Questions & Answers

they told me that i can add father if we get married by filling in back of birth certificate and having it notarized and then contact s.s.c. and b.c. place to get new cards with new last name...my son who is from different father has no name listed on his b.c. except mine also so i can add future husband to his b.c. also

Me and my fiance have been together 5 years and im 29 weeks pregnant. We have chosen to give our baby his last name but only because I dont speak with my father (I still have his second name though) and I dont want my daughter taking on my fathers name as being honest- he simply doesnt deserve it.
However, the fact is this is your's and your fiance's baby. Nobody elses so its your choice. Just like it was ours.
Your still planning on getting married to him- just not right now so I cant understand why people are saying you are ashamed of him or you will leave him. Its just silly.
My advice would be to ignore these comments and just enjoy your happy family with your fiance and new baby and when the time comes, have a great wedding and then all 3 of you's will have the same second name! X

We have been together for a really long time and just aren't in a huge hurry to get married. Having the label just isn't super important to us. We talked about waiting until the baby can walk, but honestly we have no set time or plan on when it'll happen. We did discuss for a while the idea of hyphenation when we get married, in which case he, myself and our child would ALL change our last names to include both names (in which case the 'extra paper work' point would be completely null as it would change regardless of if it gets his or my last name). I just feel the proper thing is to give the child what ever last name the mother has (if we were already married it would just get the last name both parents have). Maybe part of it is the fact that I doubt we'll keep JUST my fiances last name when we get married so what's the difference between it having mine for a few years and having his for a few year if no matter what it's going to change anyways?

That's what I said about the child support. We've been together for quite some years, and just aren't in a huge hurry to get married. We've talked about waiting until the baby can walk, and then having it be a ring barrer/ flower girl.
We are aware it'll cost money and extra paperwork to change its last name, and are perfectly fine with that. We feel like money shouldn't decided a persons name.
Yesterday I posted on Facebook saying 'ten days till baby ------ is here!'
I never realized so many people thought they had a say in what happens to our baby, but some of them are truly outraged and shocked (even though we've been saying since we found out we were expecting that it would have my last name and call it 'baby -----').
Do people always think they get a say in what's going on with your baby or does it sort of die down after the baby is actually born?

My then fiance and I were 24 when we had our son. In our minds, there was no possibility that we wouldn't get married so we went ahead and gave our son my now-husband's last name. In my eyes, it was easier to just have to change mine when we got married than to change mine and our son's. It was a headache enough to have the hospital have him as my husband's last name for a few days. Everything was under my last name then we had to follow up with the hospital and his pediatrician's office to change it to my husband's. I can't imagine what all would be included in having to change a baby's last name...I'm sure not as much as it took to do with mine, but it was just our preference to use my husband's.

Hope this helps.

In my opinion the baby should have the father's last name. Especially since you are planning on marrying him. It is a huge pain to try and have a child's name changed. My sister just had a baby with her boyfriend, and since she is legally still married to her ex (they've been split up for 5 yrs) the law wouldn't let her put the boyfriend on the birth certificate, but she still gave the baby the father's last name. If I were you I would give the baby the father's name, but it's your choice. Best of luck.

both my children have my last name and my mans family told him the same thing. so much to the point where he packed up and left us for awhile...we r going to couples counseling

The paper work might be easy enough if you are doing it for yourself too (just double the forms per place) so not really double the work. If you've considered the cost and everything else then just do what you plan.

Try to drop the topic with others as much as possible. They will continue to give their strong opinions without any thought about how inappropriate it is.

My husband and I have made a point of not speaking a word of baby names with anyone until baby is born and named. We've seen so many people proud of their chosen name to have it bashed big time to the point of making parents doubt it and change it...so sad. Though I hadn't thought about last name controversy!

Once baby is here people will likely stop talking about the name and start talking about baby so it should smooth over quickly!!

Wow! How inconsiderate. You said you wanted to hear about people's "views on the topic" but what you really meant was you wanted them to support your decision and make you feel better. "Please don't comment at all if you're going to try to convince me otherwise"...that's really close-minded. If your rationale is good, you shouldn't be scared of hearing the other side of the argument. I understand that you have probably been hit over the head with arguments already, but the people posting here have the best intentions and, more importantly, a neutral perspective. And some have more life experience than you that it may be wise to listen to. But go on and be headstrong and walk into that swampy mire because you already "made up your mind."

It's not as hard as BGG is telling you. I changed my son's name, FIRST and LAST names. I also do a lot of legal work, for both civil and family law filings, and can tell you, it is pretty basic for all states as long as both parents agree to the name change. Also, if you are low income, you can file for a fee waiver for the name change, and that will leave you with a publication fee of about $90-200 for a 4 week run. As far lawyer fees, filing for a minors name change is so easy, that to pay a lawyer to do it for you would be a gigantic waste of money. You can get all the forms online, and there are programs that will walk you through it.

As far as the emotional wellbeing of the child, my 4 year old still doesnt know his last name, nor does he care. As long as you change your childs last name before they enter kindergarten, they arent going to know, or care, but more importantly, it's not going to emotionally traumatize them as some might think.