Naming a kid is no joke and it doesn’t stop at just a first and middle name sometimes. When it came time to choose a name for my soon to be child I also had to decided what to do when it came to a last name too. Should You Hyphenate Your Child’s Last Name? After some long thought I decided NOT to hyphenate my child’s name and I am going to explain why I chose this route.
Why Would You Hyphenate Your Child’s Last Name?
There could be a number of reasons why you would want to hyphenate your child’s last name. In my case it because my boyfriend and I are not married. This is a choice, marriage isn’t what we think is best of for our relationship at this point. This does not, however, make us less committed to each other. We own our home together, we have built a life together and now we are going to be a family. This means we have different last names. Should marriage be the right thing down the road, I will not take his last name. I have established far to many things in my current name and I have heard to many horror stories about name changing. Besides all that, I think the tradition is a bit archaic. My name is my name.
Food For Thought
So what does that mean for our child? I will admit, before the idea of kids was even a reality I did what a lot of people do, I thought about names I would like should I ever have a child. One day I mentioned to my dad a name that I liked and without a thought gave the child my boyfriend’s last name. My dad was taken a back. He was confused as to why our name was not included. This was food for thought. I hadn’t even thought about it before then. I mean, my thought was of course the child would have his last name. But, my dad posed a great question. Why wouldn’t it have my name? or both of our names? I am always going to have my name then why would I not also share it with my child.
So Should You Hyphenate Your Child’s Last Name?
Fast forward to now, when making this choice is now a reality. There were so many options. Do we hyphenate, make up some new mash up or our names, give my name as a second middle, or something else entirely?
My boyfriend made it clear that he had strong feels about our child having his last name. He has a unique name with a unique history, so I understand. This ruled out the mashup idea. I kinda thought it was too weird for me anyway. Fortunately, he also understood my wanting to have my name and family included as well. So that left hyphenation or second middle.
Pros and Cons
My mom is quite savvy with legal things so I stuck her on the case. What were the pros and cons of both options? I also asked from friends and read some other stories around the web.
My friend is a teacher, she was one of the first people I spoke to. She loudly voiced the opinion against hyphenating. She has several students with hyphenated names and it is a nightmare for her. The kids don’t always use both names, usually only one, the second one. On all official paperwork though they are alphabetized be the first of the names. Some of the kids get lazy and use just the initials of the two last names when turning in assignments. It is really all a big mess for her.
My step sister grew up with a hyphenated name. I recall how annoying it was for her to be alphabetized under one name but hardly using that name. She was never sure if they would put her under one name or another. It was also long and a lot to write.
Around the web I read even more less than ideal stories of the world of hyphenated names. In this article, the mom explains how she was charged twice for the birth of her children, once per name. Paperwork filing, no consistency, it was so bad she ulimately changed there names.
Yikes.
I Decided Not Hyphenate My Child’s Last Name
Well, this wasn’t a great case for hyphenating. My last chance of having my name was to use the middle name option. I could just give my name as a middle name but it doesn’t feel like a middle name to me, but a second middle, now that could be the ticket. As it turns out, this was the winner. My child will have my name on the birth certificate. It can be used when needed but also can be dropped when needed for legal paperworks, accounts and whatnot. This seems like the best win win for everyone and my child can still carry a little piece of my family.
Perfect.
Let’s chat about it. Did you incorporate your last name or maiden name? Did you hyphenate? Middle? First name? Mashup? I want to hear your stories!