Childrens' surname - What did you do?

[Laurel543]

I have a 2 week old with my partner of 20 years and we are struggling to agree what surname to give the child.

We had planned to get married this year but I unexpectedly (and happily) became pregnant instead. When talking about the marriage, we said we wanted to share the same name and had very loosely agreed that we would both change our names (probably to a name we both liked from one of our family trees). I thought that this neatly sidestepped the problem of choosing one of our surnames and was very happy with the plan. We had talked a little about choosing a name before the baby is born and I have been researching potential names.

Since the birth of our child, my lovely partner, who has never shown any patriarchal tendencies, has decided that he’s not in fact prepared to change his name and is also insisting that the child has his surname. Ideally stand alone but he will consider double barrelling if absolutely necessary.

I am obviously surprised and disappointed!
He has a few reasons for his stand, the main one being that “this is what everyone does” (to be fair, all of our friends and family have given their DC the fathers name, married or not).
I feel pretty deflated about the whole thing. FtI am perfectly happy to change my own surname and feel strongly that I also want to share my child’s surname but I am equally unwilling to change my name to his.
Our names are both pretty clunky and do not double barrel well. There is also no easy way of amalgamating them.

We have reached stalemate

Oh and 'everyone else does' is a shit argument that a 2 year old would use.

Everyone else does NOT.

Many, many, many don't.

I suspect your best option at this point if you are determined to marry him is to keep your own name, he keeps his name, and you double barrel the children. YOU WANT YOUR NAME IN THEIRS for passport purposes. You really do.

Then tell the children they can do what they want with their names when they become adults.

But he's still shit for springing this on you like this. Sounds like a man who won't stand up for you if he thinks others will 'judge' him for it. Wanker.

crayola
“My DH absolutely refused to try for a baby until I'd agreed the hypothetical children would have his name.”
This is shocking I would not have TTC under those circumstances. I honestly think it would have been a deal breaker for me. What a twat

I changed my name upon marriage and didn't have too much of an issue doing so as I wanted the same name as my (future at that point) children and I didn't feel particularly strongly about taking/not taking my husband's name.

That said, I was very clear that any child born outside/before marriage would take my surname, though in the event it didn't happen that way.

Being compassionate, the OP's DP has also been conditioned, and is under the stress of first-time fatherhood. In that stress, his conditioning is starting to take over his rational thought, that doesn't make him a bad person, or bad husband material, it makes him human.

I think that he should be reminded of the agreement, and have it explained that the options are new selected surname, or maternal surname, until marriage. If OP decides to still marry him, and at that stage they agree to his surname, or a new surname, then it's quite simple to update the baby's details to that. He certainly cannot insist on his name. He can't even be on the birth cert without OP's permission. I think he possibly needs to be reminded to stop willy-waving, and treat OP as his equal, but that doesn't make him a bad man, just a conditioned one.

The idea that women have no identity apart from their relationship to men is still so alive and well, even on a feminist board.
Even stranger if you believe that about names, to say 'I have no name of my own, it belongs to my father' and choose to give your daughter no name of her own, just the name of her father too.

I have my own name, I share it with my father and brother and female cousins and my daughter. It's my daughter's name as much as it is my son's name, she isn't borrowing it from anyone.

I didn't change my name upon marriage, baby is hyphenated.

It's not a perfect solution, as it's a bit of a mouthful, but I honestly couldn't come up with any other alternative that met with both of our, imo reasonable, wishes for our child to have our name and not to have to change our own.

Giving a baby its dads name is like painting a picture and putting someone else’s signature on it.

I read an interesting study years ago that suggested that babies initially resemble their fathers more their mothers. This may have evolved because obviously mums can be sure the babies are theirs, while dads have no such conviction. So this resemblance would allow dads to recognise their children and bond with them.

The comment made me think of the study and reminded me that although they provide half the genetic material, dads have no other certainly that the child is theirs. Maybe having done all the hard work of growing and birthing a baby, a woman would want to stamp the baby with the dad's name as a way of confirming and reassuring him 'it's yours'.

Not that I think this is why we've become socialised into accepting men's names. But I could understand there may be deeper reasons why some women might actively choose their partners last names.

I took my husbands name so our children had the same name as both of us. One of my daughters double barrelled our name with my grans maiden name and kept it after marriage.

