[echaos]

I’ve posted this as a GLBT topic, but it really does apply to everyone. It is more relevant to GLBT people who live in places where they are not allowed to legally marry. Changing your name during a marriage is much easier, and much more accepted, then doing it at any other time.

My partner and I discussed which last name to use for Liam, her’s, mine, hyphenated or a new one. Our final solution was to chose a first name and then add whoever’s last name sounded best with it. So in the end Liam got my last name. Had he been a girl he would have had Hilary’s last name, as the first name Sarah sounds dumb with my last name! And any future kids added to our family will go through the same process. So we could end up with siblings attending school, camp etc. with different last names. It was a bit weird for me at first, but not for Hilary. She grew up in a blended family where almost everyone had a different last name.

There can be a down side to having different last names. Here in Canada, parents are not listed on birth certificates, unless you specifically apply for the long form version, which comes on a big piece of paper and is not the kind of thing you can easily keep in a purse or wallet. Friends of ours, a straight couple with a bio-son, ran into some problems very early on. When they married, she kept her maiden name, and when their son was born, they gave him his father’s last name. When the Mom went to travel with her 4-month-old baby to see her folks, she realized (at the airport when stopped by security) that she did not have a single document or piece of evidence to prove that this was indeed her child! She was not allowed to travel until the father drove to the airport, showed that he had the same last name as the child and gave WRITTEN PERMISSION for her to travel with THEIR son!! Needless to say the whole thing incensed her, while she appreciated that security was trying to protect children from being abducted. The slight absurdness of this situation is that any relative on the father’s side (his sister, cousin, aunt etc..) could have traveled with the child, no questions asked simply because they shared a last name.

We learned through their experience and ensured that we applied for a long form bc right away and we do carry it with us. However, we have never once been stopped or asked to verify it.

For lesbian couples there is a potential other layer to the situation. If one partner conceives and gives birth to the baby, could they legally give the baby the other partner’s last name? Unmarried straight couples do this all the time (give the baby the father’s last name), but the legalities are blurred when it’s a gay couple. Has anyone here run into this yet?

By Melissa Balmain
The Name Game
Most parents-to-be obsess about what to name the baby. For my husband and me, the hard question was what to call ourselves. The answer we came up with last fall, soon after I got pregnant, wasn't popular with my in-laws. Bill and I thought we'd start using my pen name -- Balmain -- as our legal surname. "But why?" his parents moaned.

After all, Bill and I had spent nine years of marriage going by different surnames. This not only suited our feminist beliefs, it also followed our policy of separate-but-equal. We've had separate-but-equal cars, separate-but-equal bookshelves, and even -- at our wedding -- separate-but-equal cakes (carrot for him, devil's food for me).
We knew, though, that a baby was not like a car or a cake. This child would be ours. We were confident that a unifying name would help us feel more like a family -- and look like one. After all, who wants to confuse their kid's teachers and doctors by using names that don't match?

The Name Game

Bill and I agreed that hyphenating our surnames wasn't the answer. What if our hyphenated child should, upon marriage to a hyphenated fiance, decide to hyphenate? And what if our grandchildren and great grandchildren followed suit? The mathematical consequences were mind-boggling.

We also ruled out sharing one of our given surnames. Unlike Bill, I didn't have an Irish bone in my body, and I couldn't pretend to be a FitzPatrick, like him. He felt just as funny adopting my Eastern-European "Weiner." And crossbreeding our names was out of the question: Fitzweiner, Weinpatrick, Fitzweinick -- all seemed sure to turn our kid into bully bait.

So we decided on the ethically neutral Balmain, my middle name, which I'd been using professionally. We kissed. It was settled. Soon, we vowed, we would legally become a family of Balmains. I looked forward to telling Ms. magazine and the National Organization of Women about our enlightened move. Who knew? Maybe they would throw us a ticker-tape parade?



