Reply to For women who didn't change their names, but gave their children their husband's last name...

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Help me understand why most women who choose not to change their names when they get married still choose to give their children their husband's last name? It just seems like if you choose to give up an old tradition of taking your husband's last name, why would you choose your husband's last name for your children? I'm not criticizing. Really. I'm just trying to understand...[/quote]

I kept my name because it's my name and has been all my life.  I didn't want to keep it because it came from my father, just like I wouldn't want to keep it because it came from my mother if I had her maiden name as my surname.  The connection that mattered to me was that it was mine, had been mine my whole life, and I didn't see any reason to give it up.  I didn't care to have my husband take my name (and he had no interest) because he doesn't have that connection, and didn't care to take his (and he had no objection).  These are our names.  I know people who grew up hating their name (hard to spell, hard to pronounce, reminds them of relatives they hate, any reason) and jumping at the chance to get away from it.  That wasn't my experience, nor was it my husband's.

Our kid has her own name.  If I didn't like my DH's last name it might have been different (I'm always thrown when I meet someone with the surname "Lynch," for instance), but I do like his name.  Both of us have very common, easy to spell, easy to pronounce surnames, so there was no sense of "keeping it alive" by choosing one name or the other.  He strongly wanted any kids to have his last name, and I did not have a strong preference in the other direction (see above, my name mattered to me because it was mine, not because I was carrying forth my father's line).  So my daughter shares her father's surname, and it is now *her* name.  She'll probably feel her own way about her last name and may make different choices.  Or maybe not.  Who knows?[/quote]

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