Thought this was an interesting read:
http://thehairpin.com/2014/07/what-happened-when-we-gave-our-daughter-my-last-name
Since getting married I hyphenated my last name and we use that name when describing ourselves as a family. My LO has my last name as his middle name and my DH's last name as his last name. It'd be interesting to hear how folks decided on their LO's names.
pear / 1846 posts
I'm totally for whatever naming combinations parents feel are right for them but personally I was happy to take my husband's name and will be happy for our children to too. I am close to my parents and didn't feel like changing my name changed that. He on the other hand lost both his parents recently and to him getting his own little family of 'hislastname' meant a lot to him.
papaya / 10473 posts
I regret changing my name to DH's name, and dropping my maiden name.
If we have another LO, I want to give him or her my maiden or my former initials (they spell my dad's middle name) as a middle name.
pomegranate / 3791 posts
Well, for me it was a bit different because I have a pretty bad history with my dad's family and was honestly happy to rid myself of a last name connecting me with them. But if one of my friends told me their child was going to have their last name instead of their DH's...I can't really imagine caring. I feel like it sounds rude to say that, but from the sounds of this article I doubt the author would've minded my reaction at all!
kiwi / 687 posts
I find her POV perfectly annoying, honestly. Keeping or passing on her maiden name is no less patriarchal, it's just maintaining allegiance to her father instead of her husband. Whatever. And naming the child after the father sort of makes sense because of how human sexual reproduction works, how the identity of the mother cannot be contested, but the paternity can. It's actually progressive, in a way, that a father would so completely take responsibility for his offspring that he would stick his name on it.
That said, DH and I have used wacky naming convention ourselves and have received responses of confusion more than anything else. We both wanted to share a family name for ourselves and our kids. He was hyphenated from his parents, eg Smith-James. Smith was his Dad and James was the name his Mom took when her own father (McCarthy) died and she was adopted by her mother's new husband, Mr James. So that's unconventional itself, I think. Anyway, we didn't want our family to be hyphenated, and he felt uncomfortable taking my Dad's very obviously ethnic name (DH is a different ethnicity), and we didn't want something totally made up, so we went with James - his Mom's maiden name, but not by blood. Only DH's father had anything negative to say about it, and he has negative things to say about everything, so overall it was no big deal.
persimmon / 1230 posts
@greentea: Did you encounter similar reactions to the blogger's?
My husband and I made up a new name for ourselves, so DS has that last name. One thing I don't understand from the blog post is the idea that boyfriends/husbands wouldn't allow the mothers to use her last name for the baby. The blogger's cousin says that she'd like to do it but, "my man would never let that shit fly.” Are there actually men like this out there? I can't imagine being with a guy whose views on gender and equality and the importance of convention are so incongruous to mine that I can't even broach the subject with him. It's laudable that the blogger and her husband didn't feel like they needed to mindlessly conform to tradition, but it's also very sad that there are women out there who are jealous of her choice because they couldn't have a conversation about it with their partners.
pomegranate / 3791 posts
@Katrocap: Back when I was on Weddingbee there were tons of women who would say stuff like, "I would like to keep my maiden name, but there is no way my FI would ever go for that." So yes, unfortunately it seems that there are still many men out there like that!
watermelon / 14206 posts
It kinda makes practical sense, actually, if a woman doesn't take her husband's name. I get a lot of looks cause D and my last names don't match. It's not the same, since it's because of my first marriage, but I get a lot of Ms. Exeslastname instead of Ms. Lastname because of it. Would be nice if we shared a name, too.
pomegranate / 3845 posts
I took DH's name and LO has his name... I dont think it's anti-feminist or being owned... It's about us creating our own family and not that having different last names makes you less of a family, but it was important to us to share a last name.
pomelo / 5257 posts
@Katrocap: @wonderstruck: When my H told people at work I was keeping my name, a couple guys said, "That would have been a deal breaker for me." I mean, wtf? I feel sorry for their wives. Also, when I told a friend's dad I kept my name, he looked at my husband and said, "What's up with that?" Umm, it's my name and I make my own decisions? It's hard to believe people still think that way.
pineapple / 12526 posts
I think this is interesting. DH and I are "progressive" enough that he never, ever even expected me to change my last name when we got married. He was shocked when I said I was considering it and told me he always assumed I would just keep mine. Which I did, in the end, and Im glad I did.
However, when I got pregnant... neither of us hesitated that C would have DHs last name. It seemed the natural thing to do.
In the end, I think you just have to do that thing that feels natural within your family. I dont think it needs to be an issue of feminism or fighting against patriarchal society.
coconut / 8472 posts
IDK, I just can't get worked up about names. I thought her whole thing about creating a movement to get people to use women's last names instead was just...unnecessary?
I did change my name when I got married. Partly because it was important to my husband and not to me, and partly because I knew one day when we had kids that I'd want us all to have the same name. But if I'd said to DH that I *really* didn't want to do it he would've come around to it. But I think he would've been kind of hurt to have a child and not have them have his name.
I do find it weird that people gave her such a hard time. If I knew someone that did this I'd probably have a passing thought like, "Huh, that's progressive" and never really think about it again.
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