Last Name Quandary - Help, Advice?

[nmouse]

I am about 5 months along and, although we've talked about last names before we got pregnant and have talked about first names during the pregnancy, my partner and I have never talked about what last name we're going to give this child. I'm a bit anxious to bring it up without knowing for sure what I want, because I feel like it could be a powderkeg. 

So, I am looking for advice from people who have been there or thought hard about how to surname their kids when both partners intend to keep different last names. 

 

I would love to hear from any folks who have tried the options below, why they worked or didn't work or how you came to a decision, and how it has worked out in practice (school, doctor, family reaction, etc.) to go with an unconventional choice.

1. Combining our last names into something unique that has elements of each, or picking a new last name just for our family. I love this idea because part of what I want in a last name is a sort of clan identity, something where you can say "the Xs," and have it mean our family. However it would mean breaking to some degree with the traditions of both our family names. I think I could be happy with this if my partner could, but my partner is southern and cares about his family name. 

2. Alternately surnaming successive kids with just one of our last names. This seemed like such a smart idea in the abstract, but now I see the obvious flaw-- we may not have more than one kid! Also, would each child feel like s/he was more the child of the parent whose last name s/he shared? 

3. One partner taking the other partner's surname as our family name. It has the appeal of creating a family name, but not the parity that I would like to have between partners. Partner has previously expressed a lack of desire to take my last name, so it would really just be me taking his. I'm not sure I can bring myself to it, and I would probably always resent it.

4. Combining both our full last names. Good god, a five syllable last name, what an ugly compromise. I'm not sure I can do that to my child, plus it offends my sense of inheritable design because it is obviously not something my child can repeat for her own family; at some point those names will become godawful long. 

5. Giving any & all our children just one partner's last name, the same for all the kids. This option makes me sad/anxious. I would hate to be the partner who didn't share a name with the children, but I would equally dislike for my partner to be "outside" the family name. 

6. Making up a new last name for our child, different from both of our names, that she would share with any siblings that came along. I haven't thought about this one as much, and would be very curious to hear from people who have tried it.

Edited by nmouse - 7/1/11 at 11:11pm

[DesertSunsets]

I voted in your poll, but if my vote skews your results because DW and I never were hard and fast about both of us keeping our surnames, I'll gladly remove it - just let me know! 

We don't have any children of our own yet, but we felt the need to have that "clan identity" thing you were talking about.  We felt so strongly about it, we wanted to have it resolved before either of us got pregnant.  Originally, we both planned on keeping our own surnames.  We didn't think it was a big deal to do so, but we didn't think much about kids when we first got together.  We considered hyphenating and decided against it (too long!), we thought about combining (no combinations sounded right, and the most prominent one sounded like a breakfast sandwich from McDonald's), and we tried to find a name that both our families had in common somewhere in our heritage.  None of those things worked for us.  

Ultimately, I was thinking one day about what made me so keen to keep my own surname.  I thought on it for awhile and came to the realization that I wanted more to share a last name with my spouse and our children than I cared about keeping my own surname.  Although DW never pressured or even asked me to take her name, so maybe that made my decision easier.  But it occurred to me that I was only close to my immediate family anymore and since coming out have kind of been cast out by my extended family - whereas with DW's family I've been welcomed and honored as part of the family - even with members of the extended family.  Her family has treated me better than my own has.  Why shouldn't I take their last name?

Plus, we live in Arizona and the laws regarding same-sex families are pretty awful.  I didn't want to give anyone a reason to think twice about whether or not I was my kids' "real" mom.  In order for that to happen, I need to share their last name. 

This is by no means an easy choice, I wish you calm clarity in the matter so you can make the best decision possible for everyone.  Whatever you decide is best will really be perfect for your little family.  

[carmen358]

Originally Posted by nmouse 

5. Giving any & all our children just one partner's last name, the same for all the kids. This option makes me sad/anxious. I would hate to be the partner who didn't share a name with the children, but I would equally dislike for my partner to be "outside" the family name. 

