Taking my wife's name

Alleycat

Could you keep your surname when you marry? Or would the children be happy to take on their new step-dad's surname? If their biological dad has not parental responsibility, I would guess it should be relatively straightforward and just involve them changing their name again by deedpoll.

ferraislacroix

stripeyfox wrote:

I have a pretty unusual surname which caused me to be ridiculed through my entire childhood and school days. I am getting married later this year and am considering taking my girlfriends surname which is much more "normal", hopefully to prevent any kids we may have in the future from same teasing.

Does anyone have any advice on this? Can it be done? Or could any children take their mother's name without me changing mine?

Any thoughts?

Hi There
Just wanted to be quick with this. The answer is yes, you can change your name. Just contact deepol, fill out the form to what name you want and pay about £40.00 for new deeds to arrive, and then proceed to show your banks, passport agency, any company that associates you with your old name your new deedpol and all will be changed quickly.
I did it myself as i wanted a more 'Equisite' name!
Its now atrend now and my friends have started doing it!
The motto is - Be who you want to be!
Good luck, its all legal and pretty simple.
From Nicole

claz

stripeyfox wrote:

chugalug wrote:

I just wanted to say that no matter what preventative steps you take your kids will be teased mercilessly at school for something - anything!!

Well I did think about that. Maybe being teased about a surname is the lesser of many evils!

you can't really change a name and even i was given a nickname at school but it sounds nothing like my name and has nothing to do with my personality

if your children are brought up as well balanced individuals then yes it may upset them but at the end of the day they have to learn that some people aren;t very nice in this world and you have to hold your head high sometimes

squibbs25

My 8yo son has a double-barrelled surname so that he takes after both mum and dad.
The only problem i had was deciding who's surname to put first! lol spent many an hour with a pen and paper writing down his full name with both surnames in different order (surname1-surname2) (surname2-surname1). Eventually settled on surname2-surname1 but only cos it sounded nicer. It works for us.

black-saturn

I was thinking maybe I could take on a double barrelled name so I take his name but also keep my childrens name.

Bossyboots

ferraislacroix wrote:

Hi There
Just wanted to be quick with this. The answer is yes, you can change your name. Just contact deepol, fill out the form to what name you want and pay about £40.00 for new deeds to arrive, and then proceed to show your banks, passport agency, any company that associates you with your old name your new deedpol and all will be changed quickly.
I did it myself as i wanted a more 'Equisite' name!
Its now atrend now and my friends have started doing it!
The motto is - Be who you want to be!
Good luck, its all legal and pretty simple.
From Nicole

You DO NOT need to use Deed Poll. Google for statutory declaration and simply copy up one of the examples that comes up. It will cost nothing other than the £5 to get it sworn.

Black-saturn - what do you mean by your ex "gave up" parental responsibility.

squibbs25

How old are the children? And is the surname you use at the moment through marriage or your birth surname?

black-saturn

Bossyboots wrote:

Black-saturn - what do you mean by your ex "gave up" parental responsibility.

Last time he had visitation he left them in a field after threatening to kill them which was about 4 years ago. He hasn't seen them since then. He signed a form with a solicitor to say that I have full parental responsibility and he has none. But he still pays maintenance.

black-saturn

squibbs25 wrote:

How old are the children? And is the surname you use at the moment through marriage or your birth surname?

Dont know if this question is aimed at me but the children are 11 and almost 9 and the surname they have is my birth surname.

squibbs25

Sorry balck saturn, yes the question was aimed at you, in that case IMHO, i would talk to the children and ask them if they have any preference to what surname they would like to use, they can (if wanted) assume the new surname for a while to see if they like it! ( just tell the school that the children would like to be known as surname1-surname2 for the time being) my friend did this with her little girl when she remarried, the daughter wanted to change her name to the step-fathers so she could be like her brother and mum, the real dad was against this, so the daughter 'assumed' the new name. School was fine about this, even on the passport it shows the assumed name and her birth surname.
You never know kids might be all for it, especially if its a fresh start for all of you the kids might feel more included. ( no offence meant)