Motherhood Mondays: Would you Hyphenate Your Baby’s Last Name?

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My mom never changed her name when my parents were married. I’m the youngest sibling, and she told me she considered giving me her last name, but instead I have my dad’s name only, like my older sibs. I’m torn because I feel sad if she wanted to give me her name and didn’t. But I like having the same name as my siblings. My family on my dad’s side is gigantic and most people have different last names from us, so it’s always felt like something I mostly share with my siblings. On my mom’s side, everyone has her last name, and I’ve always felt like, “a Johnson” even though “Johnson” isn’t legally in my name. I should note that my dad’s last name is rare in the US and my mom’s last name is common.

I muse about what decision I’ll make if I have kids, but since I’m currently *quite* single, it feels hard to even daydream about. In serious relationships in the past, I’ve thought about adding the guy’s name as a second middle name for me, but only if he did the same with my name. And I’d really like it if my children had my last name, maybe with the dad’s as a middle name. I love the Rodham Clinton choice, but some close friends tell me it’s a hassle to convince people they’ve got two last names that aren’t hyphenated. At the end of the day I’m sure it’ll depend on the conversations I (hopefully) have with a partner. And at this rate, I may just have a kid on my own, in which case, all my last name all the time.

Hello, I’m female from Spain. Maybe you don’t know about our family names’ costums. We can have 1 or 2 given names, that can be united by the preposition “de”, or “del”, wich means “of”. We also have 2 family names: first from father, second from mother. We keep both our life long and never change, not even by marriage.
Now that I moved to the US, my problems started when trying to make understandable that the important given name is actually the “third” : María del Carmen (Mary of Carmen) It’s totally legal in Spain to write just Carmen, if you say “María del” something is missing. That was a time when in my country, due to the power of the catholic church, women had to have a “María” or “María del” in their names. In the US I just get my papers under “Maria D.” I’m getting frustrated. I’ll never accept my name “Carmen” taken out of me. I’m thinking of legally give up my “María del”. I’ve also thinking of putting an hyphen between first and second family name. Does someone had the same problem as me?
Never reject

My son’s father and I were unmarried when our son was born. He claimed to not care if our son had his last name or not but in an effort to create a bond I chose to hyphenate my son’s last name. I did choose to do *father’s surname-mother’s surname* so I could omit all the inside names and simply put down his first name and my last name. I think it was a premonition I had in the hours after his birth about his father not sticking around. Now as a single parent I’m glad to outwardly have the same name as my son but on paper he’s still a hyphenate. What he chooses to do with that later is his choice, he is the legacy of his parents and one day his idea of that legacy may change. That choice is his.

Just don’t hyphenate your kid’s last name. Just don’t.
I’ve had a hyphenated name my whole life and I’ve always hated it. I’ve known the word hyphen since I’ve known my own name. This means a lifetime spelling it out and getting ridiculed for it, and, now that I’m older, answering that no, I’m not married.
But what do you do when you get married? Let’s say my last name was Hall-Johnson and my partners name was Jackson. What is my name now? Do I take theirs, the suggestion of which angered both my parents? Do I keep mine? But then what are our kids named? Hall-Johnson-Jackson? Or just one or the other?
There is no real good alternative. I’m thinking about taking the last name of one of my grandparents, but that still doesn’t make my family happy-do I hate the other side of my family?
It’s a terrible life. Don’t hyphenate your kids last names, for heavens sake.

My fiance and I are having this conversation right now. He was raised by a single mom and 3 sisters. His Mom has re-married and all 3 sisters are married too, so he’s the only one left with his name. He’s not a fan of it at all, because his father was not a great guy, but we both feel like a guy taking his new wife’s last name isn’t really done. So do we each keep our names and our kids have mine? Do we both hyphenate? Or only the kids are hyphens?

I kept my maiden name after marriage in most situations, but officially hyphenated it on legal documents (passport, mortgage/deed, medical records). I have been surprised by how few women keep their maiden name OR hyphenate. . . Having grown up in the 1970s I thought everyone would be doing it by now.

