Hi Swistle,
I would love your thoughts on a question of parent-name balance (FEMINISM) for a baby girl due in August. I have loved your posts on this topic!
When we got married, we each kept our own last name. My name is/sounds like Clare Kristianson and his name is/sounds like Casey Surappis. We don’t like the way our last names sound together, or the fact that the baby would end up with an 18-letter hyphenated surname. We are instead considering the name Clara Elliot Surappis. Elliot is for Casey and his mother: Casey’s mother wanted to name him Elliot, but her family made fun of it so she switched to Casey. He and his mother have always felt Elliot would have suited him better. This baby will be our first, and we are not sure if we want more.
Do I want to make a human’s name my feminist stand? My family are traditional Midwesterners: I am the only woman to keep her name at marriage, and it has been hard for people to understand why (I tell them repeatedly, BECAUSE I WANTED TO). I am worried I’m in for a lifetime of comments that (1) I am egotistical, or (2) it’s confusing for us to have similar names. To them, I imagine saying (1) are all the men with Man Junior sons also egotistical?, and (2) I have a PhD, you may call me Doctor Clare if it helps you tell us apart. In real life, though, I worry that I, and later she, will get tired of explaining our choice rather than celebrating her name in its own right.
Side question: Is the division of first name for me, middle and last for him, too him-sided? I rationalize it by saying that he doesn’t get much flexibility on his last, and the first name gets the most use, and I do genuinely like Elliot for a middle. Will I regret this?
Thank you!
Clare
You and I both know that (1) it is no more strange to name your daughter after yourself than it is for a man to name a son after himself (especially when you are not even using your actual name, let alone ALL THREE of your actual names, as men often do), and also that (2) many people will perceive it as strange anyway, because patriarchy. Your phrasing of the question (“Do I want to make a human’s name my feminist stand?”) seems extreme, though: I don’t think in a day-to-day way your daughter will feel her name is her mother’s Feminist Stand—the way she might if, for example, you made her a junior. I think there will be a flurry of interest right after the name is announced, and then it will come up much less often; and in the meantime, you have your responses prepared. My hope is that in the long run you would be pleasantly surprised by how non-reactive and/or positive-reactive people were—but on the other hand, you have family who don’t yet understand the better-established practice of a woman keeping her own surname, so we might have to wait a couple generations for some of us to catch up.
I am more concerned about the plan to give the child your husband’s surname. What is the plan for future children, if you do have more? Will you alternate your surname and his, or does keeping your own surname mean you’re the only one excluded from the Husband’s-Surname Household and that you’re the only one who has to go through life clarifying that you’re the parent of your own child(ren)? You mention not wanting to hyphenate, and I like to assume people know what they want and are able to think through their own various options; but on the other hand, I don’t think it hurts to make sure we’re thinking this through thoroughly—just to avoid accidentally sliding down the patriarchal path of least resistance. Is “not liking the sound of it” (it seems like we don’t require the father’s surname to pass that test) and “it has 18 whole letters” (that does not seem like a big deal—and, again, if the father’s surname were that long, I don’t think we’d be saying we shouldn’t use it) really enough reason to avoid that option? And if you really genuinely do not want to hyphenate, then I don’t think that means your surname drops from consideration—even if you are being represented by the first name. I do think it’s nicest when a couple can choose a balanced name that represents both families, but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way—and in those cases, it’s nice to be able to contribute to SOCIETAL balance, and to the advancement of the concept that women (and their names) are as important as men (and their names).
Re-reading your letter, I feel like we could use more information about why you want to use the name Clara. Is it because you both love the name, and it happens to be a variation of your own name? Or are you going for feminism/namesake? If you’re going for feminism/namesake, I’d suggest using your own actual name, and perhaps using Clara as a distinguishing nickname. I would further suggest at least CONSIDERING, if only for the thrill of it, Going For It: all three names the same, just as with fathers/sons; perhaps that would make it easier for everyone to understand. Or perhaps let your husband choose the middle name, as some exceptionally accommodating and fair-minded husbands are willing to do even though it means their sons won’t be juniors. (I have not heard of any sort of general trend of men saying that if a son is getting a variation of his own first name, the middle name should be chosen by his wife, and the surname should be his wife’s.)
