Thinking of changing my name, maybe kids' names too

[Barefoot~Baker]

So if you've read my other posts you'll see that I'm changing my username, possibly my company name, and maybe my actual last name

If you had a divorce, or are getting one, did you/would you change your name? My kids will still have his last name, but if I end up with sole custody, which I have a good chance of, I am considering changing their last names as well.

I'm afraid that it might be too confusing to them if I change their names. What do you think?

As for myself, I originally thought I would keep his name because it's the same as the kids' names but if I ever remarry, then that wouldn't matter. I'd prefer not to have his name anymore.

[Purple*Lotus]

I am getting a divorce and am asking for my maiden name back. I do not have children though. I am not sure if my opinion would change if I did. I would change your user name for sure, though.

[MissMaegie'sMama]

I am right there with you on changing your name after your divorce, but unless your children come to the decision to change their last name on their own accord, I think that it would probably be best for them to keep the last name they have currently. As you suggested, changing their name could potentially confuse them. More importantly, changing their name could take away some of their personal identity. Where you see your ex-husband's last name, your children almost certainly see their last name. That might be a good way for you to look at it-- it's not his last name anymore, it's theirs. I think the key is to let them decide whether or not to change their name. IMO, it's not really fair to change their name for them or pressure them into going along with it if they don't understand why you're changing yours.

With that said, I'm assuming your kids are too young to decide to change their name themselves. If your children are old enough to decide for themselves that they'd like to join you in the name change, in that case I would say "go for it!" If my kid(s) decided to change their name and had their own reason(s) for wanting to do so, I would support their decision.

[One_Girl]

I kept my maiden name but didn't change my dd's last name. I hope to someday change it, but I think it is a choice she should make on her own. I chose to have my name changed to my step-dad's last name when I was 16 and my brother chose my grandpa's name at the same time. My biological father was not allowed any contact with us legally but he still had a chance to say what he thought of it (in a separate court session). If your children's father objects to a name change you may not have a chance to get one for them. I suggest not even bringing it up if it is something that will raise more animosity between both of you, especially if you have to co-parent afterward.

[BunnyMcFluff]

I always hated my married name and when we divorced I was thrilled to take my maiden name back. It was never a big deal to have a different name than the kids.

When I got re-married, I kept my maiden and added dh's, and our son has the same. So, in our family we have 3 last names. Big kids', mine and ds's, and dh's. It's really no big deal.

I'm so, so, SO glad I didn't keep xh's name.

[Barefoot~Baker]

Originally Posted by MissMaegie'sMama

I am right there with you on changing your name after your divorce, but unless your children come to the decision to change their last name on their own accord, I think that it would probably be best for them to keep the last name they have currently. As you suggested, changing their name could potentially confuse them. More importantly, changing their name could take away some of their personal identity. Where you see your ex-husband's last name, your children almost certainly see their last name. That might be a good way for you to look at it-- it's not his last name anymore, it's theirs. I think the key is to let them decide whether or not to change their name. IMO, it's not really fair to change their name for them or pressure them into going along with it if they don't understand why you're changing yours.

With that said, I'm assuming your kids are too young to decide to change their name themselves. If your children are old enough to decide for themselves that they'd like to join you in the name change, in that case I would say "go for it!" If my kid(s) decided to change their name and had their own reason(s) for wanting to do so, I would support their decision.

That's great, I hadn't thought of it that way! I think you are totally right; it is their last name to them.

Originally Posted by One_Girl

I kept my maiden name but didn't change my dd's last name. I hope to someday change it, but I think it is a choice she should make on her own. I chose to have my name changed to my step-dad's last name when I was 16 and my brother chose my grandpa's name at the same time. My biological father was not allowed any contact with us legally but he still had a chance to say what he thought of it (in a separate court session). If your children's father objects to a name change you may not have a chance to get one for them. I suggest not even bringing it up if it is something that will raise more animosity between both of you, especially if you have to co-parent afterward.

I didn't know this, thanks for clarifying.

Yeah, I realize now that it should be a choice that they make when they are older.

I don't think I will go back to my maiden name; I think I may take on my mom's maiden name, which she has also gone back to although she is married again. I haven't spoken to my father in 15 years, plus it was a name that was ALWAYS mispronounced and it used to drive me crazy

[mama_ani]

I changed my last name back to my maiden name when my ex and I separated. Socially my oldest three all go by my last name or my last name & their dad's last name hyphenated but legally they still have his last name.
It is annoying because my youngest two have my ex-ish's last name so we have three last names in our family.
I keep joking I'm going to pick a random last name and change everyone's names to that!

