unmarried couples - who's surname did your child take?

[Tigger31]

I'm interested to know how you decided which surname your kids should have?

It seems most common for them to automatically take the bloke's name, but I don't know why that is?

Focusfocus
when the woman carries, tears her body giving birth, feeds and sometimes sacrifices a career over a DC, is it automatically assumed by many that the bloke who had sex at the start and may well be a lovely dad passes on his family name

I wanted to give my dc their dad's name precisely because of this. There was never any question of who the mother was! But I felt that having their dad's name made a really positive statement of his paternity.

But if they'd had your surname then everyone would've doubted who their father was? Come on!

Another point is that my surname is my father's name so I would have been passing on my father's name not "mine". In fact if you apply that logic most "mother's" names are their father's names. Even if my mother had kept "her" maiden name and given it to me I would have been given her father's surname and so on.

Not sure I'm making any sense but I know what I mean. I think I'm just trying to say that it doesn't really matter!

worriedmum - but by that rationale a man is also passing on his father's name and not his own.

No worriedmum, you're not making any sense. Your name is your name. Not anyone else's. You may have been given your father's surname, but your name is not his.

By the same rationale, on changing your name you are taking your FIL's name not your husband's.

Yeah I see that but I thought the objection was to the perceived patriarchy in automatically passing on the man's name. I think I was trying to say that most of the time even if a woman passes on her surname to her child it was a man's name at some point in the past purely because traditionally women took their husbands name on marriage and tended to only have children within wedlock.

If everyone's name is "theirs" what does it matter if a child is given the surname of it's mother or father?

I'm just musing . Pregnancy hormones may well have addled my brain though

I think if you are not married the baby/child should have the mothers surname, it can be changed at a later date if you do get married so that then the family would all have the same surname.

I personally would not feel comfortable with my child having a different surname to me, I had one friend who used part of her surname and part of her partners surname to create a whole new surname for her children. This to me made no sense of none of the family then had the same name!

Worried - Ah, I do kind of see what you mean. Of course, the only way to change that is over generations. If you pass on your name, and your daughters do likewise, and their daughters do likewise... You have to be the first generation some time!

If I wasn't married, I'd have double barrelled or just given then my name.

Not sharing a name with my kids is unthinkable to me.

Exactly Penguins! Perhaps I haven't lost all rationale thought after all.

Friend of mine double-barreled hers. I'd love to do the same, or even better go with just mine, but it always gets mispronounced and misspelt. Ends up looking like someone just kind of mashed the keyboard and hoped for the best.

Why is it so unthinkable to have a different name to your children?

Why isn't is similarly unthinkable for a man not to have the same name as his children, if they take the mothers name?

I have a different name to my kids. It bothers no one. Except my mother, who is horrified at the idea people might think I'm an unmarried mother ;)

Something is confusing me.

Why is it negatively traditional to give your DC their father's surname - but not to change your name when you marry?

I would say both are negative as it harks back to women being seen as property and losing status as an individual once married.

I think that's also a negative tradition Thurlow. I guess people are focussing on the DC names cos that was the OP.

The whole premise of the thread, and many posters, is that if you marry you will take your DH's name.

Many many women these days do not change, some men are open to being the one to change, anyone can change their name whether or not they marry.

I am surprised that so many people simply follow a very conservative tradition.

Married here - double barrel name now. Baby will have both surnames too and we are both happy with this. I think this is more common now, although both sets of grandparents are a bit by this and still can't seem to grasp that DC1 (due very soon) will not automatically have DH's surname.

I don't think I have misunderstood!
The OP seems to assume that it is only unmarried couples who have this discussion - presumably because she assumes that married couples have the same surname?
Numerous posters say they have given the DC DP's name 'as we will be getting married soon and all have the same name then anyway'
Numerous posters have give the DC the DP / DH's name even if not married .

I have the same beliefs as you - we call ourselves the 'HisName-MyName' family, and DC is 'Hisname-MyName'.

I think automatically taking a man's name and giving your children a man's name is a negative tradition.

Once the tradition has been questioned and re-balanced, and it all really is 'just a name' that men will be as happy to change as a woman, then the decision can be made equally between the couple, or done on the toss of a coin, or whatever. I suspect the increasing frequency of same-sex marriages will undermine the tradition, too. I don't know w single same sex couple who have not either both double barrelled, or just kept their own names.

My DD has my surname and my DPs surname as a middle name - we're not married and DP didn't mind though I think he likes having his surname in there somewhere.

If we do get married in the future I would keep my surname (DP is welcome to take mine if he wants us all to match!) or equally, if my DD does want to take DP's surname when she's older, and rearrange her names, I won't be offended.

My surname is actually my maternal grandfather's surname, my mother's surname, because my parents weren't married either.

XP is going to have a problem soon as he is planning to take the DC abroad this summer and he hasn't yet realised that he will need a letter from me to do so. (It's not all about him you see, and would require some interest in the world beyond his immediate orbit to find out what PR actually involves.)

I will tell him of course as I wouldn't want to ruin the DC's holiday, but I do wish he would find this stuff out for himself.

My parents were not married and could not agree on which name I should take. So I ended up having a double barrelled surname. And I hated it. Both names were not too long by themselves but add them together and my name would not fit on any forms I had to fill in. Sure my mother still says it made me memorable to others but apart from official docs I only used the first half of my name for years. Now married and a definitely highlight was changing my surname. If we were not married I would consider using both surnames for our children but with one as a middle name and not double barrelled.

I can't get worked up about this. My children have DPs surname. No intention to marry. It was my choice. I don't think I'd change my name if we did marry but they need a name. Most double barrelled names sound a bit rubbish to me.
Think dp is quite pleased they have his name, although that wasn't why I did it.
Yes, I can see that there are negative connotations to the whole convention in terms of its history, but the actual naming practice (giving them their dad's name) seems harmless to me.

I don't think it's harmless (in the context of patriarchy/women's lower status in society) to send the next generation a message that what dad wants dad gets (which is what a lot of these cases boil down to).