Baby's last name dilemma

[Cressida]

The whole "anything but your last name" theme from the OP and others in here leaves a bad taste in my mouth. You'll accept your name, and a different name, but not his name, and still haven't given a reason other than "because patriarchy". You might think you are executing feminist strength but because of your mindset going into this, any decision you make now will be driven by patriarchy; patriarchy is driving your decision even if in an opposing direction, it's still the underlying force steering your decision...which means it's controlling your actions. Oh the irony. At this point you are operating on form over function. Choose your battles.

Yeah! If you're living under structural inequality, just pretend you're not. That'll make it go away.

And pretending that not naming your kid something has any impact on real women's issues is any less delusional?

jesus, I can't believe I have to spell this out.

By "pretend," I meant "ignore." Which was your own suggestion. I was pointing out how nonsensical that suggestion is.

christ.

I like spelling bees, so I'll spell back. The idea that you think being complacent about what to name a child is akin to ignoring larger issues affecting women, is nonsensical. It's nonsensical because in your sarcasm you imply that doing so will make structural inequality "go away".

Dude. "Don't bother doing anything to resist structural inequality unless it's going to *solve* structural inequality" is not a workable life philosophy. We have to start somewhere. You might be OK taking the world as you find it, but most of us are not.

On the subject of the patriarchy - of course it's still an underlying force in our decision.  It's an underlying force that structures almost everything about the society we live in.  But ignoring it doesn't make it go away. 

What I've been saying.

[Sandia]

OP, I'm sorry you have gotten some weird responses from people who didn't read your statements carefully.

I hope that you can find a solution with your partner; it sounds like you have to gather a bit more info about where he's coming from. His response sounds like he has a hang-up that's not actually related to baby names.
Did he recently "lose"/compromise on some other battle he regrets? Does this topic remind him of bad memories? Has anyone ever teased him for not being "manly enough" or some other patriarchy bullshit that might be impacting his thoughts now? 


I'm grateful you brought this up though, because I was able to send my partner a link to the thread as a very casual, non-confrontational way of introducing the idea for ourselves. I've seen some great suggestions in this thread, but I'm at a loss for how to resolve my own situation:
- both partner and I have 8+ characters in our surnames (I already can't fit my name on some forms, hyphenating just isn't realistic)
- both names are in the middle of the alphabet (also, I don't really buy that argument)
- both names are rare/historic (very rare in our countries of birth, reasonably rare in our countries of name origin)
- we both think it's neat to have interesting names (we've never complained about spelling or pronunciation difficulties and I don't understand why anyone else would)
- squashing the two (different central European languages) names together just ends up making wordsoup. It sounds about the same weirdness as our original names, but then loses all meaning. In other words, we can't make something that's already a name like Ellismore.

I am particularly attached to my suname due to its meaning and to my parents emphasising the coolness/family history thing when I was growing up. My parents kept their own surnames but gave all kids dad's surname because they felt it was important to establish dad as the father clearly (or something like that). I'm pretty into the idea of having a family name with my partner though; it seems like a good way to emphasize our little baby family, especially since we have been/are probably going to be living very far away from the rest of our relatives for the foreseeable future.

Has anyone with non-English names managed to come up with a creative solution?

[Mrs. S]

This thread got us into discussing the same issue. Here it is just not done that a girl continues her family name after marriage. I was pretty sure I wanted to and DH was pretty sure he did not want me to change my name- something on the lines of I like you the way you are name included.
Our names just don't work hyphenated or combined to form a new one so we are still thinking what we would eventually do. Parents on either side will probably be ticked off if we choose a third last name. A friend suggested to let the gender of the child decide whose name she/he gets. We might have a kid in next 2 years so we still have some time to think about it.

[catccc]

If you marry across cultures (especially when one doesn't use the latin alphabet) this problem becomes easier. My kids have my last name in English, and Mrs Butterfingers' family name in her native tongue. So Jane Butterfingers and John Butterfingers in English, but Lin Nü'er and Lin Erzi in Mandarin.

So in summary, ditch Mr Captain and find yourself a Chinese husband.