Traditionally children have the same name as their mother, it’s just that traditionally most mothers were married and had taken their husbands name, and so this false idea that kids are named after their fathers has come about.

I think for me it's something I feel very strongly about because my mum had three brothers. It was made very clear to her that she was less important in the family, in no small part because she would not be continuing the family name. We were the second class grandchildren because we weren't part of the 'Jones' dynasty. Even as a small child I was aware we were lesser creatures because we 'belonged' to a different family.. Meanwhile dad was an only child of uninterested parents so we didn't have an equivalent 'Smith' clan to feel part of. Although when he died his mum did say to me aged 15 how at least he had a son to continue the family....

My sister and I both chose to keep our names and double barrell which I don't think is a coincidence. I love that DD shares a name with all of her cousins. (Coincidentally her cousin on dp's side also has my surname as it was his dad's. His dad who buggered off out of his life before he was a year old).

I changed mine when I married for various reasons (and "everyone does it" was not one of them) - it was a surname from a prat of a father who couldn't keep his dick in his pants and had behaved appallingly, it was absolutely irritating as fuck to spell and professionally it was really hard for young children to learn and pronounce (since I was a supply teacher - this was a factor)... so I decided to use marriage as a convenient break point to change surname to DH's because it's easier to spell and use on a daily basis.

Therefore both kids have the family surname.

My surname is not the same as either of my parents. Every time I'm put through for SC or DV I have to respond to a vetting person who asks the question, why doesn't your name match your parents. I reply, shouldn't that question go to one of my parents?

Other than that, having different surnames has never had any effect on me.

If you change your name why not go the whole hog and insist on being addressed as Mrs John Smith.

Women change their names then get annoyed at this?

I didn’t change my name on marriage. DSs have my husband’s surname but my surname as their (second) middle name. From a purely pragmatic perspective it saved hassle if either of us took one or both abroad. And they have always rather liked the idea of having both our surnames as part of their names.

This [newborns resembling their fathers] may have evolved because obviously mums can be sure the babies are theirs, while dads have no such conviction. So this resemblance would allow dads to recognise their children and bond with them.

I’ve heard this a lot, but I’ve never quite understood it. Surely from an evolutionary point of view this could only come about if the non-resembling offspring were actually removed from the gene pool, ie their fathers killed them? And even then, how do you select for ‘babies that resemble their fathers at birth, but not necessarily later’?

I realise that this is a biology question rather than a sociology one, but it’s always seemed like the socio-biological equivalent of a ‘backronym’ to me. Would be very happy to be proved wrong, I just can’t get my head around how it would work!

I kept my name on marriage. I felt very strongly that I had given up enough for dh and I wasnt prepared to give up anything else. Dc have dhs name because we livve in dhs country and I wanted their name to reflect that they are more his nationality than british - they are growing up here afterall. plus I really dislike the first names here and wanted them to have nice english names. Thought this would be more acceptable with a local surname.

Lol at the comment about the dh who was up for name changing then refused as he couldn't get his degree certificates changed! All he needs to say if someone has the temerity to query it, is 'Jones is my married name'. Welcome to the world of women, many of whom have no certificates of any description in their current names. We manage.

And op, he's changed the goalposts. I wouldn't budge, it's not up for discussion, you've already had that.

Our children have dp's name. I spent a lot of time thinking about it and decided that when we got married, I'd double barrel. However, we never got married so I am different. I wish I'd given them my name with dp's as a middle name or the other way round now.

@persister why does the name belong to your father, and not you? He got it from his parent just as you did.

@pbjs patrilineal, isn't it? Not matrilineal, not blended, just fathers handing down surnames.

@persister but surely if he hands it down to YOU, that makes it YOURS.

Well it is Yours but as a women it's only temporarily Yours. Until you are handed over until another man in marriage and then You get his name.

So from that perspective, in our culture, surnames are names for men - handed down from father to son, but they are labels of men's possession for women.

double sound silly.

@theclitterati not in my case. It’s my name and will never change. I’m married, and we gave my name to our children.

What they decide to do when/if they have children will be up to them. Perhaps my son will make the same choices as his father.

(I agree with you from a historical viewpoint but the world has now moved on.)