Unmarried parents having a baby. Baby's last name?

I didn't read all of the responses and am ready to be flamed for this BUT....

I was with my ds' father for 5 years before he was born. I gave him his dad's name. We split 2 months after his birth and his father went ballistic, fought for full custody and then when lost went on his merry way(symptomatic of his control issues, once he was awarded visitation and not full custody he left and never came back). I changed my child's name at a year old to have my last name. Frankly, I have never regretted it.

I feel that if the parents are not married the baby gets the mother's last name and if they marry later, name changes are easily enough done.

I've been married over 30 years. I never changed my last name to my husband's. All our children have my last name as their middle name, and DH's last name. It's never been a problem, though I'm sure some people have assumed we're not married or that we're a blended family. Those assumptions have never bothered any of us.

(I never wanted to hyphenate our names because the resulting name would be too long.)

The kids have told us that the last name "issue" doesn't bother them. They do know other families with multiple last names (for whatever reasons), which likely helps normalize their own family nomenclature.

Having said all that, I'm pretty sure I'd give any kids I had while unmarried my own last name (unless I hated my last name lol).

My kids have their father's last name. I knew i would change mine eventually to his. I don't particularly like my last name and I preferred they have his.

Our friend is going through courts to have his son's name changed. The mother gave him her name and he wants it hyphenated. They have a shitload of problems between them, and the mom is more than a little crazy. It's not a hill I would die on but he's pretty adamant about it.

I don't know of any state court that would give the father of a child with an unmarried mother the last name of the father over the mother's objection.

If people choose to give the child the father's name fine but I don't think the father has an absolute right to have the child carry his surname. If that was a deal breaker for the guy, I'd say goodby and good riddance.

Hyphenated names are most common here in New Zealand.

It's the fathers child too, whether the parents are married or not, so unless he isn't in the picture b/c he's a scumbag, he should have as much say about naming the baby as the mother does, IMO.




I don't understand this. First there's the "commit my child to him", when it's his child too, unless there was some immaculate conception going on. If you (general you) don't think he's worthy of giving the child his name, how on earth is he be worthy enough to be the father of the child in the first place?

And if the parents disagree as to the surname, who wins? Right now whenever there's a hyphenated name, the father's name is presumed to be the actual last name. Why not the mom's? So if Jane Doe and John Smith have a child, why must it be Child Doe-Smith instead of Child Smith-Doe?

Traditional hyphenation rules would say the children of two hyphenated parents would be named the hyphenated name of the paternal line. so Bob Smith and Daisy Jones have Robert Smith-Jones
and Bill Brown and Betty White have Lizzy Brown-White,
if Robert Smith-Jones marries Lizzy Brown-White and has children the children (traditionally) would become Child Smith-Brown.

that seems really odd and why not hyphenate?

I'm not sure why they aren't going to hyphenate his name... but at the time of birth... the birth certificate says mother my daughter.. father unknown.. when they finally went to court over it.. father is going to be added to bc and grandson will have his last name changed... the judge is male n in texas... and that us what he has decided..

On a side note, every single kid that I have taught (except one) that has had a hyphenated last name has thought the world revolved around them.

My vote is to pick a name and get over it.

I was in the process of getting divorced when my youngest was born. The nurse was aware of it, I had the same angel throughout the process so she was around for the weirdness that was the joy of a baby and the sadness of a cheating SOB of a father that had to be called from his already finance's house to attend the birth of said baby.

I remember lying in the hospital bed, snuggling the baby and the nurse/hospital attendant asking me how to fill out the paperwork for his name and when I asked how much input the dad had, they told me essentially I was there, I gave birth and I could do what I wanted. Granted, in my position we were still technically married, so naming him father was pretty much a done deal, but as far as the name went, I was told I could pretty much do what I wanted. 

So I did. He does have his father's last name, but he had zero input on the rest of his name. He learned about it the next day after all the paperwork was done.

That's weird. Why do you think that is? Were all the kids with non hyphenated last names well 'behaved'?

This.