I just wanted to note that I learned relatively recently that in traditional Chinese culture, women keep their last name upon marriage, and father's name is passed on to child.  It is western influence that dictates otherwise.

[Ceridwen]

We live in Quebec where spouses are not entitled to change their name upon marriage (since 1982).  Everyone keeps the last name they were born with, so all families with kids (whether married or not) have different last names within them. 

We gave the kids DH's last name.  No real debate about it.  It's a nice enough name, and I got to pick Welsh middle names to honour my heritage :)

[Butterfingers]

If you marry across cultures (especially when one doesn't use the latin alphabet) this problem becomes easier. My kids have my last name in English, and Mrs Butterfingers' family name in her native tongue. So Jane Butterfingers and John Butterfingers in English, but Lin Nü'er and Lin Erzi in Mandarin.

So in summary, ditch Mr Captain and find yourself a Chinese husband.

I just wanted to note that I learned relatively recently that in traditional Chinese culture, women keep their last name upon marriage, and father's name is passed on to child.  It is western influence that dictates otherwise.

In modern-day China it's still that way. Western influence hasn't changed that at all.

[FLBiker]

If you marry across cultures (especially when one doesn't use the latin alphabet) this problem becomes easier. My kids have my last name in English, and Mrs Butterfingers' family name in her native tongue. So Jane Butterfingers and John Butterfingers in English, but Lin Nü'er and Lin Erzi in Mandarin.

So in summary, ditch Mr Captain and find yourself a Chinese husband.

I just wanted to note that I learned relatively recently that in traditional Chinese culture, women keep their last name upon marriage, and father's name is passed on to child.  It is western influence that dictates otherwise.

In modern-day China it's still that way. Western influence hasn't changed that at all.

True.  Taiwan is like that, too.  Some of my Taiwan / Western couple friends tweaked this, with the Westerner taking the Taiwanese person's last name for their Chinese name, and vice versa for the English name.

[GPendragon]

I wouldn't call your husband or you a bully in this situation. You just want different things.  That's okay.  Maybe you have more talk behind your reason of why you want it, but his reason of tradition is not invalid and it's not mean-spirited.  He just wants what he wants and you want something else and that's OK.   

Well, except that your child needs a name you can both live with! :)

You are both being stubborn about it.  You want him to bend to you and it's not happening, and you're both stuck for now.

I'm surprised people are being so harsh on the OP here. Particularly in responses like this one, which I see as being incredibly patronising. Kbecks, how do you if he's not being a bully about it or it's just her being stubborn? You're not there with them.

OP has actually said at least three times in this thread that her husband has been escalating his attitude over this, and one of those descriptions was him already being 'caveman' about it. She also brought it up in the original post. I think OP was genuine about wanting alternative options in the beginning, but has become more defensive over her name in reaction to his behaviour and possibly to some of the unnecessary insinuations made in this thread.

If he is becoming unusually aggressively defensive about it, and becoming increasingly sexist as 'caveman' implies, it would certainly make me hold onto the issue, because otherwise I'd feel like I was rewarding his bad behaviour. Or that escalating arguments gets results.

OP, have you talked to your husband and asked to put a pin in the actual name discussion so that you can talk about how you're not happy with how he's being about it?

[Kouhri]

I certainly think that this discussion matters, simply because names have so much power in determinig how we see things. Child/ren's names are always going to influence how others perceive them. Will people automatically make assumptions about the family dynamics?  Will people think they have a 'stupid' 'roll eyes' name.?They might be teased on the playground  if the name lends itself to it phonetically. Is it easy to spell, pronounce or remember? Will people make negative or positive assumptions based on the name, maybe for example on a college application ? Does the name allow the child to have a link with their heritage or culture?
I do think that as parents who force a name on a child you have to think about all these things. I'm not saying that pandering to society should ever be the determining factor in choosing a name, but no family exits in a vacuum, and to pretend otherwise forces all the consequences of whatever name choice on the child.
Ultimately, it needs to be something that the parents agree on and like.  If each parent has their own reasons for their child to have this name or that name, those reasons are important because they matter to them. Hopefully this leads to a name the family lkke and has meaning to them that will be one that the child can grow up being fond of and (as a secondary consideration) not be a source of difficulty for them.
 I really feel for the OP. It really sounds like both you and your spouse really care about what your child will be named , and it's unfortunate that your views on what the right name may be is so different. I don't have anything to add to the many great answers already on this thread beyond what my fiance and I have decided:

