Un-Married Parents - Whose Surname Does Your Child Have and Why?

JIL

My brother lived with his girlfriend who was a divorced mother of three.She had kept her married name. She and my brother went on to have a son of their own. Who was then given a double barrelled surname of her surname and my brothers surname.
I found this strange to think their child now had her first husbands surname as part of his name.

freshstart11

My baby will be having dad's name. We are engaged and when marry I will likely double. Barrel mine.

For me I am unlikely to have more children, this pregnancy is a but of a miracle tbh. However DF has two children already and I would like my little one to have that link with them


Although as his ex appears to be keeping his name does make me wonder about double barrel bubba ;-)

wendz86

We were unmarried when we had DD. She had OH's surname, we hadn't actually planned to get married at that point but i was hoping we would one day so would make it easier than changing it. Also nice for the Dad I think.

We are now married and all have same surname.

double_mummy

we double barrelled and then when we got married double barrelled both our surnames

professionally i am still known by only my surname but everywhere else it is both names

FBaby

My children have their father's name and I never considered it differently, even though I knew we would most likely never marry. After all, it's one or the other (I personally find double barrelled name nothing else than just a mouth full and a pain!), and why should one systematically prevail over the other?

I guess I considered that I was lucky to be the one to be pregnant with them so he could be lucky to be the one to give them his name. Ultimately, from the child's perspective, it shouldn't matter, what does is that there are brought up to be proud of their identity or which their name is part of. Their name is THEIRS, regardless of who shares it with them.

Threebabes

We gave our son his dads surname. Knowing we were going to get married at some point. We did when DS was about 18 months.

double_mummy

we like the double barrell lol both our surnames are pretty short so it actually sounds like one surname if that makes any sense

so its not smith - jones
its more like smith - lee but sounds like smithly when you say it

i was also mean and gave them 2 middle names like i have so the kids and i have 5 names in our name but it is good for when they are practising writing

atolaas

My son has his father's surname. Unfortunately his father and I are no longer together. Do I regret it? Sometimes I do, especially when it leads to the "why aren't you together with his Dad anymore" conversation. I'm going to give him the option to change his surname to mine when he's older, but I want that to be his choice. If he choses to keep his Dad's surname then I'll make my peace with it.

PlymouthMaid

Springdreams -I didn't (and still don't) want to get married so giving my girls their Dad's name was nothing to do with any promises of future marriage.

penguin83

My three have their Dad's (my OH) surname. Never really occurred to me to give them mine. I think we had our first we were still at the stage of thinking that we might marry one day. I can't remember! x