I chose this one. DD has DP's surname (and my surname as a second middle name....but it already gets dropped all the time). If we are fortunate enough to have another child then that child will have the same....first name middle name my surname DP's surname. I had my surname changed when I was 12 to my step father's name. I never felt any attachment to it and in fact, hated that my mom 'took my name away.' I recently changed it back to my birth father's surname (who died when I was a child) and I feel SO much more connected to it now which is a nice feeling. However, DP has always been very connected to her last name and proud of it so we decided to use her last name for our kids to pass on that family name pride. I don't feel sad or anxious about it all. I love that DD has a name she can be proud of and I love that my DP has that attachment with her.

[Karrie42]

We wanted all of us to have the same last name because we enough difficulty being identified as a valid family without the additional complication of different last names (even though this is common and accepted in hetero families.)  We felt it was very important for our son to have my partners last name because she is the non-bio mom.  I love my last name, and it really is an important identity for me, so this decision was a difficult one.  I use my birth surname as my professional name and still struggle with really connecting with the new last name.   We *did* make my last name everyone's second middle name (including partners), so legally we all have both surnames in there somewhere!  I will say that having the same last name really has helped out on many different occasions. 

[seraf]

I'm using 2 different options.

My kids with my ex have her last name. Our names rhyme so there was to be no combining. There was a single letter difference because when my people came over their name was americanized to be like the other very common name. So I have a very uncommon last name and there is no way I would give it up. I got pregnant first so we decided to give the kids her last name to be more recognzed as a family. I said I always wanted my kids to have the same last name as each other. Because I never questioned that there would be more than 1. My brother and I had our dad's last name so we wre the only 2 people in the region with that last name.

So my kids have their mama's last name. The doctor's office gets it confused. Insurance gets it confused. But it doesn't really cause any trouble yet. Maybe on their credit score it will list both last names as an alias? I'm not really worried. They have uncommon first names to go with heir common last name just because credit scores get really messed up when you have a verycommon name.

Fast forward 8 years and this baby will have my last name. My brothers have girls. Little brother is finaly having a boy, but I would really like to see my name pass on another generation. While either of my children could choose to revert to my name as adults, I'm not expecting it.

Next baby is being carried by dp and getting her last name. She belongs to a different religion that her name is heavily tied to and it seems only fair.

[Forthwith]

Originally Posted by nmouse 

5. Giving any & all our children just one partner's last name, the same for all the kids. This option makes me sad/anxious. I would hate to be the partner who didn't share a name with the children, but I would equally dislike for my partner to be "outside" the family name.

We went with this one.  I carried DS, so we decided to give him my wife's last name.  This way, there's a something special connecting my wife and DS that I don't share (last name), as well as something special connecting me and DS that my wife doesn't share (genes).

Of course, it helps that, while I don't want to change my name, I also don't feel really strongly about passing on my last name (I share it with my father, who took off when I was young, and has had pretty minimal contact with us since).

[HappyHappyMommy]

Congratulations on your pregnancy!

We chose an entirely new last name (not a combination of either of our previous last names) when we married because we liked the idea of sharing the same last name but didn't want to pick one person's previous last name over the other's person. The reaction from relatives and friends was overwhelmingly positive; those that did not have a positive reaction about our new name were those that were not otherwise supportive of our relationship. In terms of others (doctors, banks, etc.), the only hiccup (so to speak) was that we had to do twice the paperwork! :-)

PS Our child has our shared last name.

Originally Posted by nmouse 
I would love to hear from any folks who have tried the options below, why they worked or didn't work or how you came to a decision, and how it has worked out in practice (school, doctor, family reaction, etc.) to go with an unconventional choice.

1. Combining our last names into something unique that has elements of each, or picking a new last name just for our family. I love this idea because part of what I want in a last name is a sort of clan identity, something where you can say "the Xs," and have it mean our family. However it would mean breaking to some degree with the traditions of both our family names. I think I could be happy with this if my partner could, but my partner is southern and cares about his family name. 

