Daughter wants to change her surname...

nej

loftus wrote: »

But she isn't living in a family where all the others share the same surname.

Her actual family (her mother) has that name. The rest of the people (her mother's partner and her son) have their own surname. My point stands - she would be left with her own surname, whilst her step-sibling gets to share theirs with their mother. She would still feel left out.

Carmina_Piranha_3

different things work for different families.

nej my own mother kept her married name and is referred to as mrs xxx even now, 20 years after the divorce. she didn't want to change our names because she thought it would upset the younger children and hammer home the point that dad had left us, and she didn't want us having different names to hers so she just kept her married name.

so the whole lot of us kept my father's name despite me asking to change it when i was 14 (straight after the split).

nej

Carmina_Piranha wrote: »

different things work for different families.

nej my own mother kept her married name.

Never a truer word spoken. It's all very well asking for advice, but at the end of the day the OP must do what she feels is right for her and her family.

In our family, my wife wasn't married to her ex, so her daughter already had a different surname to her. When she married me is when we changed it so we could all be a family together. It worked for us. That she had already called me "dad" for a year or two did help.

Carmina_Piranha_3

my son doesn't want to change his name! he was 5 when we married and we thought he would change it when he got used to the idea, but 6 years on he still prefers 'his' name.

lots of people thought i was ridiculous for letting him keep his name, that i should have changed it for him and not given him any say in the matter.

positivelymummy

i have a very unusual first name, and when i was 7 i insisted that i didn;t want to be called that and everyone should call me Belinda instead! I also didn't like my blonde hair or glasses too and told my mum to dye my hair black! honestly thats true! obviously my parents just laughed and told me to stop talking nonsense, that's life! and i eventually got over it, years later my mum remarried (taking her husbands new name) but i kept my name, shortly after that she died, so i was a 12 year old girl living with just my step dad (who had a different name). he became my legal guardian and i did have the option to change my surname to his, but i still kept my name (much to the confusion of teachers/doctors etc) but i still have my original surname, i have never seen my real dad in over 20 years but i still have his name, its just me, its just who i am and it was what i was born with, and i'm too used to it now!!:D

fallen_angel_69

Whjen i was 7 i decided not to see my dad ever again and when my mum remarried i took my stepdads surname My mum had to ask my dad if we could do this and he just said yes we could .On my marriage certificate it says formally known as xxx but i never had any problems getting a passport or anything offical like a bank account.I dont seem to remember it being changed by deed poll or anything just my mum notifying the drs and school etc.I know 7 is a young age to say you want to not see your dad or change your name but my mum told me i would have tell him myself which i did so he knew it wasnt something my mum decided to do. 30yrs on i dont regret for one second changing my name or not seeing my dad and i would do the same again if asked.

alwaysskint96

Makes me glad that all my children ( I have 3 of them from 2 relationships) all have my surname. Saves all this hassle.

TBH Im not sure why people give kids their father;s surname if the parents are not married anyway

Carmina_Piranha_3

my son has my maiden name because his father had already gone before he was born. if i had stayed single then it wouldn't have been a problem, we would have always had the same name. as it turns out it wouldn't have been a problem no matter whose name he had because he is keeping it and won't change it.

but lots of people are married, or have reason to believe that their relationship is a strong one and they will be getting married at some point. my sister got pregnant while she was engaged, and rather than get married while pregnant she decided to put the wedding on hold - so her baby was given his father's name because she intended to be married. they haven't married yet but will do i'm sure.

i had my father's surname because my parents were married. i'm not sure that marriages are any less likely to break up than non-married relationships - correct me if i'm wrong though.

January20

Carmina_Piranha wrote: »

am i the only one who thinks a 7 year old should be able to make the decision for herself if she wants to?

i honestly think that from a child's point of view their surname belongs to THEM. keeping or not keeping the father's surname won't affect the child's relationship with her father unless the father wants it to.

if mum and siblings etc. all have one name then it's only natural that the one with her father's name might want to adopt the same name as her mum. equally, if the child does not want to change their name then the mother should not change it.

this is an area where parents can be very selfish and competitive.

No you are not the only one. When my daughter was about 8 and her father and I had just split up, she wanted to add my maiden name to her (father's) name as I was thinking about reverting to my maiden name. The solicitor told us we had to do it officially and ask for his permission, which he refused to give.

I really wanted to revert to my maiden name as his (quite unusual) name felt so alien to me and he'd remarried and I didn't want to have the same name as his new wife.

What finally made me do it was when my daughter said that having a different surname would not change the fact we are mother and daughter and it wouldn't affect our relationship. And she was right of course. We have different surnames but we are very close. (her relationship with her father however...) School, doctors, dentists etc, are use to this nowadays.

Children mature at different rates. 7 year olds can be a lot more mature than they are given credit for and they can understand a lot more than adults think. If the OP's daughter has clearly stated the fact she wants to change her surname, she should not be ignored because she is a 7 year old child. This is patronising and unfair to her!