When we had a baby, hyphenating his last name was not an option we considered. Both of our names are unwieldy separately–together they are a huge mouthful of confusion…I didn’t want to doom my kid to hours on the phone patiently spelling out BOTH names.

After having kids, all of my friends just took their husbands’ names…even those who had once hyphenated or “Rodham Clinton”‘ ed up to that point. I feel like everyone just gave up.

I would probably feel differently if I were Smith married to Jones. I envy people with simple, one-syllable last names. There needs to be a better system, but I’m not sure what it is.

I think your son’s name sounds lovely. Good decision!!! I like the idea, tho I would be happy to take my partners name if and when we hopefully get married ( fingers crossed) im not a well known person ( ha ha) or don’t have any kind of career where my name is well known so the only reason I would keep my surname which I do like would be to remeber my father who has passed away ( tho I barely new him and had little contact with him) Townsend… But on the other hand having said that- I would really like to take my partners surname – one because it’s nice but two to feel more connected even because our son has his surname and I kind of feel like the odd one out now. It’s funny tho in Italy most women seem to keep their maiden name – it seems like the done thing. ( on a side note: I would have loved my son to have a middle name, my partner doesn’t have one and was quiet against it ?? I agreed, I’m hoping with future children I get to choose a middle name for them – it’s not just nice but handy for passwords and good stories or nicknames etc,) mine had a lovely story and I’m fond of the name too ‘eva’ . When my mum was young and travelling she made friends with a Swedish girl called Eva. They got along really well. Then when I was born my mum wrote to tell her I’d arrived. Turns out we share birthdays and never new. My mum tried to track her down but never could. I’ve seen photos of her, would love to of met her.

Really strange reading all this comments about how difficult it was to have a hyphenated last name. As someone who grew up with one, I love that there is a part of my mom in my name as well as my dad. And in terms of difficulty – yes, my five year old self was not psyched about writing that all out. That’s maybe the smallest struggle anyone has ever experienced. School forms, hospital records, all no problem.

My parents hyphenated my name. I love them both very much but am to this day suffering the consequences of my last name. Taxes, Hospital records, University applications, loan documents…basically anything you do after you are a child have all been a personal hell storm.

Even if my future husbands last name was Shitbag I would be happy to walk hand in hand with him to the courthouse, DMV, and social security office and stand in four hour lines to become the proud, happy, single last name woman that I have always craved to be.

Please do not give your child this torment, unless childbirth was really painful. Then I get it.

I kept my name. My husband kept his. Our daughter is hyphenated. We’ve never really had a problem with any of this in terms of forms and official documentation, and happily, if people have a problem with our choices, they keep it to themselves — which is good, because they’d get an earful from me if they didn’t mind their own business. In retrospect, I do kind of wish we’d considered taking a brand new last name. I didn’t know anyone at the time who had done that, and now that I do, I think it’s a nice idea.

Ok I am pregnant and am having a big issue with my bf about hyphonating my baby girl’s last name when she is born. My issue is….. I want to honor both sides of our family! I was adopted on my dads side but not mom’s. I am from Estonia and my dad saved me from a hard life and by adopting me he gave be citizenship in the US and has been a father I never had! He is amazing and does not have kids of his own and to keep on his name. My bf wants to have no part in this he thinks it is stupid and a mans name should be the one to carry on. I think it is more pure to have a woman’s name because she is coming out of me! His grandma cheated on grandpa with his best friend but her kid / his dad/ took on her husbands name but he was not the biological father….. And non of his grandmas on his dads side has ever been in his life! It is silly to be to honor only that name! His dad is the only Gill that has ever been in his life! I also think with devorce being such a big issue I want to honor both sides not just one. I feel ladies taking on husbands name is almost like an ownership thing from back in the day. But I understand doing the more treditional thing. But we r not married or engaged and been together for 5 years so that is not that traditional is it……

I kept my maiden name when I married. I could imagine my name anything else nor could my husband. When we had our son we talked alot about what baby’s last name would be. My husband wanted the baby to have my last name as he believes that family lineage should be traced through the woman. I on other hand thought it was important for baby to be connected to both of us. Also my daughter from a previous union has her fathers last name and I did not want to hurt her feelings if the baby solely had my last name. Our son has a hypenated last name and he can choose to keep it as status quo or use one or the other when he gets older.