[atlantafemme]

We wanted to have the same last name. So, my partner and I dumped our given surnames (which neither of us were attached to) when we got married and chose to take my grandfather's last name b/c he's always been supportive of me/us. Our boys, born since, share that name with us. 

[stel]

Like several others, we gave the child my last name as a second middle name and my partners last name as the last name. I am the bio mom and she is the nonbio mom and we both got to contribute something special as someone mentioned above. I do love and feel connected to my name but this was more important to me. We both kept our own names. We live in a liberal state and have had zero issues. However if I lived in a place less welcoming, we would have hyphenated as ungodly as that would have sounded and possibly hyphenated our own too but used maiden names professionally. I have no problem with the lack of sustainability to next generation, they can drop one and rehyphenate, drop both, take a new name, in other words they can do the same things we are doing now, have a conversation, have opinions, figure it out. And they will. Congrats!

[indigoscot]

Our sons have my surname and both have dp's surname as a middle name. Dp has kept her own surname because that's what she wanted to do. We may reevaluate later once the kids are in school but for now we've had no issues with insurance or daycare.

g

[Sharlla]

I say come up with a whole new family name that everyone has

[indigoscot]

Our sons have my surname and both have dp's surname as a middle name. Dp has kept her own surname because that's what she wanted to do. We may reevaluate later once the kids are in school but for now we've had no issues with insurance or daycare.

g

[britally07]

New here! Hi everyone! We are just starting to try and get pregnant! We are in th process now of having my last name changed to my partners last name and having a ceremony! When our little one arrives we all will be bryants! We are so happy with our choice!

[MujerMamaMismo]

Although we intended to give DS my partner's surname, I got weird about it at the last minute and insisted we hyphenate both our names for him. (I birthed him) My silly insecurities, really were very silly and now he has a ridiculously long name which is completely unnecessary. For all but legal documents, we now just drop my surname and use DP's as originally agreed. We may change it legally when/if we have another.

[KnittingTigers]

I feel like we are in a very similar situation. My DP is trans, I birthed DD, and she has both of our last names, hyphenated. DP would love for her to have just his last name (with mine as a middle name, perhaps), and feels that she should, since I have the automatic bio connection to her. I feel like it makes me really sad to think about her not having my name at all, so I advocated very strongly for a hyphenated name- DPlastname-MYlastname.

In a perfect world, we would have both taken a new last name and just given that to DD. But, we had already started establishing professional identities with our original names, and neither of us wanted to give those up. We also both have longish, unusual last names, so DD has been saddled with a lot of letters and syllables. If you search back a couple months in this forum, there was another thread about this, with some great suggestions for how to manage it.

I notice that your DP is male, and I think that for me, the fact of my partner transitioning subtly impacted how I thought about things. If he hadn't, if we had stayed a visibly lesbian couple, I think I might have felt more willing to give up my last name, at least for the purposes of naming our child. As it is, we are now almost always read as a straight couple, and for me, that means that we need to be more explicit about the feminist parity in our parenting. Hyphenating DD's name is part of that. On the other hand, his family is not particularly accepting of his gender, and for awhile weren't particularly accepting of DD as his child (even after we did a second-parent adoption), so I totally see his point that he needs all the help he can get in being recognized as her parent.

I also, like MMM, feel like I've moved a bit on this issue. Part of it is letting go of my insecurities around needing my child to have my name, and part of it is my utter exhaustion with spelling out BOTH of our long last names every time I call to make a doctors appointment for DD. As we think about TTC number 2, I am definitely rethinking my position on this, and considering what it would take for me to feel okay about NOT giving our children my last name. If we come up with a solution that feels good to both of us, I'm open to changing DD's last name as well.

