myself thinking over the decision we made with regards to her name. She has her dad’s name (we’re married, however I kept my name when I got married).

At the time it wasn’t really an option to double barrell it because my husbands name is already a double barrell!! So I settled for her having my surname as her middle name to avoid a triple barrell. Does anyone know of anyone who has cut out half their double barrell name to swap it for another (my name for instance)?

Do you think it’s unreasonable to be so uncomfortable with this? My surname/family means so much to me :(

I quite like the Spanish tradition where everyone's names are double barreled and they combine one name from each when they have a child.

So Mr Garcia Lopez who marries Miss Hernandez Santiago would have a child called Master Garcia Hernandez.

I see no reason why you can't combine your names like that to give your child your name as part of a double barrel :)

Then all three of you would have a different surname if I've understood correctly? It might be a bit confusing for your daughter when she's older

I’d leave it. My daughter has two surnames and literally no one uses mine ever. I was told it looks like a middle name so everyone only uses her absent fathers name 😑

I would change it. I really hate the sexist tradition/assumption that children get their father's name.

My maiden name was double barrelled. My brother married and his wife took her name and the second part of the double barrell so their kids have her name and part of his. It worked for them but my husband's name didn't really 'go' with either barrell and it's a good surname so I just took his.

You should change it so that your child has a new double barrelled name based on your name and half of her dad's. If he was Spanish then he would keep his mum's half of the double barrel

That’s reassuring thanks all! I always thought to keep the second part of his name and add mine to it but I wasn’t sure if it was unreasonable of me as the other aspect of it is potentially upsetting either his mum or dad ! And he certainly wouldn’t want to do that..
But I’ve found myself thinking because I don’t want to upset one of his parents I’ve missed out on her having my name and having both of theirs? … doesn’t seem fair to me :/

Sounds like you're too late to correct her birth certificate (as she's over 12 months old) so any change would have to be by deed poll.

This means that every time your DD needs to prove her official identity in the future e.g. for a passport, bank account or registering at a school, she will need to produce her birth certificate and her deed poll.

I was in this exact position and held firm when I was pregnant with DD. I said he could pick which half of his double barrel he wanted to pass on and which order the name went in, but that “dealer” was replacing one or other. In the end he dropped his Mums surname and we used her first name as DD’s middle name.

DH did try the old “but they’re both my name, it’s like you trying to pick one syllable of yours!”, but after I gave birth his protests got less and less frequent and eventually he quietly told the registrar my choice of surname-combo.

DMIL didn’t really give a shit about names (at least she didn’t mention anything to us save for “well you need to make a decision”) so I wasn’t worried about upsetting her. In time our kids will have to make their own decisions about their surnames and I hope I can be as nonplussed about it as she was with whatever choice they make.

My partner and I both have 2 surnames (different to each other!) so we just picked one each to give to our children, a new "double" surname. I feel absolutely no guilt to the grandparents who's name didn't get passed down.

Agreed. DS was never not going to have my surname as well as his father's, married or not. (We are married.) Our only conversation was what order they sounded better in.

My husband is double barrelled. The first half of his name was an absolute PAIN to put girls names (that I liked) with; they all sounded silly or clunky so one day I had a hormonal tantrum about it and asked why we can't just DROP the first bit of his name and be "very common English surname"!!

He looked at me and said "Why don't we just use "Oganesson-very common English surname" (not that my real surname is Oganesson but you see what I mean)

So that's what our daughter's surname is! It's also now my surname since we got married and his surname since he got a deed poll to make us all the same.

Edited because asterisks.

What’s odd about that? We all have different surnames in our family and it’s never been a problem.

@Torganer just a personal preference. It would be very odd for me to have a different surname to both my husband and my children but obviously to other people it's not an issue.

@gentlemum
Yes, I can understand that as people have different traditions. My best friend’s family were very upset when she didn’t give her son the first name that all their fathers and grandfathers had.

For me, first names/middle names/surnames have no bearing on how I feel about my family, but I can see how other people’s opinions differ. My Spanish friend at work finds it odd when the family all have the same surname and there is no recognition of (usually) the mother’s side of the family in that choice. Although, I also know someone at work who changed his surname to his wife’s, I didn’t even realise he had got married until I saw his new email address. We had a chat in the pub about it and he said he wasn’t to fussed about his surname, but his wife loved hers as she was an only child and wanted to ensure her name didn’t die out. It was a lovely and unusual surname!

Me, my partner and our kids have different surnames. Me and partner aren't married. No way I wasn't having my surname there. So we double barrelled our surnames his-mine. Even tho his os french and people don't know how to pronounce it. In a way I wish I hasnt hyphoned it, so they could skip out the odd/tricky French part when older if they wished to tho.

We kept our last names upon marriage and we gave dd her own unique, brand new last name and we are double barrelling to hers when our passports are up for renewal.