Change my mind almost daily about my married surname

[Likeaburstcouch]

On an almost daily basis I swing from wanting to take his name to wanting to keep mine to wanting to double-barrel. I just need a mechanism to decide! I don't know how to make the decision!

I've been with DH for 10 years, got married this year. My maiden name is 4 syllables, his is 2, so it would be quite long as a double barrelled surname. We have 2 DC, the eldest has double barrelled as we had him very early in our relationship and I wasn't sure DH (then DP) would stick around - no fault of his, my own cynicism. By the time we had DC2, he'd proven to be a brilliant dad, we had a mortgage and we were engaged, so we just gave DC2 my husbands surname, expecting to all have the same surname once we were married.

Main reason for taking his name is a kind of romantic sense of having a family name. Main reason for not wanting to change it, honestly, it makes me feel vulnerable. I have no rational reason to believe he'll cheat on me, but I was a child of divorce, my stepdad was also the victim of a horrible cheat, and my first relationship ended over cheating so I think I'm just scared it will happen to me again. I'm sure this is common but for some reason none of my friends now have divorced parents so I don't have anyone to talk to about it.

Main reason for not having double-barrelled is that he flat out refuses - which then makes me double down about not changing mine. Also as much as DC1 (aged 5) loves having a long double barrelled name at the moment, I worry it will burden him as he gets older, and I feel guilty that my reason to push for double-barrelled is only my ego/vanity.

Also, my maiden name is my mum's maiden name, which she reverted us both to after my dad cheated when I was a baby.

Thanks for reading if you got this far :)

I wish I had kept mine.

I guess you can't force your husband to change his name; you can only control whether or not you change yours.

If the children have both surnames, the mother might want to have both too, in order to have exactly the same name as her children.

i don't think it's the "worst of all worlds", I think the worst scenario is when people give children their father's surname by default and then the parents separate, the children live with their mother but their father withholds permission to change their surname.

Women should keep their surnames and pass them on to their children! And if they feel they have to include the father's surname too, to compromise or appease him, so be it.

I guess you can't force your husband to change his name; you can only control whether or not you change yours.

sure, which is why I would never double barrel unless my DH did too. it's a ridiculous compromise in which I not only take on a new name, I have to take on a more complicated one. While he just carries on as he is. I think taking a "traditional/; approach of just changing to your DH is one thing, but trying to mix modern and traditional, in a way that only impacts the woman, is silly.

This is what we have done.

I don't know anyone who has regretted keeping their own name or giving it to their children. I know plenty who have regretted taking their husband's name or only giving the father's name to the children.

I didn’t change my name for different reasons. It was my name. I’d had it all my life and I’d no sooner change my last name than I would my first name. It was as simple as that for me. The children have his surname. It’s a name we gave them. It’s theirs. I expect the girls will keep theirs for the same reason I did.

Of course there were no emotional complications for me. I loved my dad, and had no issue with having his name. It’s a vanilla enough name…easy to spell, goes well enough with my first name.

Because I don’t care whose name the children have and he does! Simple as that 😊

@WhappleBee "Because I don’t care whose name the children have and he does! Simple as that"
Funny how it's always the men whose wishes prevail.....

Main reason for taking his name is a kind of romantic sense of having a family name.

Just keep your own. He is obviously not much bothered about the romanticness of a family name if he won't make any changes to his own, so why should you be the one to make changes?

I took my DHs name because I knew we'd have children and I wanted us all to have the same name.

I loved my surname, but really it belonged to my Dad (so no feminist argument to keep it) and there are thousands and thousands of people with my maiden name.

There aren't many people with my married name and in terms of my full name I'm the only person in Europe with this name (making my name personal data under GDPR guidelines in the way that John Smith isn't)

So I took on my DHs name because it is rarer than my maiden name and it's nice to preserve that.

Double barrel surnames are a pain in the arse

Do you realise some people have real double barrelled surnames that go back generations (rather than parents combining names)? Your comment is quite offensive.

@H112 "Double barrel surnames are a pain in the arse"

In what way? I suppose Dildo-Buttplug might hurt a bit....

