Surnames

[Rollermum]

Hey all

The post below about joint accounts, and a batch of particularly annoying post got me thinking about surnames and my baby (due 6th Sep).

I am married and haven't changed my name. My title is Dr and before that was Ms. I registered our move w various utilities and got post to us both w DH name first (as in the joint accounts thread). Same post brought some lovely cards from family members but all calling me variously wrong names: Mrs DHSurname, Miss MySurname etc.

I had been planning that the baby will have our joint surnames (diuble barrelled) whilst we both just keep our own names. But lately I've been thinking this will complicate the name situation in our house even more. I can envisage years of bday cards from well meaning relatives with just my husband's surname.

Any thoughts on how to deal with this? I have never wanted to change my name but lately I've just been fed up of it. I'd like us to feel like a family unit. My sister didn't change her name and is constantly correcting people that they are married. Also I just can't imagine my child not having my name (at least in part).

Finally I'd happily double barrel but DH isn't prepared to do the same - so I won't either!

I guess my name feeling vague is ok but want the baby to have a clearer one!

Honestly, Roller, it's ridiculous what a noticeable difference the address labels made. It's like people thought 'ooh, they spent a tenner on some stickers, they must really mean this name thing!' after laboriously writing our names on the backs of dozens of cards achieved very little.

Re double barreling - if everyone did this, when the next generation get married they'd be quadruple-barreled. It's unsustainable ... or something!

In other countries e.g. Spain, everyone has 2 surnames and it doesn't cause any problems.

I changed my name for practicality but feel that by using Ms, not Mrs, I've removed a bit of the 'owned by husband' tone I felt came with the Mrs. Took me 7 or 8 years to get around it doing it after we married... We chose a family name and I choose to use it too; I'm not completely happy with it, but it's a practical compromise, even if DH thinks it's funny and I keep explaining myself to people that we are married. Hopefully I'll stop that soon endlessly seeking approval

Weirdly, what kicked it off was looking at the Royal family's website at around the time of the Royal wedding a couple of years ago, and it said that women are 'styled' (i.e. titled, given status), by their husbands. What bloody nonsense, I thought, my status in society, whatever that means, is all my own doing, ta.

Years back apparently a married woman kept her full maiden name but had the title Mrs John Smith or whatever. I could live with that, provided my husband could also use the title Mr My Two Names and when a Dame's husband is Sir just like a Sir's wife is Lady!

And yes I do like it when we get cards addressed to Dr & Mr DHname and I only really use Dr for work as it's not a medical title (no use with a heart attack, me) but I will admit to a little light vanity, as Dr trumps Mr in the etiquette line, or so I heard, and I worked bloody hard for it!

In Spain, the convention is that each person gets one surname from each parent, and it's the male side that gets handed down to the child, to avoid exponential-surname-expansion. So the female side is represented, but only for one generation. Male-side name goes first in the DB:

e.g.
DH is Juan Lopez Diego
Wife is Maria Santo Matador

Child is Domingo Lopez Santo

Child marries Theresa Flamenco Saville (I'm running out of Spanish names here), nobody changes any surnames

Grandchild is Juanita Lopez Flamenco

Which sort of solves the problem and sort of doesn't, as it's the patriarchal line that keeps the name going down.

Waiting to be corrected by someone who knows this stuff properly!

Thanks Allen, that's quite reassuring.
Be nice if it was the default on birth certificates as well, it would remove a lot of later angst for parents that seperate.

I always thought the Spanish model sounded good, but had assumed that the female line kept the matralineal surnames and males the patrilineal. From minimalist's post, it seems that it is only a partial solution.

Just had a phone call for dh... I explained that he wasn't in but that I was his wife, they could talk to me. He immediately started up a sales patter directed at mrs dh surname. It just sounded so embarrassingly old fashioned...

For me it is a feminist statement to have kept my real name. I'm married yes but that's no ones business but my own. I have not changed my identity in the slightest and if people lamely suggest that I have then I just feel a bit sorry for them and their antideluvian attitudes tbh. Just makes them look a bit stupid

what about two surnames... without the double barreled Hypheny bit.

So if your child was called Percy and you are a jones and DH is a Davies, call the baby Percy Jones Davies

My DSs are officially Weevil-TheirDF's name but to my annoyance they both dropped Weevils because it was all a bit of a mouthful.
DD has her dad's surname because I didn't want her to be double-barrelled but different from her brothers. And because her older sister just has her mum's name and her dad was upset.
But now I wish she were Weevils-Hisname.
Actually I wish they were all just Weevils.

minimalist - you're spot on about Spanish naming customs, while the child does get a surname from each parent, it's still from the paternal line.

So the name the child gets from his/her mother, is the name the mother took from her father, not the one she took from her mother.

Furthermore, a lot of people I know from Spanish/Hispanic backgrounds, tend to only end up using one surname and the majority opt for the first one (the one from their father).

Penelope Cruz for example, is actually Penelope Cruz Sanchez, but just uses Cruz.

However, her husband Javier Bardem, uses the surname he got from his mother (his full name is Javier Angel Encinas Bardem).

Early in the thread there was lots of talk of correcting people a lot - I don't bother. I have my original name and am married. Our ds will have my surname as a middle name and dh's as a surname.

