Not married, baby’s surname

[Jusetj]

Why is it important to have your own surname? I think I’ve probably missed something huge here but I’ve read loads that you shouldn’t give the other surname, I’m just not sure why?

Thank you, if only I’d known at the time that we’d separate and he wouldn’t be an involved parent, but I was young, naive and assumed we’d ‘last the distance’ considering we had children together! I soon learnt that children don’t bind people together at all if a relationship isn’t working ….. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

I really strongly advise any woman who might be reading these posts to INSIST their dc have their surnames if they’re not married. I can’t stress enough that no one knows what the future holds, so don’t assume you’ll stay with the father of your kids.
My dc’s might not have my name, but they know whose been there for them throughout their lives, and that’s the most important thing.

Because if you have to decide between 2 surnames, you can decide it by

• Tradition (different for different places, but if you're in the UK the tradition is to take the mother's name).


• Who's put in the most work in bringing the child in to the world - so the mother (usually!)


• Practicality - if you split later on (or are already seprated) it's much more likely that the child will spend more time in the mum's care. In fact fathers are much more likely to disappear out of children's lives than mothers, so the child could end up with the name of someone they never or rarely see.

All that said, I have a different name to DCs (now adults) and it was never an issue in terms of GPs, passport control, school, NHS etc. I've not yet met someone who has had an issue with having a different name to their children, and have only ever heard that mentioned on here.

I was looking at our parent council mailing list and it's interesting how many of the parent contacts have different surnames to the child. Meaning, the parent who (as ever) is the one taking responsibility for the children and their schooling is the mother, but she doesn't get to give her name to her children.

I posted earlier saying I gave DS my name until dp and I got married and then changed it. But dh's name came from his dad, who was adopted by his step father and so took his name at that point. So the name we all use was not a long standing family name and is really no more 'ours' than one we'd plucked from thin air. Really I think we should have given the kids my maiden name because at least that is connected to our family's history.
I don't mean that I no a nasty way because fil's dad was apparently lovely but it's mad that we all use a name that has no connection to our ancestry and don't use the name which does!

I can understand women choosing to give the dad's name because their own is not as nice (I would have done that too), but it really should be something that women think about and don't just do by default or because some bloke is banging on about tradition, while not having done the traditional thing of marrying the mother of his kids!

I posted earlier saying I gave DS my name until dp and I got married and then changed it.

he could have taken your/your child’s name…….:

Yes he could have. But I was much younger then and didn't think about things the same way I do now and didn't appreciate that I would miss my name

To be fair to dh he never cared that DS had my name (I did put his as a middle name, mostly to keep the in-laws happy) and never put any pressure on me to change mine or DS. I changed it because it was just the norm back then and everyone in my family had changed their name on marriage.

Point was it wasn’t all on you. He had an opportunity here too.

Ah. The “we’ve always done it this way” defence.

I don’t know how old you are but I’m mid-40s and NEVER would have contemplated giving up my name and taking someone else’s, regardless of what anyone else did.

@PronounMadness people are allowed to be different to you you know. You sound really defensive

I'm glad someone said this. I started to think women were able to make baby's all by themselves in this thread. There's a lot of trust issues here too, not sure why you would choose to have a DC with someone that you don't trust enough to give a child their name.

My baby has his fathers name, we're due to get married this year, I don't see why I would've called him anything else or changed it after the wedding.

@happypineapples
My baby has his fathers name, we're due to get married this year, I don't see why I would've called him anything else or changed it after the wedding.

Why do you think his father's name should be the default? Why not yours? Why not both?

@happypineapples

There's a lot of trust issues here too, not sure why you would choose to have a DC with someone that you don't trust enough to give a child their name.

Why don't you ask this if the sexes are reversed though? If a baby has the father's last name do you ask him why he chose to have a child with a woman he doesn't trust enough to give that child their name?

I think this kind of honesty should be applauded. I think the vast majority of women give their children the father's name and/or change their own names on marriage simply because 'it's what you do'.