A Change of Heart

The next day, I mentioned our plan to one of my teenage journalism students. "But FitzPatrick is such a good name," she said. Her enthusiasm took me back to 1985 -- the year Bill and I fell in love as college students, the year I spent long hours silently reciting his name, scribbling it in margins, proudly revealing it to my girlfriends.

I remembered how we endured 1986 on opposite coasts when Bill started grad school, and the way my heart danced each time an envelope arrived with his initials in the corner. I thought of the little thrill I always got when I spied a restaurant or bar or even a used car lot named FitzPatrick's. I considered one of my favorite nicknames for him -- Snickelfitz -- and his smile whenever I used it.
Finally, it dawned on me: You don't just fall in love with a person. You also fall in love with his name. My discovery was confirmed mere days later by an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer changes his name to Max Power. "But I fell in love with Homer Simpson," wails his wife, Marge. "I don't want to snuggle with Max Power."

Likewise, I didn't want to cuddle up to some stranger named William Balmain. I told Bill so. He looked relieved. "Now what are we going to do?" he asked.
Our final answer is very popular with my in-laws: Bill and I kept our own names. Our son, David, got FitzPatrick as a last name and Balmain as a middle name. We're careful to put everyone's whole name on every form, so it's clear that both Bill and I are his parents.
And we'll just have to live without that ticker-tape parade.

Melissa Balmain is the author of Just Us: Adventures and Travels of a Mother and Daughter (Faber & Faber, 1998).

She lives in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Originally published in American Baby magazine, November 1999.

[moonbridge]

We are planning on hyphenating our names. We also plan on changing our names so that the whole family has the same name. I would like to hear what other families are doing and what has worked and not worked.

[rtsmom]

As far as I know - here in Canada - you can give your child any last name you darn well choose. My last name could be Smith, my husband's Jones and we could choose to give our child the last name of McGillicuddy, if we wanted to. I know a woman who didn't like her last name or the father's and so gave her child a completely different one. Unconventional, but apparently it happens.

[bjolly]

we decided we would just use whoever's last name sounded better with our child's name. Unfortunately, when we were blessed with our daughter, we felt like her first name went better with my last name, but her first and middle together went better with my partner's. Since our little girl is 10 we decided to ask her which one she liked and she decided she wanted both. She also wanted to keep her whole birth name. So it looks like she will end up with 5 names - first, middle, birth surname, my surname, partner's surname, in that order per her preference.

we told her she'll have to pick just 1 last name to use for school though.

[1of2moms]

We too went through this discussion and decided that as we could not provide all the legal protections for our children as we would like,as we can not be legally married in Idaho, the best we could do was the same last name. This way, if one of us rushed the child who was not legally 'ours' to the ER, having the same last name would create fewer questions.

We took our last names and put the letters on paper and started rearranging them. We finally put the syllables on paper and arranged them. We created a list of new names we liked and finally just decided on one. We both went to court in our county to have them legally changed. Her judge said yes, mine said no and made her judge vacate his order (while acknowledging there was no legal basis for this and I could feel free to appeal it). We rented a room from friends in the next county and did it again. THis time we both got them changed.

When I adopt D we will change his last name to ours and the baby will also have the same last name. As far as we have found, our last name is unique in this country. That is fine by us.

[qs mom]

I'm a straight single adoptive mom. I had a ton of people look at me funny when I told them my son would have my last name. They wanted to know what would happen when I marry?

Well, I'm 41 year old. I'm not changing my name IF I ever marry. Again, looks as is I was crazed. I figure I've lived half my life with this name, I'll live the other half that way too.

So, my son and I will always have the same last name - no matter what.

But I would like to note that a couple of years ago, we had a real political issue here. I live on a US/Canada border town (US side). They stopped and detained a man with his child because they didn't 'look' alike. The father was a very dark skinned man from India, the mother a very fair skinned Caucasian woman. They child a fair skinned child. They detained him as a suspect of kidnapping and child smuggling.

Needless to say, mom showed up, along with all the news channels - major media frenzy.