Superficially from societies point of view it would look like we are just following in tradition, but it's actually something that we've worked out is the right fit for us as a couple.
I (and also future husband ) have always wanted to have a single last name, so as to have a family name, because to us it signify a unified front, being a team, and that's just what we wanted for ourselves.
We both like our last names, so it's not a case of one of us desperately wanting to change it to something, anything! Lol.
We both have pretty normal last names, not hard to spell or pronounce, not common but not super rare either.
Both of our last names are in the middle of the alphabet, in fact both start with the same letter so no preference alphabetically.
There is no particularly strong heritage or cultural link for either of our names, not sure exactly where they came from so aside from the fact that they symbolise our respective families, there is no special meaning.
So pretty much even so far.
We both dislike the sounds of our last names hyphenated together, and fusion names end up pretty unpronouncable, so not an option for us.
So we know that we wanted to pick one or the other of our last names to be our family name. We both agreed on future husband's last name for a number of reasons...
1. Future husband is actually the LAST person in his family to have his original last name since his grandfather died. Of his many aunties and uncles they have all either taken their spouses name, hyphenated, or died before they had any kids of their own. Future father in law changed his name to be hyphenated, and my three future brothers in law have either the hyphenated name or in practice use their mother's maiden name. So this was kind of a big deal to us that this name was otherwise going to die out completely.
2. I feel like I have a really strong link to my family and family traditions through my first and middle name (welsh name for mum's side and middle initial A. From dad's), whereas future husband's link is through his last name. His first and middle name were named because his parents liked them, not for any family link. So effectively I have the good luck that I will always feel that link to my wider family no matter what my last name is.
3. I really really love future husband's last name. When we first met as teens I initially knew him by his last name so it has a lot of positive association for me , I love the way it sounds, and I really feel like it is a strong part of my identity of him (if that even makes sence) I equally think of my fiancee as "lastname "  and "firstname "
4. My name sounds great with myfirstname hislastname, but hisfirstname mylastname sounds meh.

So basically it was definitely the right decision for us and our particular circumstance.


Best of luck with the discussions and I really hope you can come to an answer you are both happy with.

[firelight]

If anyone wants to push "tradition" on OP, you might have to first figure out where they live and their ethnic/cultural background, which they didn't provide.
It really does vary a lot, e.g.:

In Spanish-speaking countries, the person will have at least three names: the given or first name (which might actually be two names), the middle name, which is what North Americans consider the “last name,” and the mother's maiden name...

In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese cultures, the family surname comes first, the "middle" name is what we consider the “first name, and if there is a third name it refers to the mother's family

In Iceland and parts of South Asia, members of the same family might all have different surnames, or they may not use them at all

etc. etc.

For similar reasons as above, I grew up with a different "last name" from my father.. It never came up once in school
Though I grew up in a school that had children from all different cultures.

Perhaps the push-back would be different in more homogenous areas.. in which case teach your kid if they are teased to punch the student/teacher in the nose and say "shut the fuck up and mind your own business", or something less violent but equally effective...

This! My husband's last name is his dad's name, my last name is my dad's name and my kid's last name is her dad's name. So all of us have different last names and none of us are attached to our last names - it's just a way to track lineage :) we named my kid's first name to sound like my name.

[Cressida]

This! My husband's last name is his dad's name, my last name is my dad's name and my kid's last name is her dad's name. So all of us have different last names and none of us are attached to our last names - it's just a way to track lineage :) we named my kid's first name to sound like my name.

Message to thread followers:

This = sexism. It would not happen in a society that wasn't sexist. If you can't call it what it is, you're denying reality.

