I like my solution best: Male children are given the mother's family name. Female children are given the father's family name. (If they transition later in life, so does their name.)
My nephew and his fiance are picking a new name, I thought that was sweet. I love carrying my husband's name, i love that most of the family has the same name that way, aunts and grandparents and all. Other people might like doing it another way. As long as all parties are happy with the arrangement and aren't being strong armed in the name of tradition it's fine. To each, their own.
honestly i think we should normalize giving kids their own unique last name. they already get their own first and middle (if given) name. inheriting your last name just perpetuates patriarchal ideas of children as property and patrilineal inheritance of wealth. the inherent ridiculousness of it gets even more obvious when people hyphenate their last names for their childs last name. what happens when their child has children with someone else who also had hyphenated last names? two generations in and your last name is starting to look more like a list of sponsors than a name. three generations in and youve got 8 last names all smooshed together and youre gonna have serious issues filling out paperwork and online forms. just give kids their own unique full name and call it good.
The hyphenated solution works with one proviso: already-hyphenated names have to pick one of the two.
Jane Doe marries Richard Ray. Children's family name: Doe-Ray. (Or Ray-Doe at their option.)
Alice Meeh marries Bob Fahr. Children's family name: Meeh-Fahr. (Or the reverse again.)
Jeffrey Doe-Ray marries Archibald Meeh-Fahr. Children's family name are, at the option of the parents (though we should probably demand consistency across children in the same family), one of Doe-Meeh, Ray-Fahr, Doe-Fahr, or Ray-Meeh.
My wife and I combined our last names. If we decide to have a kid, they will be the first of their name :)
My colleague chose their last name, when they got married, they both selected an new name together. So their children are the first heir to a new dynasty lol
That’s not possible where I am from…
I agree in principle that baby gets mother's last name, but disagree only because my mother had a weird maiden name that I'm very relieved not to have grown up with 😅
Matronyms ftw!
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