[karenw]

We opted to hyphenate so kids would have equal connection with both of us. Certainly this was a debate, and could have gone many ways. Luckily we were able to co-adopt and have fewer potential legal problems because of it. Our oldest started out hyphenating his birth name with my last name as I adopted him first. When he was 11 or 12 yrs old he asked if he could change to include DP's last name like his younger sister (who is a birth child). He now has 2 middle names and a hyphenated last name, but seems very content. We refer to ourselves as the B****-W****household but have kept our own last names for professional and personal reasons I guess.
All kinds of options out there!!!
karen

[LeslieP9]

We did as you did--chose the last name that fit best with the first name we wanted. For us too, it would be my last name if a boy and hers if a girl. We had a boy. For the second child, we chose the first name to go with her last name. So we have one parent and one child with each last name. We did, however, give them a first name, a middle name, a second middle name using one last name, and then the chosen last name. So all names are legally included.

So far it has not been a problem in any instance (even with my partner being the stay-at-home parent who ends up being responsible for most routine medical appointments, school registration, etc.). She even flew across the country with him with no problem. And it has not been "confusing" for our now six-year-old--he delightedly will recite the names for anyone who is interested.

[spaypets]

When DH and I married we planned on not having children. Since I had established credit, gotten my masters, bought a house and was a journalist with my name in the paper daily, it seemed like a royal pain in the neck to change my name. And hyphenating two German names, well it wasn't an option.

But there was never any question that DD would have DH's name. For one thing, he's the primary caregiver. For another, his name is easier to pronounce than mine. We never even considered including my last name in her name because her name begins with A and both our names begin with S. You see the problem!

Had I been sure we were going to have children, I might have been more likely to change my last name, if only to simplify calls to the school. But, no matter. It's actually not that confusing (although for some bizarre reason my alumni magazine completely botched a recent class note making my DH's name my maiden name).

There's a couple in my temple who adopted two girls from Cambodia. The mothers have their own last names and the daughters have both names hyphenated. For that matter, there's a hetero couple that did the same thing.

[allanacw]

My last name is hyphenated and I didn't change it when we got married. My husband's last name is Polish and difficult to pronounce. Had mine not been hyphenated and been just one of the names, he would have changed his name when we married.

Our daughter has his last name, but one of my last names as a middle name, as will all our children. So far, we haven't had any problems, but we got a fair amount of flack from people both when we got married and when she came along.

So really, it's just been people not keeping their opinions to themselves that's been the problem!

Allana

[LisaCA]

I was 29 when I got married and growing up I'd always planned to change my name. much harrassment with my last name, lol. But when push came to shove, I couldn't do it. i realized that that name was who i was, good and bad, and that was that. I'd also published under my name and I hate it when academics change their names repeatedly (hard to remember which name is on which article). Dh's inlaws not impressed, lol.

dd-Dh would do what I wanted, because that's the kind of guy he is . I decided that i'd give dd his last name, then I'd be able to force the first and middle names that I wanted down his throat. No, actually I suspect dh wanted dd to have his last name, so I did. he's the first born and all that.

I do know of folks who have had to get signed permission slips from their husbands or ex-husbands with diff last names to get into canada. total drag.

we didn't want to hyphenate since dd would have two middle names as well (running out of those little letter squares on forms and I wanted her to be able to spell her name before she went to college). I do know of a straight couple who legally changed both their last names to a hyphenated monstrosity of a name (lebanese and german names). their kid bears that last name.

[redhedded]

Andy, Great discussion. I have an often made fun of long German last name. There are only girls, me and my sister, and my dad's sister's two girls, his nieces. I kept my last name legally and on all documents; after all of those years of people misprouncing accidentally and on purpose, in attempt to be funny, I could not bear to part with it. On some documents it is hyphenated with dh's name. To complicate, dh has a very typically long Thai first and last name but also has an American first name and European adoptive last name (his fathers). There were so many names to choose from.

Our kids have both of our names legally, hyphenated. DD has a very Thai/Hindi first and middle name with a very German last name. B has a rare name period combined with a very Irish middle name and German last name.