Moynahan/Brady Baby Name Drama

Normally, unless you have a very good reason not to give the father's name (he's asked that you don't, it's something hideously horrible (like Hitler, say), he's insane, he's a child molester, you've taken up with somebody else and this is simpler than doing an adoption), you give the dad's name.

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My husband and I don't have the same last name but we're a couple, so it wasn't hard to work it out.

I'm not really even sure who these people are, but as I understand it they haven't been a couple since about the moment of conception, so apparently they are still working out their break-up issues.

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This was THE debate in our family; we were actually in agreement about first names. My name is easy to spell and pronounce and my husband's is difficult to spell and pronounce, so I wanted to use my name. I also thought it would be nice because I have my father's name, and he was a wonderful father. My husband has his father's name, and he was an absent father. But my husband is pretty traditional when it comes to these things and didn't agree with me. We were going to hyphenate our last names--his compromise--but, in all honestly, they aren't great together. So I proposed picking first names and pairing one with my last name and the other with my husband's (whatever combo sounded better) so the baby's sex would make the decision for us. I thought it was fair, but my husband wasn't happy with just 50:50 odds. Eventually I gave in to giving the first child my husband's last name, on the condition that our second child would have my last name. Only now we're thinking our son will be an only. Sigh. Oh well, the girl's name we liked is the one that would have gone better with my last name anyway. Either way, tradition would have prevailed.

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We're not married here, so when I got pregnant we decided that if it was a girl she'd get my last name, and if it was a boy he'd get my partner's.

It was a girl. If it's a boy next he'll get my partner's last name, and if it's a girl mine.

We are planning to get married someday, but we'll keep our respective last names.

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We aren't married either, but I agree that babies typically have their father's last name so that wasn't even a concern.

I couldn't imagine 2 children with different last names with the same parents. I would think that would be odd to the children as well growing up.

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At this point in time She's the full-time parent, the main care provider She should have the upper hand in naming her son. I understand He wants TO BE INVOLVED BUT GISSELLE is going to get very jealous and bitchy because he's either spending to much time with Bridget ( when in reality it's his son), soon he'll end up having to choose between the two.

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GRY if you are planning on getting married some day then why don't you go ahead and give your kids His last name, that way, the only name you'll have to change is yours? that's what me and my hubby did. we weren't married when I gave birth to our first daughter but we gave her his last name. I was pregnant with baby No. 2 when we got married so it was easy to only have to change my name.
As for brady/moynahan I say, whoever gets to the birth certificate first gets naming rights. If they aren't a couple then he probably won't be there when she has the baby and she can just tell him oh sure, we'll name the baby...whatever he wants... and then just name him whatever she wants after he's born.

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We just flipped a coin on the hospital bed.

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Does anyone care what is best for the kid? Or is it all about what you want? Oh, you answered that question when you decided to have a baby outside of marriage. But wait, even if you don't agree with that point of view, how about the studies that show that children prefer to have the same last names as their siblings and the parent that they live with? Alternating last names? Ugh! Names are part of our identity, and the child should not be saddled with their parent's selfish attitudes.

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Well said Karen!!

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My parents have different last names. They gave all 4 of us the same middle name (my Mom's last name) and the same last name (my Dad's last name.)

When I got married, I kept my name (and my husband kept his.) We were going to do the same style as my parents (Mom last name as the middle name,) but my last name is the same as a boy's first name which has caused a bit of confusion over the years. We decided to go with my middle name if it was a girl (which she was!) and my last name if it was a boy. The nice thing is that it was a family name no matter what happened.

Confusing enough?

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My mom works in a very small school district where one family has chosen to give the girls the mom's last name and the boy has hid dad's last name. It has caused a lot of the teachers to ask/wonder if they are half or step-siblings, which would bother me I think.

I currently live in Puerto Rico where the tradition is for the child to get his/her mother's and father's last name. This means that each child has two last names. In practice, the child ends up getting the father's father's name as his first last name and his mother's father's last name as his second last name. TO me, it's weird that no one in the family has the same last name, but here, it's normal.

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I wanted both of us to hyphenate when we got married but he disagreed. So I hyphenated with the agreement that when we have kids they will get the hyphenated name and can decide on their own later whether they want to keep both or shorten it to one or the other. Both our names are single syllable four letters, so it's not a big mouthful. It was important to me to share a name with my husband and my children but still wanted to keep my own name (I don't like it as a middle name) so this was the best compromise for everyone.

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