In a number of cultures, the female children carry the mother's family name. In some Spanish cultures, the mother's name seems to carry a prominent role. My Sri Lankan colleagues tell me that their children carry the mother's family name.
In Canada at least, you can use whatever name you want, as long as it's not for fraudulent purposes.
I know a couple of people who've gone to the woman's family name on marrying, one couple that combined their two names into one (bits of each, not hyphenated), and one interesting couple that picked a whole new last name - not connected to either family.
No point in being hidebound about it.
ooh, here's a good bit about Spanish naming conventions ...
Quote:You may wonder why people from Spanish speaking countries have such long names. This is because we have usually two family names (surnames), when not more.
Following an ancient tradition, when a child is born, he/she receives the first surname from the father and the second surname is the first surname of the mother. In Portuguese speaking countries also use two family names, but for them the mother's surname comes first. In my opinion this is better because you know for certain who the mother is, but in some cases one may not be so sure about the father.
e.g. Juan Martínez Escudero + Marta Villanueva Cortés => Juan Martínez Villanueva
This way when a woman marries a man, she never losses her maiden surname, and her family name is carried by her descendents (although just for one generation). As you see, Spain has always been regarded as a country ruled by machos, but we respect more the women's dignity in this sense.
You may think this was simple, ...
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Compound Surnames
Well, things can get more complicated. People sometimes merge their family names, creating compound names. This can be done for several reasons:
they don't want to lose the family name of the mother in the next generation, they belong or pretend to belong to the aristocracy, or they have family names that are very common (like López, Fernández, García, ...) and they want to distinguish themselves from the masses.
e.g. Francisco García Carrión marries Ana Martínez Botella and he is proud of her mother's family name, so he decides to change his first family name to García-Carrión so that his son is called Pedro García-Carrión Martínez
link
Icelandic naming traditions (another interesting one)
link
Interesting ehbeth, thanks! I've also thought of making a whole name altogether, but I think it just might be weird. I like my last name, i'm proud of it, and not many people in Canada have it. I'm not sur eI could just throw it away. I'm gonna keep my name regardless if my kids take their dads last name, hopefully i'll find a man that will be ok with that!
Your children won't TAKE anyone's name. As the mother, you decide what name to give 'em.
Technically, it's your choice. At least in Ontario. The mother is asked what the child's name should be recorded as.
Right, but in a relationship things are usually discussed and then taken from there, but good point ehbeth.
Just found a bunch of hair in my yogurt. Nasty.
When the she-person and I married a few months back, she kept her name. It's got more character than mine, and it's hers. Weird thing is, we both checked our credit recently, and she is alternately listed as Her-First-Name My-Last-Name (not so surprising) and I am alternately listed as My-First-Name Her-Last-Name -- which is pretty weird.
As far as kids go, our plan is to stick 'em both in there, hers first and mine second (because they sound bad the other way). But our last names are both short, so it won't be that hard.
Maybe, some day. I've got something of a plan of what I would do if the house burned down, too -- but that doesn't mean I've got a can of gas and a book of matches at the ready.
The patiodog with puppies.
patiodog wrote:Just found a bunch of hair in my yogurt. Nasty.
Is this some kind of thing to gross me out...how did you know I had a hair phobia? No seriously, that's just gross!
Know a couple before marriage:
ie
His name Joe Jones
Her Sue Smith
Married
His Joe Smith-Jones
Her Sue Smith Jones
Baby Tom Smith-Jones
When my ex and I married I was in my thirties, my parents were no longer alive, and my last name meant a lot to me. He kept his name, and I became First Name C......... - P......
As the next couple of months went by, everybody called me Mrs. P....., and I spent a lot of time explaining, to close to no avail, and I was always filed in offices under P....., no matter how I filled out the forms. Plus, the double name sounded stiff and sort of pretentious, given the length of the names. I quickly punted and went back to First Name C........., which I was at work anyway. Things just got easier. We never did have children, so that naming problem didn't happen for us. I wouldn't have minded their being Child P..... anyway, it was for me I want to retain the C surname.
I was never too keen in the first place to be called Mrs. P..... - I was sentimental about my own parents, liked my own family name better than his anyway, and his parents didn't like me since I didn't follow their religion and was an older woman, though they softened with the years.
I have filled out legal documents in both name situations, and have never had any problem re my records, including with the department of motor vehicles, irs, etc.
One problem was that I was never Mrs. C or Mrs. P - Mrs. C was my mother's name and Mrs. P was his mother's, though I did just go ahead and answer to it sometimes, saving energy and making other people, usually strangers, happier.
It has occurred to me years later that I could have become First Name P..... C........., with no hyphen, thus gaining his name and getting to keep my own.
I'm keeping my name regardless if I have children or not!
PamO. wrote:hi montana and doglover, can't you chage your sons names now?
stand up--i never knew that you couldn't give your child whatever name you wanted. i would do what feels most comfortable to you and your partner.
in my situation, it was an honor to take my husbands name. i even wrote a letter to his parents telling them how proud i was to be joining their family. i'm a little old fashioned though and pretty conservative.
I can't change my sons name without his father ok and that would never happen. My son will be 18 in less than a year and if he still wants to change it, he is free to do so ;-)
stand up for pessimism wrote:I'm keeping my name regardless if I have children or not!
Same here ;-) After 40 years, I'm not up for any of that name changing :-)
Personally, if I ever get married, I hope my husband has a name that's worth changing for, because mine is just plain vanilla now - only in the worst way, since unlike most plain vanilla names, no one can spell it. It's also not my family's real name anyway. It was changed in the 40's because my grandfather decided the original (Romanian) one sounded too Jewish. I wouldn't mind changing, but it's mostly because I really have no personal connection to my name now. Maybe I should just change my name to my mother's maiden name. I could live with that.
Since you put it that way, I certainly wouldn't deny myself from being Mrs. Keith Urban or Mrs. Joe Lando if either one of them asked me to be their wife, lol. For those of you who don't know who they are, they are famous people who I will probably never meet, never mind be their Mrs.
My last name is long and I spent all my life spelling it, while others had a hard time pronouncing it, but since I moved back home to Canada, where my name is common, I don't have to spell it anymore :-)
The reason I'm attached to my last name is because my father died back in 86 and I'd have a hard time letting go of his name.
Montana wrote:I can't change my sons name without his father ok and that would never happen. My son will be 18 in less than a year and if he still wants to change it, he is free to do so ;-)
In Canada, you can definitely change his name at any time (up to 3 times), as long as the purpose of the change is not fraudulent in nature.
You could start calling him BabyBoy Blue if it struck your fancy.
Or you can threaten him with legal, name-changing action if he doesn't carry out the garbage or tidy his room or pick up his dirty socks.
Firm voice: "Do you want me to go down to the courthouse and change your name to Baby Boy Blue? Or Mama's Darling Poopsie? Or Grandma's Bestest Man?"