I grew up with a hyphenated name and it was a pain :X So much so that I was very quick to change my last name to my husband’s when I got married. I do, however, like the idea of passing names from both parents on — I have a friend who has her mother’s last name as an additional middle name. I also plan on incorporating part of my old hyphenated last name into the first or middle name of any child we might have :)

Sorry for commenting on such an old post, was just following link after link from your newest baby names post (love archive hopping!)
I have a double-barrelled first name, which always made me feel a bit hillbilly growing up. Now I’m married to a Japanese man and decided to hyphenate our surnames because my last name is important to me, plus Japanese women are often forced by law to change their names one married. As a foreign women, I fall between the cracks of the naming laws, so I kind of did it just to annoy the patriarchal system. Anyway, now my initials are S-J. C. R-N, which lets face it, looks like the name of a washing machine ‘the new Panasonic S-JcR-N’, but I love it. I think hyphens add character!

Sorry for commenting on such an old post, was just following link after link from your newest baby names post!
I have a double barrelled first name

My daughter’s name is Harper Elise Williams-Campbell. I was not married when I gave birth to her, so it only seemed right to give her both of our last names. I did have concerns of it being a bit difficult for her to write out when she starts school, but at 17 months, she has already proved to be a pretty smart cookie; I think she’ll be fine.

I definitely want my son to have both my last name (Pimentel) & my boyfriends last name (Mejia). But I also worry that my sons name will be too long, so we decided to not give him a middle name (sad face). But now that I see that you did it, I might just forget about what people think and do it. Also, I want to keep my maiden name and add my boyfriends last name when we get married. Family name is so important to me! So if I do this my name will be Daisy Celia Pimentel-Mejia. :)

I’m just running across this old post, but figured I’d throw in my 2 cents for fun! :) I have a maiden name that I was constantly teased about – Dorman (Doorbell, Doormat… you get the picture). My husbands last name is Storm. Bad ass. So I went with his name only, though we did briefly consider changing both our names to Stormindorman. :)

Hmmm……quite an interesting post. I’m Indian, and I have two surnames, which makes it a bit difficult to explain to everyone else in the country as Indians normally don’t have two surnames. That, as well as making it clear that I’m not South Indian, which confuses them all the more. I have to tell them that it’s a hyphenated surname without the hyphen! Although I wouldn’t like to lose my surname later on, I don’t really know what I’d do when I get married!

I married in 1987 (right??) and too my husband’s name and kept my completely epic maiden name (maiden?? when will we get rid of that concept??) — so I became Susan Tron Cottrell. But oddly, I don’t ever use the Tron. Hm. But interestingly, my daughter wants to combine her guy’s name with Tron for an epic new name… a tribute to my family, which is short on namebearers. I love the idea!

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http://theeverygirl.com/feature/im-an-everygirl-and-my-husband-and-i-created-a-new-last-name/

Think you might find this interesting!

I have a similar name! Coming from two Hispanic families, having both parent’s last names is the most common thing in the world (dad’s first, mom’s second). But since we’re all American, we have our last names hyphenated, which turns me into Irene Paola Gomez-Pineiro, quite a mouthful. HOWEVER, my mom’s name is also Irene, so I just go by my middle name Paola, which is then just an enormous complication, especially because I normally shorten it to Paola Gomez to avoid having spelling issues… anyways, I can’t wait to change my name when I get married, I would love to take my future husband’s last name and in the process, simplify mine!