[VocalMinority]

If you're that hostile toward your husband, you definitely should not keep his name. It'll make you fume. But unless there is some extreme issue that means their Dad won't be in their lives anymore, it would be absolutely rotten of you to change your kids' names (and equally rotten to raise them with the pressure of having this future choice hanging over their heads: When I'm 16, I have to choose between my parents. I have to pick between disappointing my Mom by keeping my Dad's name, or making my Dad feel rejected by taking Mom's name).

If you and your STBX originally decided the kids should have your maiden name, as some open-minded, modern nod to the value of mothers and/or a rejection of ancient, sexist traditions, that's perfectly fine. But if, prior to the divorce, you saw fit to follow the tradition of taking your husband's name and giving his name to your children, do not change it now. I'm sure you're angry with him. Maybe you have good reason to be. But please think about it from their perspective, not your own. It's their name.

The choice to give them his name when they were born was a symbol of the importance of his role as their father. Once you chose to make that symbolic gesture, the choice to take away that name necessarily symbolizes a lessening or termination of the importance of his role as their father.

Certainly, YOU may feel that if you get sole custody, he will become the less important parent and you will become the more important one. But YOUR CHILDREN are not divorcing their father. THEY are not choosing to change their relationship OR their living arrangements with him. And there are all sorts of reasons a parent is given sole custody, which do not mean that the other parent has ceased to be important, or ceased to be a parent. Sole custody is standard when parents stop living in the same town, it's also common in high conflict cases, where the court cannot expect the parents to be able to resolve ANYthing jointly. It is often a practical matter, NOT a statement by the court that one parent has ceased to be a parent.

If you get sole custody, the simple fact that the children will spend more time with you and you will be entitled to make all the decisions about their lives without consulting your ex will clearly demonstrate - to you, the kids and everyone you know - that you have the bigger parental role. If you ALSO make a show of changing their names to yours (IMO) that would be the adult equivalent of sticking your thumbs in your ears, waving your fingers around, sticking out your tongue and yelling, "Nah-nah-nah, boo-boo!"

Changing children's names during/after a divorce - changing their last names or even mandating that they stop using a nickname the other parent calls them - is one of the common actions of a parental alienator. Try to resist the impulse. The divorce will be hard enough for your kids, without you doing passive-aggressive things to sabotage their already-more-difficult relationship with their father.

If your husband spends the next however-many years until your kids are adults being such a lousy father that your kids INDEPENDENTLY come to you and say, "I want to take your name," then that will be a wonderful, well-deserved moment of vindication for you, I'm sure. I wouldn't begrudge you some happy tears, over that. But you should not ever bring up to them that they HAVE a choice to make. NO MATTER HOW YOU PHRASE IT, they will know that you have it in your mind that they MIGHT take your name. From that moment forward, they will feel that they're choosing between their parents. Each year that they continue using their father's name, they will feel some guilt that you might be secretly disappointed or feel secretly slighted. And if they DO take your name, how could you be sure they WANTED to, and that they don't just feel more obligated to please you, than to please your ex? If you're going to let it be "their choice", REALLY let it be that, by never bringing it up.

[Ceinwen]

Originally Posted by Jeannine

Changing children's names during/after a divorce - changing their last names or even mandating that they stop using a nickname the other parent calls them - is one of the common actions of a parental alienator. Try to resist the impulse. The divorce will be hard enough for your kids, without you doing passive-aggressive things to sabotage their already-more-difficult relationship with their father.

Not necessarily.

I changed (per court order) my children's names to include both my ex's and my last name. It had nothing to do with sabotage or alienation, and everything to do with the fact that I wanted to share a last name with my children.

There's a lot of room between "sticking your thumbs in your ears, waving your fingers around, sticking out your tongue and yelling, "Nah-nah-nah, boo-boo!" and having a reasonable desire to share a common name with your child.

In Ontario - if parents can't agree on the last name, the court assigns both names (hyphenated) in alphabetical order. Some people don't like hyphenated names, but to me that's the best solution if everyone can't agree on a last name.

[VocalMinority]

Originally Posted by Ceinwen

I changed (per court order) my children's names to include both my ex's and my last name. It had nothing to do with sabotage or alienation, and everything to do with the fact that I wanted to share a last name with my children.