Good luck with whatever you decide. As you go into this conversation, my one piece of advice would be to NOT go in with your mind made up about what you want, but rather, to try and create a conversational space where you and your partner can talk openly about your feelings. In my experience, a lot can come up around the naming issue. Try and really hear what your partner is thinking and feeling, and hopefully he can hear you as well. For me, letting go of some of my knee-jerk reactions around "losing my name" has been helpful in having productive, non-defensive conversations about this.

[nmouse]

I notice that your DP is male, and I think that for me, the fact of my partner transitioning subtly impacted how I thought about things. If he hadn't, if we had stayed a visibly lesbian couple, I think I might have felt more willing to give up my last name, at least for the purposes of naming our child. As it is, we are now almost always read as a straight couple, and for me, that means that we need to be more explicit about the feminist parity in our parenting. Hyphenating DD's name is part of that. On the other hand, his family is not particularly accepting of his gender, and for awhile weren't particularly accepting of DD as his child (even after we did a second-parent adoption), so I totally see his point that he needs all the help he can get in being recognized as her parent.

This point is very true for me as well in lots of ways. If my partner and I were a same-sex couple, I probably would not remain unmarried by choice. Or, at least, I believe I would have fewer reservations about the gendered implications of the institution than I do as an opposite-sex couple. I also recognize the question of my partner taking my name or not appending his name to our baby as a patriarchal one, and one that has serious implications for his masculinity. In our culture it affirms the traditional, self-sacrificing role of wife/mother for a female in an opposite-sex union to give up her birth name, but it doesn't have correspondingly positive cultural meanings for a male to do that. 

We got started talking about this issue a couple days ago, and it came out that my partner is most worried about the reactions of his immediate and extended relations (all southern). He thinks they will show hostility toward him if he does something so obviously feminist as take a new family name, and he worries they will ultimately pull away from him for being too weird. It's hard for me to sympathize with this since I take a knee-jerk reaction of "reject all the haters," but this is his family and rejecting them isn't an option. Unsurprisingly, he didn't respond positively when I tactlessly pointed out that the older folks in his family who will give him the worst time are going to be dead long before our kids are grown. 

I've done more research and learned about biphenating, which is one answer to how hyphenation could be regarded as a sustainable naming institution. Unfortunately that same research turned up a bunch of information about how intolerant and inconsistent schools, doctors, and government regulatory agencies are about hyphenated last names. 

So, it's clear there will have to be many more talks. I found a bunch more threads to sift through for ideas when I finally thought of searching for "hyphenated." And I appreciate everyone who responded! 

[Sharlla]

when I remarried i kept my lasst name and DD from this marriage has that name as well as her brothers from the previous marriage

[osker]

DW took my last name when we got married.  The plan was for her to keep her maiden name as a middle name, for me to change my name to include her maiden name as a middle name, and for all of our kids to have the maiden name as their second middle name.  Fast forward five years and we forgot to give DD the maiden name as her middle name and I haven't changed mine.  Whoops!  It really doesn't seem that important to me, although I should revisit it with DW to see if it still remains important to her.

We have several straight friends who combined their last names into a new single word last name for their children and then didn't change their own names. So, in their families mom has one last name, dad has another, and kids have a combined third that they only share with each other. It seems to work just fine for them with no issues at all.

[majikfaerie]

I created a new surname with my (now ex) partner. My child (to a different partner) also has this name. I won't change my name again, but I've had a couple of partners change their name to match mine.

I think really, what it comes down to is what feels right for you and your family. Doesn't matter what anyone else does.

[Amt1015]

I took DW last name when we were married. I was married to a man before cuz I wanted to be "normal" plus was really young and dumb and didn't know who I was at the time. When he and I divorced I kept his last name cuz of my sons. When Lena and I married we decided that I would take her name cuz she really attached to hers and I am not willing to go back to my maiden name. Our sons do still have their "sperm donor's" last name for the time being, and prolly will til they turn 18 and he don't have to sign anything. At this point he has no contact with them and we want to keep it that way even if they have to keep his name. When we have another baby s/he will have mine and DW name.