Name Change Question for DD

[babyonway]

I am going through a divorce and my DD (3 years old) and I both have her dads last name. I know he won't agree to me changing her name (at least I don't think he will) but I think he will agree to me hyphenating her name (I want to take my maiden name back.) She has ZERO idea what her last name is now (I did this on purpose :waving4:) LOL she knows her numbers to practically 100 all her colors and shapes, alphabet, numbers, her address, my phone number, etc but LOL that she doesn't know her last name right?

Anyway what I want to do is hyphenate her name and then sort of drop his name socially. (I know legally her name will be the hyphenated one) what is the best way to do this. Lets say her dads name (and my married name) is Smith and my maiden name is Doe. I want to take Doe back. Should DD be "Julie" Doe-Smith or "Julie" Smith-Doe. With my full intention to drop Smith socially for DD and her go by Julie Doe. My SIL says Doe-Smith but I wasn't sure.

Thanks in advance for all your help.

[lalasmama]

Not sure how to legally make it happen... But at school, no one blinked an eye at DD using DH's last name, though legally she has my maiden name. Shouldn't be hard to socially drop part of the last name, IMO. I'd do YourLastName-FathersLastName, so she isn't dropping a "middle part" of her name, if that makes sense.

[minnie-zb]

You will want to make sure you change it legally and get a corrected social security card. And I'm pretty sure it would be Doe-Smith.

You and Lalasmama are correct, it won't be hard to do socially, but it will catch up to you with Social Security if she's putting the wrong name down and it doesn't jive with the Social Security number. Trust me on this -- I went through this as a child and as an adult.

[JBaxter]

I had a contentious divorce from my older 2 son's father so Im not Pro- X in any way but is there reason you are trying to remove her fathers last name?

[zukeypur]

Not sure how to legally make it happen... But at school, no one blinked an eye at DD using DH's last name, though legally she has my maiden name. Shouldn't be hard to socially drop part of the last name, IMO. I'd do YourLastName-FathersLastName, so she isn't dropping a "middle part" of her name, if that makes sense.

Interesting! I adopted DD1 when I was single, so she still has my maiden name. She would love to go by DH's last name, but we don't want to mess with legally changing her name for many various, complicated adoption-related reasons.

[div_0305]

I would suggest NOT hyphenating, but rather having two last names. With most Hispanic names, there are two last names, and not always hyphenated. I would suggest putting Doe as the first last name whether hyphenated or not, as with Hispanic last names, the first last name is the "dominant" one--usually being the father's last name, but in your case it would be your maiden name. I think this would be much easier to drop the father's last name socially. Then at 18, you could ask DD if she wants to take it off completely and do another name change.

[almostmom]

Just wanted to share my name change story, though the circumstances are very different. After I got married I wanted to keep all my names, basically adding a second last name. So say I was Julie Doe Smith I wanted to now be Julie Doe Smith Adams. (The only odd thing is that my maiden name is also a common female first name.) I made the change when we were married, but I didn't immediately get a new SS card as I continued to go by my maiden name until we moved across the country a year or so later and didn't have a need for the card.

When I did go to get a new card, I filled out whatever forms they asked for, provided my proof forms as well (maybe marriage cert. and birth cert.). But when my new SS arrived, it said Julie Doe-Smith Adams. They had basically created a hyphenated middle name, instead of 4 un-hyphenated names! I probably could have complained and gone through the process again, but I let it be.

But I consider my name to be what I wanted - no hyphens. And I have it that way everywhere - except my driver's license and my taxes. Even my checks say it the way I want it.

So I guess what I'm saying is, dropping part of it will be no problem socially as I have done that for years (but the longer name might show up on her first day of school paperwork). But be very clear when making the change about how you want it to appear!

And I second putting your name first. I had a friend growing up with a hyphenated last name (before it was common) and he always went by the first name, even though his parents were married.