There's a lot of room between "sticking your thumbs in your ears, waving your fingers around, sticking out your tongue and yelling, "Nah-nah-nah, boo-boo!" and having a reasonable desire to share a common name with your child.

In Ontario - if parents can't agree on the last name, the court assigns both names (hyphenated) in alphabetical order. Some people don't like hyphenated names, but to me that's the best solution if everyone can't agree on a last name.

My prior rant does not really apply to what Ceinwen did with her kids' last names. Hyphenation ADDS the mother's name without REMOVING the father's. Plus it's evidently fairly common where she lives. However, it still does communicate to the kids that, on a symbolic but very clear level, THEY have become different people because of the divorce.

The OP did not propose hyphenating her kids' last names. I would've responded much less harshly, if she had. Hyphenation wouldn't be my own choice, but there's some obvious logic and fairness in that approach.

Also, the OP's proposal to change her kids' last names to her own was contingent upon her winning sole custody. That suggests that either:

#1 - Her ex is opposed to it, but she assumes that if she wins sole custody she'll be entitled to do it despite his desires.
(That may be untrue, depending on the laws where she lives. Furthermore, it would just be nasty, rubbing-it-in behavior. If you manage to win your husband's beloved car in the property settlement and you want to scratch "slime bag" in the paint and send him photos, go ahead. But kids should not be used in a similar manner.)

OR
#2 - She feels having sole custody would officially mean the kids were "hers" and no longer "his", so it would be appropriate to change their names to reflect that.
(Unless one party's parental rights are completely terminated, this is NOT what sole custody is supposed to mean. Kids are not possesions and it's wrong for any parent to assume their kids share their desire to dissociate with the other parent, or to choose sides in any way. I still contend this would be "Nah-nah-nah, boo-boo!" behavior.)

[mntnmom]

Adult "child of divorce" here. I was 4 when my parents separated, and eventually divorced. My mom actually kept dad's name. I was 12 or so before it even occured to me to ask why. She didn't dislike him enough to go to the effort, and didn't want the confusion of different names from us kids. Even 30 years ago attitudes towards divorcees and their kids, and I think that played into it too.
But that's beside the point. When I got married, I took DH's name. I was never really close to my dad, so choosing one man's names over another was no contest. But it was MY choice. My parent's divorce was pretty amicable. My grandparent's made it clear they though there was something wrong with a man who didn't want to be with his kids though, and that really did effect me. No matter what he's done, he is still their dad. If they can remember the bad things, that is bad enough. By all means, change your name. But don't change the kids' for them. It is THEIR name now too until they choose otherwise.

[VocalMinority]

Since I'm already being so vocal about this, let me share our family's experience with this, to be clear how children may feel about being given a choice about their names.

My husband's ex-wife continued using his last name until she moved out of state and reconciled with her childhood family, from whom she'd been estranged for about a decade. Then she went back to using her maiden name. At first, she kept custody of my step-son and he lived out there with her. According to him, at one point he asked her why HE was still an (our last name), but his Mom was now an H.?

She SHOULD have said: "Well, honey, now that I'm divorced from your Dad, I don't feel like 'Mrs. (our last name)' anymore, so I went back to the name I had before. But kids typically have their Dad's last names and YOU didn't divorce your Dad, so there was no reason to change YOUR name. It doesn't bother ME that you use your Dad's last name and YOU don't need to feel funny about it, at all. Plenty of families are divorced and plenty of kids' Moms use different last names than their kids. For example, I may remarry someday and take my new husband's last name. But that man wouldn't be your Dad, so it wouldn't be appropriate for you to take his last name, just because I did."

Instead, she jumped right on that opportunity and encouraged my step-son to decide which name HE'D like to use. As though his decision wasn't AT ALL influenced by the fact that he lived with her every day and only visited with his Dad; and he was surrounded primarily by her family and friends, who all hate his Dad. Not to mention the fact that she is his FEMALE parent, so he feels more obligated to protect her feelings and to please her, than he does with his Dad, whom he sees as tough and resilient. OF COURSE he told her he wanted to use her last name. So she was thrilled and had her family and friends start referring to him by her last name. She also had business cards printed up with his new name, for him to pass out to his friends at school so they could start calling him that. And he was sure he had done the right thing, to make her happy. And I'm sure she convinced herself this was what HE wanted.