[firelight]

Umm.... I never thought of it as sexist... it's more a way to link the father to the kid. Since the mom gives birth, there is no doubt who the mom is. I guess this was a way for showing beyond doubt who the dad is.

Also the explanation I gave was not to say that the OP should keep the dads name as last name. Just that, different cultures have different traditions and insisting that everyone in the family have the same last name wouldn't work for everyone and is not necessary for a happy family life.

ETA: follow what works for your situation. I don't think keeping the dad's name is due to sexism in my tradition. It was more a way to know how people are linked. I don't see sexism here. If there was a way for the kid to be linked without doubt (without using DNA tests, etc) - like say my husband gave birth and I didn't - then the kid would have my name (not my last name) as his/her last name. I just think it was a good way to track family trees in olden days. Also we do have clan names and location names which used to be added in olden days but have been dropped now for modern naming system. But even now, for traditional festivals, we add our clan and origin names to our names. Does that mean I'm promoting any other -ism? Nope, it's just that I'm proud of my history and trace back to more than hundred years and still be able to locate all the cousins and second and third cousins. I think it's cool to be able to do so.

Again I'm not against people naming in whatever system they like.... but please don't say that just because someone follows a system, they are sexist. They can have other reasons for following it. Also I do find everyone having same last name to be funny but I don't mind because it's the American system. As long as others don't force me to change mine, I don't expect others to change theirs. It's a free world - just name in whatever system you like and leave things like sexism out of it.

I don't think the OP asked about fighting against sexism in her original question. It was more about how to have different options when choosing last names. I just said what worked for us as an example. Let's not deviate the thread from the topic by adding sexism discussions in it.

[Cressida]

Let's not deviate the thread from the topic by adding sexism discussions in it.

LOL

[Lmoot]

This! My husband's last name is his dad's name, my last name is my dad's name and my kid's last name is her dad's name. So all of us have different last names and none of us are attached to our last names - it's just a way to track lineage :) we named my kid's first name to sound like my name.

Message to thread followers:

This = sexism. It would not happen in a society that wasn't sexist. If you can't call it what it is, you're denying reality.

Funny. According to the dictionary, this - prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex - equals sexism.

My culture is the same. The children take their father's 1st name as their last. The children are already considered undeniably linked to the mother, and therefore the mother's family through birth. It streamlines the family tree and makes it easier to recognize family. Especially in places where word of mouth is the main form of passing down information and history. Not everyone in the world has access to a system such as a census or a plethora of scanned documents. Many countries don't even track the birth dates of their citizens, and neither do the citizens. My mom and her siblings do not know their birthday and their papers are off by at least several years because that's how long it took to report their birth.

One can construe your intolerance and judgement of a culture, a form of bigotry or xenophobia, or elitism. Or at the very least, cultural insensitivity and ignorance.

[Cressida]

One can construe your intolerance and judgement of a culture, a form of bigotry or xenophobia, or elitism. Or at the very least, cultural insensitivity and ignorance.

Leaving your weird and unsupported accusation aside, you're stating that we must overlook sexism in other cultures or else we're "intolerant." Really? What about FGM? Honor killings?

I'm guessing that you don't actually believe we should give FGM a pass out of cultural sensitivity, so your generalization about respecting other cultures falls down. Nice try, though.

[Lmoot]

One can construe your intolerance and judgement of a culture, a form of bigotry or xenophobia, or elitism. Or at the very least, cultural insensitivity and ignorance.

Leaving your weird and unsupported accusation aside, you're stating that we must overlook sexism in other cultures or else we're "intolerant." Really? What about FGM? Honor killings?

I'm guessing that you don't actually believe we should give FGM a pass out of cultural sensitivity, so your generalization about respecting other cultures falls down. Nice try, though.