If people call dh my partner I dont' bother correcting that we are married.. he is my 'partner' in life.. unless it matters to somebody (a solicitor or something) or we're talking about marriage then I let it slide.

And I don't really bother correcting most post or lists of names if they put me down as Mrs Him. It doesn't bother me either, I see 'Mrs Him' as being a label I have.. just like I am also 'ds's mum' or 'dm's daughter'..

I guess it depends how picky and precise you want to be. I am not 'forever correcting' anybody about anything because I don't care enough....

I certainly won't be adopting my fiance's name when we marry. I know it's not a big deal for everyone, but for me it's huge. The thought of being addressed as ''Mrs'' makes me cringe.

Double barrelling is NOT unsustainable, this argument drives me nuts, all Spanish speaking countries have sustained it for centuries. Everybody has two surnames, one from their father one from their mother. Nobody changes their name on marriage. Children are then given one name from their mother and one from their father. It is still patriarchal overall as the name which is passed on to the child is the name from the grandfathers rather than the grandmothers, but SO much better than our system. Nobody finds it in the least bit confusing, in fact I caused consternation in a Costs Rican police station by only having one surname, the database couldn't cope!

Oops, should've read while thread!

Whole thread

I am Myname. Dp is Hisname. The Dcs are Myname-Hisname. Been like that for 17 years. It has never been the slightest problem. People sometimes get it wrong- they call us the Myname-Hisnames, or call me Hisname. If it's important and e can be bothered, we correct them, but usually we don't. The Dcs love having an completely unique name, and google every now and then to make sure nobody else has that particular combination. Go for it. It's much easier than you think- I hate th expression "over thinking" (over thinking is usually much better than under thinking!) but in these circumstances..........

I've kept my own name, DCs have DH's name, it has never been a problem at all. I use an email address with both surnames so that when I deal with cub leaders etc they all know whose parent I am. I scribble the DCs surname on the back of cheques to pay for their activities in case it gets separated from the slip. That is the extent of the hassle, ie virtually none. Never had a problem with two different surnames on hotel signing cards, or paying with a credit card in my own name for something DH has booked, in fact no one has ever really said anything at all.

I will NEVER use the title Mrs.

I have been married twice. My maiden name was annoying, in that no one could either pronounce or spell it, plus I didn't see it as an issue, so I changed it to ExH's name. After we were divorced, given how traumatic it had all been, I was just glad to be rid of the violent twunt, but it never occurred to me to use my maiden name again when I married DH2, it would have been ridiculous to have kept my older married name so now I have another unpronoucable and unspellable bloody surname. However, I do the American thing of calling myself Capt Chaos DH'sname (with the Chaos bit as my maiden name)

It might be because my family are a bit about me at the best of times. My DS1's name on his birth cert is Chaos Hisdad'sname, but my 'D'M thinks that's ridiculous, and only uses his DD's name. Drives me mad. She thinks I'm just 'doing' feminism to be difficult anyway!

''I will NEVER use the title Mrs.''

Glad I'm not alone on that one!

"I've kept my own name, DCs have DH's name, it has never been a problem at all. I use an email address with both surnames so that when I deal with cub leaders etc they all know whose parent I am. I scribble the DCs surname on the back of cheques to pay for their activities in case it gets separated from the slip. That is the extent of the hassle, ie virtually none. Never had a problem with two different surnames on hotel signing cards, or paying with a credit card in my own name for something DH has booked, in fact no one has ever really said anything at all. "

Why have they got his last name?

I hate double barrelled names.
I just changed to DHs and the children had his- since he died shortly afterwards I was so thankful they at least had his name. I married again and changed again.
I like being in a family unit with all the same name - I would rather be in one with my DH and my DCs than making a unit with my brothers and their DCs.

Curlew, why shouldn't they have his name? We have the same set up. No problems either. DC have just as much right to their dad's name as their mum's name.

Absolutely. I was just wondering why the assumption is that it's the dad's nam used, and if anyone in the family has a different name to everyone else it's going to be the mother.

Maybe it was a nicer surname or went better with the kids names? I guess my assumption would be that a woman who was confident enough to neither change her surname nor become Mrs is probably unlikely to just blindly follow what is seen as a patriarchal tradition

That's why I asked.

It's just that I have noticed as I go through life that it's amazing how often the nicer surname, or the one that goes better with the kid's names or the one that's easier to spell seems to be the man's name.

And that the person in a relationship who compromises is usually the woman. And I know lots of families where both adults keep their own names and the kids have their dad's I only know two where the kids have the mother's name.

So I guess I was curious.

Many reasons Curlew. There is never going to be any doubt that I am their mother to be honest, whereas if they did not have DH's surname it is more likely people would assume he is not their father, especially if it came to a split. My surname does not work at all with DD's first name, DH's surname is much nearer the start of the alphabet. To be honest as well, I was rocking the boat enough by not taking DH's surname, I've made my point. I don't mind having a different surname at all, if people assume we're not married then that's not a problem (unless it's for legal purposes). Double -barrelled wouldn't have worked either, too much of a mouthful and I don't like them.

As for the baggage of marriage, my view is that yes, there is historical baggage, but modern marriage is an equal partnership, you don't have to be given away by anyone, or change your name if you don't want to. It confers a lot of benefits legally and while I can see that civil partnership for heterosexuals is one way of ditching the baggage, I don't see why you can't modernise marriage rather than set up a separate system.