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hi, im interested to know what people think of surnames of parent and child being different.my surname is because i married my husband but because we are divorced i am really known by a different last name . with 4 children i feel if i change back to my maiden name the childrens friend will ask why, mum, step dad and kids all have different name. what should i do. it also upsets my boyfriend when i sign my married name on forms, when ive been divorced for over a year.
Well, I'm actually gonna give you my two cents based on the system we have in my country. See, I live in Costa Rica, and we use two family names here; so children's names consist of First Name+Middle Name (optional)+Father's Last Name+Mother's Last Name. For instance, my name is Lilliana Víquez Murillo (I have no middle name), because my dad's last name is Víquez and my mom's is Murillo, and my child will be Matías or Camila (we don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet) Serrano Víquez, because of daddy's and my last names, and so on and so forth.
Another thing is, of course, that women don't take their spouse's name here. We keep the same name all through our lives, so in the event of a divorce, no one needs to change their name and the kinship will be preserved in the children's name.
So I would advice you to maybe go back to your maiden name (i.e. Jackson) and give your children a hyphenated name composed of their father's and your names (i.e. Johnson-Jackson). That way you wouldn't have completely different names.
I hope this advice was useful to you!
(June 2006) (