Nice. You've compared a naming process to FGM. You are an individual who clearly is checked out of reality and incapable of having a discussion since you can only cry out the same tired argument. Just an internet picketer who has one thing written on a sign, because they have nothing else to respond with. That's boring to me, so I'm not gonna waste anymore of my time with you on this subject, after this post. Some people like to wallow in their own soup of ignorance and have no desire to add additional ingredients by attempting to see anything from any other perspective. And from my experience you cannot say anything that will get through that mindset; which is sad because one of the most glorious things about life, is the opportunity to grow. I can only hope that your obstinance is just a showing of pride, and that your subconscious is open enough to take in any of what some of us are saying, even if you consciously try to block it out. Enjoy sticking to your own strict definitions of the world (and slandering those who don't agree) and not attempting to learn even when people have given you very good lessons.

Leaving your weird and unsupported accusation aside

LOL! Dayam. If that aint the rooster calling the hen a chicken. I thought that was the game you were playing. My bad.

What is your background Cressida? If you Google your family's name, or research through Ancestory historian websites, will you find information about your family? If so, then you are one of the lucky few. Many other countries do not have this information and what they know is based on organizational methods created within their culture. It's common across the board for names to actually mean something, to tell others about them, their family and background...things that we take for granted because we have other ways to unlock information about people (DNA, historical documents) Do you seriously not see that?

You certainly have the right to stand apart from any participation of tradition, but it's sad that you don't have the confidence to stand alone in the individualism you seek, and feel the need to tear down those who don't choose to stand with you. For what it's worth my culture does not participate in FGM or honor killings, now or in it's history, and the fact that you assume it does because of naming practices is beyond bigotry and judgement.

I'm guessing that you aren't actually a racist, so your generalization about respecting other cultures falls down. Nice try, though.

Good day ma'am (sir?). I don't want to assume, because even though "Cressida" is traditionally a female name (oh the sexist horror of naming based on gender!), I don't want to support glass ceilings, female genital mutilation and honor killings by relying on social, traditional, and cultural cues that might clue me in to someone because in an ideal world, nothing will mean anything, culture would be non-existent (so as not to offend those with none), and everyone will be blessingly individual at all times, thinking they can save the world by naming their daughters Bob.

[ShoulderThingThatGoesUp]

This! My husband's last name is his dad's name, my last name is my dad's name and my kid's last name is her dad's name. So all of us have different last names and none of us are attached to our last names - it's just a way to track lineage :) we named my kid's first name to sound like my name.

Message to thread followers:

This = sexism. It would not happen in a society that wasn't sexist. If you can't call it what it is, you're denying reality.

Agreed, it's founded on a sexist tradition. How do you believe family names ought to be treated, though?

I'm not going to get real worked up about how last names work while incarcerated women are giving birth with handcuffs on.

[Cressida]

[excessively long and bizarrely defensive word salad]

I have nothing to say about any of that, except this:

You've compared a naming process to FGM.

No, you were the one who did that, by stating that it's intolerant to disapprove of other cultures' practices. You lumped the two together by implication; I merely pointed out that you had done so.

[Cressida]

This! My husband's last name is his dad's name, my last name is my dad's name and my kid's last name is her dad's name. So all of us have different last names and none of us are attached to our last names - it's just a way to track lineage :) we named my kid's first name to sound like my name.

Message to thread followers:

This = sexism. It would not happen in a society that wasn't sexist. If you can't call it what it is, you're denying reality.

Agreed, it's founded on a sexist tradition. How do you believe family names ought to be treated, though?

It would have to be something like the Spanish system. That system is still sexist, because it treats the mother's name as an afterthought, but that problem could be fixed by hyphenation.

I'm not going to get real worked up about how last names work while incarcerated women are giving birth with handcuffs on.

As I stated earlier in the thread, I disagree with this approach. If we prioritize the hardest problems, nothing will ever be solved.

[MrsDinero]

One thing I would like to point out to OP is that coming to an agreement might not necessarily matter depending on which state you live in.  It varies from state to state, but in some cases the legal father has the final say on the name on the birth certificate in some states it is the mother.  As far as I know only Florida will automatically hyphenate if the parents cannot come to an agreement.

Of course coming to an agreement is the best solution, however it sounds like both sides are digging in their heels because they feel they are "right". 

[screwit]

Just thought I'd add in what we did.

