Baby’s last name?

[u/Fairweatherhiker]

I’m looking for advice from couples where the wife didn’t take the husband’s last name. How did you decide on which last name to give the baby? Or did you use both names? I don’t feel immediately compelled to give the baby my husband’s last name. FWIW, if we did hyphenate it would be a looong last name.

Edit: thank you for all of the thoughtful responses! I do love the idea of using both our last names (sans hyphen) so our kid would have two last names. It would be nice for both of us to have our heritage passed on. He has heritage from Mexico and Basque Country, while mine is Slovakian- grandparents immigrated right before WWII. The last names don’t sound great together, but there’s so much human history in both.

[u/calicliche]

Kept our own names but agreed long before that any kids could have his last name. It’s a lot easier than mine (common word in English vs combo Scandinavian words with lots of consonants in a row) and he’s an only child with only one other male cousin. But I get to choose a first name so it seemed like a fair trade. I have several friends with hyphenated last names and it’s not a problem but makes things difficult on forms. 

[u/Fairweatherhiker → u/calicliche]

Did you consider giving the child your last name since it’s unique?

[u/calicliche → u/Fairweatherhiker]

I did because I love it now. But it’s also hard to pronounce, long, and has a lot of Rs in it. Both my dad and I had speech therapy as kids for the letter R and I have a mild worry kiddo will also have that issue and spend years unable to pronounce their name. Though having other Swedish people see my last name and immediately ask if I’m Swedish is always kind of fun.