Hi all,

My wife and I just had our first (and possibly only: I'm 45, she's 41) child this past Monday, a baby girl we named "Mariella" (a variation of Maria sometimes used in Italy). But that's all we've got. We have a serious issue about last names. Apparently we've had different ideas about this but it has only come up now. In my perhaps social ignorance and/or conditioning, I always thought that my child would have my last name. Well apparently my wife has had other ideas for some time. She wants to give our baby a hyphenated last name, using both of ours. I feel almost shell-shocked at just learning this now. We both have "good" reasons for our opinion and I've even tried to compromise: using her surname as a middle name, but she insists that "it'll just get lost like all middle names do." I don't think all middle names get lost, but there's no way I can convince her. I'd even agree to using both last names without the hyphen, as long as mine is used in cases where only one name can be used.

Help!! If not here on this board, does anyone know where we could get some impartial help with this? Thanks, Jim jdefazioaz@juno.com

Piano,
Wow, I am surprised that this never came up before the baby was born. I can imagine that it's unsettling to have such a major issue come up now when you are celebrating the birth of a new baby.

I personally don't like the hyphenated last names because of the potential confusion, what heppens when Jones-Miller weds Smith-Harris? It seems to work for one generation and then causes a problem.

With that being said, it is a very personal issue and what is considered traditional is not what anyone has to do. I really love the idea of using the maiden name as a middle name, that way the female never loses it if she changes her last name to marry.

I would suggest that you move this question up to Emotional Needs, that forum gets a lot more traffic and you will get a lot of opinions.

Thanks LadySing, I just posted it there. Jim