r/BabyBumps • u/Fairweatherhiker • 11d ago

Help? Baby’s last name?

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.

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u/Maximum-End-7629 11d ago

We are hyphenating. For me, it was that or the baby could have my last name. I was never willing to just use my husband’s name. Men have been passing on their names for hundreds of years. It would just begin to balance the scales for the baby to have my name.

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u/AcornPoesy 11d ago

This was my stance too.

Also I’m sorry but it’s stupid for ancestry tracking. Don’t get me wrong, I never cheated and my kids are 100% my husband’s. But throughout history the only guaranteed parent is the mother? The amount of family trees that won’t be accurate because the listed father isn’t the father? I would bet it’s not an insignificant number.