@TheDefiant "I loved my surname, but really it belonged to my Dad (so no feminist argument to keep it) and there are thousands and thousands of people with my maiden name"

As opposed to your DP's name that was granted to him by fairies on the day of his birth?

@CurlewKate I was pointing out that choosing to keep my maiden name isn't really a feminist issue.

Most female surnames have been lost to fathers/husbands.

If my name had belonged to my Mum and went back through a lineage of women I'd have kept it.

I honour my Mum's name in other ways...even though it belonged to her Dad!

My degree is in my maiden name.

I changed my name in my first marriage and had my son who has his fathers name. My postgrad diploma is in my first married name.

Married now for the second time. I took my second husband's name. I have my professional qualification in my second married name, all my ID is in this name.

I wish I could go back to 25 year old me and tell me to keep my maiden name and insist my son has my name, not his fathers.

I now have three qualifications in three different names. It's a hassle tbh.

I am considering changing my legal name back to my maiden name, changing my ID, but leaving my professional persona with my current married name, for security purposes as my profession is online and can attract some nastiness.

i don’t like this - feels like looking for a way to whataboutery-it so that YES AGAIN OF COURSE THE MEN WIN!

How about we get to see it as equal. From now, today. Your name is your name. You start afresh when you’re born.

give that a couple of generations and yes, you WILL have names which reflect a lineage of women. So it’s absolutely a feminist issue, to fight for change to give space to women is absolutely a feminist act.

@TheCultureHusks

I agree. My Dad chose my first name. Doesn’t make it any less of my name. I would suddenly change my first name when I married anymore than I would change my last name. They are both my name.

My FIL did his family tree and it turns out that many generations ago the woman kept her name and the husband changed to hers so in essence my husband’s surname derives for an ancient female relative. Doesn’t make it any less of his name though.

@TheDefiant It's a feminist issue because your "maiden" name is yours-the name that identifies you. Taking a man's name is effectively wiping out that identity. I think it's significant that men are usually reluctant to take their wife's name.

Keep your birth surname. Give your children both surnames in whoever order they sound best.

@TheCultureHusks oooo. I like that.

Starting from today your name is your name.

The other thing I've heard of that I like (and wish I'd thought of tbh) is a married couple choosing a brand new family name.

I'd have chosen something inspired by Star Trek - him he'd have gone for Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. Actually I'd be happy with an elven name. Hmm.

@CurlewKate my maiden name belonged to my Dad. It wasn't "mine"

My maiden name even meant "son of male name"

My married name references a place rather than a man.

Anyway as I say it was a choice to have a shared family name and to recognise that one of the two options was very rare and one was/is exceptionally common.

So what if it’s long?

Honestly, it matters so much less than I ever thought it was. I double barrelled, I had my reasons for this no need to go into them all here but suffice to say I agonised over it.

I needed a new passport anyway so got that in the married/ double barrelled name. We opened a new joint account and savings account and they went in the double barrelled name. Changed it on my driving licence eventually. I’ve still, 5 years later, not got round to changing it on anything else.

Genuinely it pretty much depends on the day which version of my name I use - maiden, his or the double barrelled version. Still use maiden name at work just because that’s what people are used to calling me.

Just do whatever feels right for you at the time. It isn’t going to be as big a deal afterwards as you think!

My children have his, I doubled barrelled mine as I didn't want to lose that part of my identity, but wanted us to all have one part of our name the same. I don't have a middle name though so my maiden name has effectively become more like a middle name. Don't really think about it much tbh. My work name is just my maiden name as haven't bothered to change it, and it's what I'm known as at work. To the school and in anything official, it's the double barrelled version as that connects me to the children easier. Sometimes I refer to myself as first name both surnames, sometimes first name maiden name, and sometimes first name dhs surname. If I am using Mrs on something, I usually use "Mrs both names". There's not really any rhyme or reason to it 😄. If I'm booking a table or tickets for something, I use dhs last name as we all have that name.

I’m not a fan of double barrelling, most are a mouthful and it’ want common when we got married.

i much preferred dh’s family name to my family name and mine has some connections to something I’d rather leave in the past so I took dh’s family name and I’m glad I did, dh, myself and our children all have the same surname.