@PronounMadness , like you, I would never have changed my name, but not everyone grows up with the same influences, and a lot of women are brought up being told that their goal in life is to get a man to propose to them, marry them, and take his name. It's often not until much later in life that many women realise quite how unequal and oppressive the patriarchal system is. We shouldn't be attacking women who honestly share their own journeys.

I'll stress that no one put pressure on me to do anything. I could have kept my name and no one would have made a fuss (except my ILs). But mostly I just didn't think too much about it because my mum had changed hers as had my mil, aunties etc. I was 23 when DS was born, 25 when I got married. I had the sense to give DS my name because that was important to me, given how much it hurt having him and (didn't know how things would pan out). But in all honesty I don't think any of us (inc dh) thought too much about it.
I am 48 now and while I like that all of us have the same name, I do have a little pang when I see my nephews (who have my family name) and me and my kids don't.

Ignore the posters here, this can be a strange place. If you don’t feel the need to be married and love the father it’s fine to give the baby his name.

I would personally give the baby his surname. What you have to understand is that most of the posters who reply to these surname posts have a vested interest in the subject because they have either broken up with their childrens father and are bitter about the name, or for ideological reasons. But this isn’t representative of society at all, it’s the usual to give a child it’s fathers surname - but the vast majority of people who have done that don’t come on here to passionately tell you not to, because they’re happy with their choice and don’t concern themselves with the subject.

it’s the usual to give a child it’s fathers surname

Only when the father's and mother's names match.

But what you are actually giving in those cases is the mother's new (married) name. It's the historic norm to give the mother's name. And of course that will match the father's in many (probably most) cases.

And yes of course it's fine to give the DC any surname you want - could be brand new if that's what's wanted.

The only agenda I have is to point out the centuries old tradition of giving the mother's name remains incredibly useful

I do think it's important to consider implications of the choice you make when it comes to names. Without MN a lot of women wouldn't know that you can experience difficulties travelling or that a dad can be completely absent but still block a mother from changing the child's name to their own in the future.

I think it is tradition to give a child it’s father’s name even if the parents aren’t married (I’ve noted this in my U.K. relatives on ancestry). But so what - why would you call your child after someone else, whether married or not. Call them after you.

Giving a child the man’s surname gives the man automatic parental responsibility in the eyes of a court. So in theory he has the right to have a say on several aspects of the child’s upbringing.

If you give the child your surname only the biological father has to apply to the court for parental responsibility (and probably won’t bother).

It's nothing to do with the surname. If the father is on the birth certificate, regardless of the surname used, then he has automatic parental responsibility

This isn't correct at all, they need to be on the birth certificate to have PR.

www.gov.uk/parental-rights-responsibilities/who-has-parental-responsibility

Who has parental responsibility
A mother automatically has parental responsibilityy_ for her child from birth.
A father usually has parental responsibility if he’s either:
• married to the child’s mother
• listed on the birth certificate (after a certain date, depending on which part of the UK the child was born in)

Births registered in England and Wales
If the parents of a child are married when the child is born, or if they’ve jointly adopted a child, both have parental responsibility.
They both keep parental responsibility if they later divorce.

Unmarried parents
An unmarried father can get parental responsibility for his child in 1 of 3 ways:
• jointly registering the birth of the child with the mother (from 1 December 2003)
• getting a parental responsibility agreement with the mother
• getting a parental responsibility order from a court

@meditrina

Yeah the centuries old tradition of giving the child the mothers name isn’t a tradition anywhere but on modern Mumsnet. Your the second poster who has tried to say it’s a tradition for the child to have the mothers name (even another one specifying “in the uk”). It’s not. It never has been. Stop trying to pretend it’s a thing, who are you trying to fool and why would you bother to try?

Even in case whether the parents were unmarried the child usually got the fathers surname - unless he was unknown.

Why are people even bothering to try to pretend it’s not the case that babies almost always get the fathers surname in this country and others which follow the same norms for naming children?

Yes - my apologies - the father needs to be named on the birth certificate to get PR.