Except, he didn't pass out any of the cards at school, because he felt guilty that he'd moved away from his Dad; he knew his Dad missed him; and how could he pass out these cool-looking cards and basically celebrate dumping his Dad's last name? So the next time my husband came to visit and went through his son's backpack, looking for his assignment notebook, to see what homework they needed to work on that night, he came across this big stack of business cards. He was so shocked, he didn't even know what to say - and he didn't have an opportunity to say anything, because as soon as his son walked in the room and saw his Dad holding one of the cards, he just had a complete meltdown. And this is a boy who's been through a lot without excessive crying. He felt terribly guilty and apologized and was just horribly ashamed.

Of course, my husband tried to reassure him that he was in the middle of some awful pressures and it wasn't his fault. But all that guilt and sense of being pulled between his parents could have been avoided, if the Mom had really thought about the KID's position, instead of her own feelings, and had responded appropriately, instead of encouraging him to "choose" his own last name. No kid in a divorce can do that in a vacuum. There is no way to remove the pressure of feeling like you're siding with one parent or the other.

[EdnaMarie]

Well, as a child of divorce, I got my mom's maiden name after the divorce. It is the name on my birth certificate since my father didn't want to be on the certificate at that time (they married before my sister's birth). Our names had only been informally changed to his for the years they were married.

I was so young that I didn't really feel I lost a name. My last name is of a certain ethnicity and I believe it's changed how people see me.

Reading these responses has made me think about how the divorce happened. I don't think my mom wanted to alienate us, but since he totally left and took everything etc. etc. (found that out after my 18th birthday), I think she didn't feel like explaining the different last names everywhere.

We have three last names in our family (me, hub, kids), due to an entirely different situation, and it's no big deal.

[SoulCakes]

As a child of divorce, I kept my dad's last name. As a divorced parent, I have SERIOUSLY considered lopping off one half of DD's hyphenated last name (don't care which half, I'd just prefer a single name). But whenever this thought crosses my mind I think of how she proudly introduces herself with first, middle, and both last names... it would just be unfair to chop it up. It's hers.

I know you already changed your mind about changing their names, but just thought I'd throw that out there.

[Barefoot~Baker]

Originally Posted by Jeannine

If you ALSO make a show of changing their names to yours (IMO) that would be the adult equivalent of sticking your thumbs in your ears, waving your fingers around, sticking out your tongue and yelling, "Nah-nah-nah, boo-boo!"

I see eye to eye with you except for here. I won't do it now that I can see from the posts here how it if from their perspective, but from my perspective, I AM the only competant parent. I'm sure we all feel that way, but there are addiction and severe mental health issues here. He has also threatened to leave the country and never see us again.

So, it irks me for them to have his last name, but you are all right, it is THEIR name too. I will never let on to them that it bothers me in any way. I'm very careful about how I'm handling the kids emotions and identity through this divorce, that's why I asked for your advice.

[Barefoot~Baker]

Originally Posted by SoulCakes

As a child of divorce, I kept my dad's last name. As a divorced parent, I have SERIOUSLY considered lopping off one half of DD's hyphenated last name (don't care which half, I'd just prefer a single name). But whenever this thought crosses my mind I think of how she proudly introduces herself with first, middle, and both last names... it would just be unfair to chop it up. It's hers.

I know you already changed your mind about changing their names, but just thought I'd throw that out there.

[VroomieMama]

If you feel that you/children are in physical danger and want to keep yourself and children safe. Changing your and your children's last name would be a good idea.

[StephandOwen]

I wasn't married so my last name is still my last name. I considered changing my ds's last name to my last name (he has his bio-dad's) or hyphenating it when he was way younger, but didn't. Now he's older and knows what his last name is so I would never change it without talking to him first. DP and I have talked about it and decided that if ds wants to change it when he gets older we will support him in changing it to whatever he wants. He has questioned once why all 3 of us have different last names. That was fun to explain

[kblackstone444]

I was born with one last name, then, my Mother changed my last name to my Stepfather's last name. Twice. I was on my third last name before I hit my teens. I hated it, feeling like it didn't count who I was, I was to be changed whenever it was convenient for other people.

[Barefoot~Baker]

Originally Posted by harleyhalfmoon

I was born with one last name, then, my Mother changed my last name to my Stepfather's last name. Twice. I was on my third last name before I hit my teens. I hated it, feeling like it didn't count who I was, I was to be changed whenever it was convenient for other people.

Wow. I can really see now how unfair it is to do that.