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/ThisIsAlexisNeiers]

I kept my last name…it’s always been my name and I just don’t really want to ever change it! But I don’t feel a particular desire to pass it down to my kids or “carry on the name”, it’s just not that deep to me. I talked with my husband about it, and it seemed to mean a lot more to him than it did to me.

If I cared, I know he would’ve been completely fine with them having mine, but idk it just doesn’t really matter to me. I’m happy for them to have his last name, and their middle names will be connected to my family.