Names

Hi Razzy! How ridiculous your MIL is being! Arrogant, stubborn, controlling, rude, and, Imo, just plan silly. I agree w/ those who say to ignore her bad behavior. However, if she addresses a gift package wrong, for example, I would not send a thank you for it. This may seem a little petty, Imo, it's justifiable. After all, if she doesn't send the gift to the person you actually are, why should you reply? Let her wait for a TY from "Mrs. Jones" whoever that is, LOL!

I worked in an organisation where two employees working in the same office, doing the same job but with a different section of the public became married. This was late 80s. On marrying they both adopted one another's surname at the end if their own name. It was a nightmare for both their clients and reception staff. People would cone in asking for say Ms Johnston when they actually wanted Ms Johnston James. And of course would ask for Mr James when it should have been Mr James Johnston. Eventually the couple dropped "add ons" when they had their first child as they were list as to which combination of names the child should have. Still haven't changed back to the double barrel version. Think the Icelandics have the right method of first name given all of the mix and match ones going around in the last 20 years or so.

Yes, double names might cause some problems, but, imo, it's still the parents decision and not up to the mil/gm. It's a minor issue since she has nothing to do, I imagine, with the parents jobs and will have no effect on the child's school records. But, clearly, she thinks her opinions of their choices outweigh theirs.

So your child doesnt have the same surname as either of you?

This WILL cause confusion.
I know children with double barrelled names but their parents changed their own names to double barrell too so they all have the same surname. That or the child has one parents surname.

Since you havent double barrelled yourselves, people will assume that the child has either your OR your DHs surname.. not a new one.

Since you both decided NOT to double barrell yourselves when you married, it was a very odd move to give your child a brand new double barrell surname that they share with no one!

NoSpog why on earth would it 'disappoint' me? As I have previously suggested it is always good to read posts properly before responding,

Just a couple of things. I have taught children whose surname matched neither of their parents, who had their surname changed when their mother remarried, and who had traditional surnames. The one thing you learned was to address the parent by the name they were using and the child by the name it was currently registered as. Not doing so could create a huge hoo-ha!
But I do know that children when they grow up often choose to use another name and they get very annoyed if you use the old one.

I'm with you Nonnie; I have had some hurtful posts directed against me - what's the point? The nasty poster is only bolstering up their own sense of superiority having little thought for what might be the distressed state of mind of the gran they are sniping at. As someone once said to me when I criticised a third party, " But that's their reality, not yours." That made me think and keep my negative thoughts to myself on such occasions. Love one another, even if it's hard to do.

Thank you, NotSpaghetti - that probably explains why DH's ancestors adopted a double barrelled surname for a short while, since dropped - and why it is so difficult to trace Welsh ancestry (all have the same limited number of surnames derived from father's forename!).

Thanks Jaxie I'm never sure if people do it deliberately or if it is because they are somewhat 'limited in the brain'. However the reasonable gns far outnumber such people which is why I'm still here. Funny how some names only seem to crop up when certain people post, reminds me of school children getting together because they can't think for themselves so have to follow a leader.

I quite agree with MIL that it sounds vastly better and less affected to give the child its father's surname only, but hey ho, that's up to you. Double-barreled names used to imply 'posh' but now they immediately indicate to many of us that the parents arent wed. Even if they are...it just screams 'illegitimate.' But as I say, that's up to you...

The Icelandic setup with names only works because the total population of the whole country is less than 400,000. I can't see it working with many millions of people.

Double-barreled names ....................... just screams 'illegitimate

What do you mean? Who now cares a dot whether a child's parents are married or not?

Just a thought: some posters have suggested returning incorrectly-named post with "no such person at this address", or words to that effect.
I assume that they mean getting the postal service to return it? But it couldn't be returned, could it, as there is extremely unlikely to be a return address included that would enable them to do that.

I might have misunderstood, and these posters might be suggesting that the OP herself readdress (and re- stamp) such mail. If that is the case, it seems like a waste of both time and money for something that the mil has already been told many times.

I dont think that double barrell names scream anything any more

However it is just odd and unusual in this country give the child a brand new surname that it doesnt share with either parent.

With the parents chosing not to double barrell themselves, and start a new family name that way, I don't think the MIL will be the last person to get this wrong. OP may as well just grow a thick skin about it since they chose to be unusual.

Apart from now rather outdated (English) tradition, why on earth is it "better" to give a child its fathers name? Where is the actual logic?

I wonder if it is purely age that dictates which side of this argument we are most likely to be on, with the younger grans on one side and the older ones on the other ?

I believe Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper's children have her surname as having gone through the bullying and teasing that he went through as a child with his surname, he didn't want his children to suffer as he did.

I have heard of other families doing something similar and one family who decided to choose an entirely different surname for all of them. Mr Brown and Miss White and children all became the Red family.

M0nica, I'd have thought Beige was a more suitable name?

Grandma Pita ,love it

My daughter has the same surname as her father. I have kept my maiden name – my father's surname. She was born in 1982 and we never had any problems with school or anywhere else about who was who in our family. Her father and I are divorced, although we are close friends and live close by each other, having both emigrated to New Zealand within a year of each other.

Meanwhile, I had remarried – 20 years later and in the same Register Office – and still retain my maiden name. Sometimes Mr absent is addressed as Mr My Name because I generally pay all the bills and people assume that I am Mrs, rather than Ms My Name. I chose to keep my maiden name, after a brief spell of being both Mrs First Husband and Ms My Name, partly because I found mucking around adapting to a new name disconcerting and partly because I already had a good reputation in my profession and as a freelancer, keeping the recognition was important. However, I am never offended if a member of his family addresses letters or cards to me as Mrs His Name.

Meanwhile, absentdaughter married when, still a teenager, she first came to New Zealand and took her husband's surname. She then changed her first name because she absolutely hated the name her father and I had chosen when she was born. A couple of years later she gave birth to a son who is registered in his father's name. Not very long afterwards, she and her husband were divorced and some considerable time after that she remarried, having already had four children beforehand – all registered in their father's name – and has had two more since – also registered in their father's name.

Are you keeping up at the back?

Anyway, neither she nor her husband have had any difficulties about the various names. The only problem was when Mr absent and I were applying for residency in New Zealand on the basis of family sponsorship. Providing legal certificates to prove our family connection and explaining the variations in names was quite a mission.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

P.s. The last five children all have the same dad – my lovely son-in-law.

absent wow!
I have a cousin who was so unhappy when her parents divorced that she wanted to disown them and changed her name as a protest. She named herself after her pet animal.
Now, many years later, and her own divorce, she and all her children are still the name of her pet!
Ofcourse she had chosen the name anyway.

My DD has my name and DH name double barrelled because she is the last in the line on my side and it was a way of preserving the name for a bit longer. Don’t think she’ll be able to keep it going if/when she has a child as would be too long but it’s up to her.
I think your irritation with MIL will probably result in a natural reticence to spend time with her. Why would you spend time with someone who is irritating, so more fool her!

Starbox
Are you back in the 1950s? Busy identifying ‘illegitimacy’ and maybe counting the months between wedding and birth? Nice!

Leyla -
A friend did exactly as you did. Her children have become known by the initials. John J-S, rather than John Jones-Smith, it just gradually happened and it works for them.