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?

Jassy are you saying that families should choose the mother's name for the children, even if they as a couple prefer the Dad's name? I don't really get it.

This isn't children or women being oppressed, this is grown ups having discussions and deciding what they want to do based on each others feelings on the matter. It seems counter-productive to women's rights to push them to pass their name on if they'd prefer not to, it's about choice and options, not pressure and prescription in either direction, surely?

Less than 50% of DCs still live with their biological father at 16.

So most DCs will have a surname of someone who isn't part of their household by the time they are adults.

I've seen so many women allow their baby daddy's their way on baby naming in the vain hope that would make them more likely to stick around/be decent dad's/at least pay child support but none of the ones I know do.

The mums are left with DCs with different names they aren't allowed to change, causing hassle with travel, schools, GPs etc for years on end. It gets even more complicated when they later have another DC.

I've seen women have to spend £££ and put a lot of effort going through the legal system trying to change their dc's name back to theirs.

Isn't it easier just to avoid all of that and just stick with mums name? It's not like it's a minority issue- as the stat shows most families will end up with this problem.

My DP doesn't share a surname with his/our DC. No one has ever doubted his parentage!

What hassle does having a different name cause?

Passport control yes - but just make sure the birth certificate is packed along with your passport.

But doctors, schools? Genuinely interested. I haven't experienced any problems, and haven't heard of anyone else experiencing any problems (other than occasional questions at passport control)

Jackie, just because a child doesn't live with their father that doesn't mean he isn't relevant to them, what a ridiculous statistic to throw out there. My parents divorced when I was 3 years old, I love my Dad and we have always had a great relationship, he's always taken care of us and we are still his. The vast majority of Dad's are wonderful people, I know loads of brilliant ones, you make it sound like they don't deserve their children being named after them which just plainly isn't true.

As for schools, playgroups, doctors etc, I've never had any trouble with any of it and I have 2 children with different names to me.

The only issue I can imagine is that you get called Mrs PartnerSurname occasionally. I've been called that a few times. But then it's not really calling you Mrs PartnerSurname so much as MrsDCSurname.

Mine have both, non-hyphenated, though in practice they frequently hyphenate.

I have a gloriously unspellable surname (in the UK) with five successive consonants and an umlaut. No way was I missing the chance to pass that on. And spread out with DP's also frequently misspelled surname, they take up fifteen letters (not counting space or hyphens). My children hate me for it. I don't care.

My children have my surname. Why wouldn't they? I gave birth to them.

Rhiannon - no, I'm saying that the idea that it's a straight choice without an overlay of inequality, ingrained sexism and power imbalance is false, otherwise you'd see as many children with their mother's name as their father's.

There would also be as many men taking their wife's name on marriage as the other way around if the goal is the oft-stated 'I want us all to have the same name so we feel like a family'.

Jassy I think you can make a straight choice in this day and age, I'm living proof. I won't be somebody's inferior but it was 50/50 and he cared where I didn't. I won't get married to him, I want nothing of being passed from one man to another and I'm no traditionalist. I do however, think that couples with brains are more than capable of deciding many things between themselves without it harking back to the days of women obeying their men. I resent the assumption that we've all been brainwashed to think it's right, rather than something we've thought about and decided because we might prefer their name or generally give less of a shit than they do.

"Jassy I think you can make a straight choice in this day and age, I'm living proof. I won't be somebody's inferior but it was 50/50 and he cared where I didn't. "

Do you think that the fact that so many more men than women seem to care is free of societal context?

No one is suggesting that anyone has been brainwashed, but we make our decisions in part influenced by the society around us. Just like it seems normal to a lot of people to eat cereal for breakfast and weird to eat rye bread and ham. That's because we've observed and internalised ideas of normal. We do that with most things - it's how we live and function as a society.

No one is saying that you didn't make a totally free choice, but isn't it remarkable that so very many families making the same choice end up making the same decision?

I'm another example. I changed my name on marriage because I wanted my (future) children to have the same name as me, as did my husband. There were lots of complicated ways of achieving that (many of which didn't even occur to me back then, like taking a totally new name for both of us), and an easy way. And I took the easy way. I don't kid myself that that was free of the influence of society. It was a free choice, it was my choice and it was made for good reasons. But if it had been just as easy to do other things, maybe I'd have done differently...

They took DHs name, we were engaged at the time and I used his surname for school things anyway. We are now married. I like the surname better and I wanted to take his name.

^^Exactly what Penguins said. Rhiannon, why do you think your husband cared more than you? Do you think social conditioning on both sides played no role?

If it was truly a neutral choice, you'd expect to see it fall 50/50. It doesn't.

Our children have my name. DP isn't attached to his name and his family aren't really involved in our life, my side are much more hands on. His dad has never even sent our children a birthday card. I'd be very surprised if he even knew our children's names. Not through us not trying he just isn't interested and sadly DPs mum died a couple of months before our first child was born.