My husband and I are from different countries with different languages but the same patriarchal-style naming system. Before we got married we had long discussions on this and decided that the name of the foreign parent will be passed onto the kids, so that they have a connection to the other culture.  At the time it wasn't clear where we would eventually settle. As it turned out they now have my name and we're all happy with that. If we'd settled in a third country it probably would have been the parent whose culture/language was furthest removed.

ETA: in my husbands country where we are, you are not allowed to hyphenate the names of the children and all children to the same parents must share the same surname.

[begood]

On a slightly lighter note, here's what friends-of-friends did. Names changed to protect them, but the structure is the same.

Lisa Shepherd married John Taylor.

1st born son's name: Taylor Shepherd

2nd born son's name: Shepherd Taylor.

Please don't do that to your kid.

[ShoulderThingThatGoesUp]

This! My husband's last name is his dad's name, my last name is my dad's name and my kid's last name is her dad's name. So all of us have different last names and none of us are attached to our last names - it's just a way to track lineage :) we named my kid's first name to sound like my name.

Message to thread followers:

This = sexism. It would not happen in a society that wasn't sexist. If you can't call it what it is, you're denying reality.

Agreed, it's founded on a sexist tradition. How do you believe family names ought to be treated, though?

It would have to be something like the Spanish system. That system is still sexist, because it treats the mother's name as an afterthought, but that problem could be fixed by hyphenation.

Okay, but one parent's name would come first, right? And which of the names gets preserved when the hyphenated children have children? I could see an argument that the mother's name should come first or even go to the children as the mother is the one that gives birth, usually, but either way you're going to end up favoring one parent's last name over the other's.

I'm not going to get real worked up about how last names work while incarcerated women are giving birth with handcuffs on.

As I stated earlier in the thread, I disagree with this approach. If we prioritize the hardest problems, nothing will ever be solved.

I wish some social media outrage could be focused on shaming governors of the states where prisoners give birth shackled to hospital beds. I think it would honestly be a much easier problem to solve, and there's only fifty-six or so people whose actions are needed to eliminate it from the country entirely. (Probably fewer as I hope not all states and territories have that barbaric rule.)

[Montana Socrates]

We had a similar situation: each adult kept his/her surname when we married. This has become a relatively common phenomenon among many of our peers. What has not changed nearly so much, however, is the common practice of children being given their father's surname. I've never heard a good argument for continuing this practice. We opted to name our daughter First_name Middle_name Middle_name#2 (Father's surname) Mother's_surname. So far, so good. Now I couldn't imagine it any other way.

[Miss Piggy]

On a slightly lighter note, here's what friends-of-friends did. Names changed to protect them, but the structure is the same.

Lisa Shepherd married John Taylor.

1st born son's name: Taylor Shepherd

2nd born son's name: Shepherd Taylor.

Please don't do that to your kid.

Some people's parents...ugh.

[Kitsunegari]

We're not married, but if we were, each would have kept their (dad's) surnames.
We're expecting our first and having the same discussion, with opposite positions: my DH wants to give our baby both our surnames, to honour both families, while I really, really don't want my children to have my surname, because it's very ethnic, long and difficult to spell (think Papanastasioulis). If I could give my grandma surname, which is short and nice-sounding, I totally would, but unfortunately it's not possible here.
In any case, I understand the feminist POV about 'your' surname, but I still see it as my dad's surname, so I'm not all that sentimental about it, while my DH's surname is HIS to me, so I'm glad my children will have it.

[Kitsune]

So: when my parents had me and my siblings, they gave us hyphenated names (we are the mom-dad family)

I got married. I am Ms Mom-Dad, my husband is Mr Husband.

Our kid is Child Mom-Husband.

I thought it was only fair that, if the father was passing down his father's name, the mother should pass down her mother's. *shrugs* Works.

The only people who had an issue with it was my father (a 10-minute conversation solved THAT), and some busybody twerps in my husband's extended family who were upset that we were 'breaking the continuity of the line' (... on naming a daughter, who, based on their rules, would then marry and change her name and not carry down the line ANYWAY, so why would they care... ?)