Baby Surname

[ClimbAHill]

I’m 29 weeks and DP and I are struggling to decide which surname to use. We aren’t married and if we did get married in the future I wouldn’t change my name (been down that road before). Neither of us feel strongly that the baby ‘should’ get our name and we’re both the last in our family line. We don’t want to hyphenate or double barrel but will probably use the other name as a middle name.

Our best idea at the moment is to let fate decide - use his surname if it’s a boy and mine if it’s a girl (only because one of the boy names on our list doesn’t go with my surname). Does anyone have any better suggestions on how to decide?

So if you had another child in future you'd choose their surname based on whether they were male or female?

If you're not married the hospital will tag baby with your surname anyway so it would make much more sense if neither of you were bothered for baby to have your surname.

I vote your surname, you’ve done the hard work so far. Is either name nicer or more unusual?

I think the convention if unmarried is to give mother's name. My dc has father's name which I regret

TBH, if neither of you are bothered I'd go with what you suggest about using his for a boy and yours for a girl with the other as a middle name (or a second surname).

I do think it's good for both names to be there.

I think the default should be female, for lots of reasons.

I also would rethink double-barrelling. I spent years thinking it would be a faff, we both have slightly unusual, two syllable surnames. But it just seemed the most logical and 'fair' response. Now I have a toddler and its actually weirdly been helpful in explaining her family to her. She knows her name is 'Toddler Surname-HisSurname'. She facetimes both her grandparents, and its kind of nice explaining 'I'm your mummy and my name is MyName Surname, and your grandparents MySurname are MY mummy and daddy, and daddy is HisName HisSurname, and you also have grandad HisSurname and granny HisSurname'' It sort of makes logical sense. I know it would drive me crazy to have her ask why I had a different name. This way we can explain she's part of both of us so she has part of both our names to make her name.

(She hasn't asked yet why the two grannies and grandads just have one name!)

Oh and to elaborate on why if its one it should be yours - my in-laws are into genealogy. And while they do go off on random tangents into the family lines of female antecedents several hundred years ago (they are VERY into genealogy!) the simple fact of the matter is people research the family line of people who share their surname 90% of the time. Its innately misogynistic and also daft given if there's going to be an error in parentage it will most likely to be on the male line)

I just feel by saying 'Ok lets use your surname' you're potentially writing yourself out of your family history. The default is for the woman's family to be the one that's overlooked, even if its not how you live (my own extended family insists on calling me Mrs HisName, and our daughter as just HisName, despite it being made explicitly clear on many occasions its not what we're called)

Use yours with his as a middle name

A few things to think about, thanks peeps.

@PegPeople we only talked about what we’d do with a second quite briefly but we both thought we’d use whatever surname we’d gone with for the first.

@EL8888 both names are pretty uninteresting unfortunately .

Go with the less common name.

It's just a name though. Ours have dh name, I took his when we married. He has had his surname changed twice since birth. His dads, mothers maiden then mothers married.

Honestly, use yours. If you ever split up it will be much better for you to have the same surname as your child. Given that the probability is you would have primary care of your child if you do split, totally use yours (or double barrel)

Use yours. For a lot of reasons.

You should just wait till baby comes and whatever first name you decide on see what 2nd name goes best with it. Me and my husband were in same boat, i never changed my name when we married and didnt care if baby had mine or hubbys 2nd name, makes him/her no less yours. The name we chose ended up sounding better with his surname so thats what we went with.

I have the same predicament (including being married then divoced then the faff and I found slightly embarrassing having to change mine back). Particularly at work where I changed my professional name... Won't be doing that again, but might change my personal name if I do get married again!

For baby to be through I think will go with my partner's as I dislike my surname! Tricky though!

@poodlepip this is a tangent but I got into a right faff when I got married because I changed some things but not everything then had to change things back again. I’ve still got a bank account (now empty) that has my married name and an old address on it. They won’t let me change the address because I can’t prove the name (even although the account was originally opened in my non married name) and they won’t change the name because I can’t prove the address. I would say change everything or nothing!

Obviously everyone’s circumstances and considerations are different but if we were to split up I’m pretty sure we would both want joint custody so I don’t really want to use that as part of the decision making. Also I have been quite open with my DP about making certain financial decisions with a worst case relationship scenario in mind so he might start to get a complex if it comes up in relation to this as well .

DH didn’t change his name when we married, the DC have both our surnames hyphenated.

This worked well for us, he did as much school / GP / flying abroad with them as I have.

Your system sounds fair enough, especially if both names end up in the mix.

This is really interesting thread for me. I'm still early in pregnancy, but not something I thought about. We both have surnames that are two syllables and 9 letters long each, so would bit annoying to have such a long last name, if we double barrel it. My name is incredibly rare and everyone on the planet with that name is a relative. It is a name the some find funny and often get misspelled, but I'm fond of it and as there no boys amongst my siblings and cousins and I'd like to see it continue. My DP has a very nice last name so that would be good.

Having said I don't like double barrel, I really like the Spanish system (and I think other countries do it too), where everyone has a double barrel name, and the children get the first surname of both parents, usually the father's first.

All the best figuring this out.

@Katy4321 I wonder if we have the same name? Or had, since I changed mine when I got married because DH also has an unusual name.

OP I think I'd go with your name if it were me but I think you've reached a good compromise.

@Katy4321 it’s hard isn’t it. I think if I had a really unusual name I’d feel more strongly about using mine if that helps you at all.

I have kept my maiden name following marriage which means dh and I have different surnames. My ds has both of our surnames. It's a bit of a mouthful but we chose not to have a middle name to make it work. I am Spanish so it is also typical Spanish thing to do.

If you have a different surname to your child it can cause all sorts of havoc when you travel abroad. My friend has to carry her sons birth certificate with her when travelling as they always question their relationship.

@purbal that would be funny!

@climbahill yes I think would like to. And at least have the other name as a middle name, as you are thinking.