Bloody hell, where to start. Okay, here goes:

CactusAnnie and Jassy I have explained in previous posts that dp is the only one to continue his family name whereas there are loads of little Elwards about the place, this is why it is more important to dp. If I were the last Elward in my family, we'd have perhaps had one of each surname, we don't like double barrelled ones and our names are too similar sounding, it'd be a tongue twister.

Plus of course we are influenced by our society, but rational human beings can get past these things by deciding what people actually care about and basing their decisions on that. All of our decisions are made in context, so why is this particular area of such concern? We are very much products of our society, but considering there is no power associated with passing on a name, so I don't see it as a power issue, it's an arbitrary decision which has no consequences beyond the personal so it's a personal decision. There are probably differences in the sorts of car men and women prefer or the hobbies they do too, but we can't expect people to do/buy things they don't like because there's a gender imbalance. Let's fix actual problems like the pay gap and parental rights differences and leave the irrelevant stuff alone.

I also feel I ought to explain that I started posting in response to criticisms of people who had come to the same decisions that I had regarding my children's names. People were accused of making false choices, and I find that patronising, judgemental and unnecessary. Do what suits your family and leave others to do the same is my view.

Mate, don't use me as an example of your projections of "emotional blackmail" - my other half wanted to use MY surname. I wanted to use his because my surname also makes a good first name, and that was a good way of giving baby more choices of first name.
I really couldn't give two shits about names, but I DO care about not making people who care feel rejected, even if I have only met them once! If there was a new name I really wanted to use, I would, and there is every chance that future kids will have a new name, or have my name, if a reason presents itself.

ours will be [first name] [my surname]-[his surname]. We'd have rather mashed our names together, but the combinations frankly sound extremely odd and/or rude, although the names are OK on their own. When the kids is old enough to reproduce, they can decide what to do with their name then - mega-hyphenate, chuck it all, call their baby Smith, whatever.

CactusAnnie you seem to be confusing value with power. Things can be of worth to people because of many reasons, power isn't the only one. I can't believe I'm having to say that but there you go. If you see names as possession then it is equally wrong for a mother to possess a child than a father, I don't see either of us as owning our children, that's a strange way of looking at things, they are of me but not something I own. Do you think that mothers with different names to their children have less power over them? I appreciate the value that some people place on lineage and dp feels that, I do too I just don't connect it with names the same way he does. It's a word, a word that some of his family have and my beautiful children have too, really not a big deal.

That article contains only one paragraph on the subject of what naming is for, and it says that it's a way of honouring late or living relatives. Of course it is, but it's a gesture, that's all. There are no tangible advantages for anybody.

Basically, this shit where people think that they get to tell other people how they "ought" to name their kids can fuck right the fuck off, no matter who it is or why they are saying it.

The idea that all kids ought to have a mother's surname because feminism is just as much of a load of piss as the idea that they ought to have a father's because tradition, and the oh-so-subtle sneering and bullying at the ladies who've chosen to use their partners names in this thread makes an utter mockery of the idea that it's about empowering women.

The idea that all kids ought to have a mother's surname because feminism is just as much of a load of piss as the idea that they ought to have a father's because tradition, and the oh-so-subtle sneering and bullying at the ladies who've chosen to use their partners names in this thread makes an utter mockery of the idea that it's about empowering women.

I missed the bit where anyone suggested that...

And I've lost count of the number of digs my husband and I have had over the years because I didn't change my name to his - particularly on MN, curiously.

My DD1 has my name as her father was never on the scene and DD2 has my name because DP and I wont be getting married (have been together 22 years so i guess its for keeps :) ). I didn't give DD2 his name because i wanted both of my children to have the same surname, although there is a huge age gap between them (15 years). We would have double barrelled it but it didn't roll off the tongue well - it displeased MIL but we really weren't that bothered.

It's frankly amazing how het up people are getting about the fact that they changed their name, or gave their DC's the father's name. You'd think that people here were being really nasty about it, and having read the entire thread, I can't see a single place where that has happened.

Why are you so defensive? It's bizarre. The vast majority of women in our society change their names on marriage, or give their children the father's name regardless of marital status. You people are the societal norm. Why are you so threatened about people who haven't done that, and giving their reasons why?

Do you have any idea what it feels like for people who HAVEN'T done that? People just calling you "Mrs X" because you are married, without even bothering to ask what you are doing about you name? The assumption is still very much that the woman will change her name, or that the children will take the father's name. It is everywhere.

Younger people are a bit better now - I had a number of people asking me what I would with my name before we got married. It didn't change the fact that almost everyone aged 40 and above automatically wrote our wedding cards as Mr and Mrs