If you don’t want to do that, then I still feel as if you might be thinking that because you get one (1) child with a variation of your first name, you have to give everything else (possibly including the surnames of any further children) to your husband. To me, the fair division here is Clara (variation of your name) Elliot (name representing your husband) Kristianson-Surappis. The surname is indeed long. If I could show you the yearbook from my kids’ high school, I think you might feel better about that: there are LOTS of long hyphenated surnames. But if you really don’t want to, and we’re going to make this decision based on the SOUND of the last name, then I think it should be yours: it’s a much nicer sound. Or perhaps the system could be YOUR surname for girl children, and HIS surname for boy children. (I prefer the idea of giving the girls his surname and the boys your surname, but I also think it’s pretty important to do the non-traditional thing for the FIRST child, to make sure it doesn’t Just Seem Easier to keep going with the father’s surname.)
Actually, you know what I think would be really, really nice, if you KNEW you were having more children AND that the next one would be a boy? Name THIS child Clara ______ Kristianson-Surappis. Name the NEXT child Elliot _____ Kristianson-Surappis. (Or, if you don’t wish to hyphenate, Clara _____ Kristianson and Elliot ______ Surappis.) Well, we don’t know and we don’t know, so it’s probably not worth the risk of losing the name Elliot.
I really enjoyed your response, Swistle. And thanks for posting this question, Clare! Looking forward to comments on this one.
I also didn’t fully change my surname upon marriage. Not sure if it’s similar in the states, but in Canada I can keep my surname for work / bank / socially of course. But my passport and DL has my husband’s surname tacked on the end, non hyphenated. The kids got his surname, with my surname / significant maternal line name in the middle. I do wish I’d thought harder about using my surname, as it does sound better!!
I also do wish we’d merged our names. (He’s not particularly attached to his. My ‘line’ has many males to carry on the surname through my extended family.) I’ve known a few people who did that and it just seems really balanced and neat. I get there are downsides and both people would need to change their surnames officially, but it’s such a great symbol of a new family forming.
Balance in naming can get as complicate as you want to make it. As in, keeping and using your surname, which I assume is your father’s surname, passed through the paternal line, is a statement, sure. It’s yours, it deserves to be passed down as much as your partner’s name. Where is your mother’s line in your child’s name? Where is his mother’s line in your child’s name?
I also have more questions after reading this letter. You mention your partner and his mom and their both wishing he’d been named Elliott. And that he has no choice about his surname. Is he even attached to his surname? Does he wish he had another surname? I just ask because I know a number of men whose fathers were absent and they are very vocal about not having any connection to their father’s surname and some have talked about changing it to their mother’s (maiden) name instead, or taking on their partner’s surname at marriage. Next Q – do you like the name Clara? I echo Swistle in that without any statement of you liking the name, and the inference is that you’re just choosing it to make a statement, basically using a patriarchal naming convention with your daughter. People make statements in naming their children all the time of course, but I’d just hope you actually like the name?? What if this were a boy coming?
If I were you (without knowing much of the context) I would choose Elliott-Clare Surappis (as middle name) Kristianson…
Oh, merging the surnames for the children is such a great idea! You could combine Surappis and Kristianson, and go with Surenson! (I know a bunch of Sorensons, so that seems perfectly normal to me.) I agree with Renee, I wish I’d even considered keeping my name when I got married, or hyphenating, but it never even crossed my mind.
It’s not too late to do it with your kids, though!
But otherwise, I would definitely consider using your last name. Or at least including your last as a second middle name. I don’t think it’s so much “making a statement ” as is it … acknowledging that you’re the parent too, and deserve to be represented somewhere?
My kids have a 13-letter, 5-syllable hyphenated last name, so it’s a little shorter on the letter and syllable count, but not by a lot. It has been workable.
Do you think Elliot will please your mother-in-law? And is that the point? Because if she was hoping to use it as a boy’s name she might have a bad reaction to it as a girl’s name. I’m just thinking of my own mother-in-law, who also gave up the name she really wanted to name her son– I don’t think she would have appreciated the gesture if we’d given that name to a girl. But obviously, your mileage may vary.
Just jumping on here to say you might want to consider adding your last name as a second middle name! It won’t feel as unwieldy for day to day use, I think, but just KNOWING that it’s there might make you feel good.
Oh my goodness! Kristianson is so much easier to say and spell! (and I certainly like the way it sounds. ) I knew a husband and wife who gave the girls the mother’s last name and the boys the father’s last name. If I had done that in the 1970’s when my children were born, I would have two daughters to carry on my most wonderful last name instead of having it go extinct.
I might consider saving Elliot for a possible boy name or even a daughter name. I know of a girl named Elliot, Ellie for short.
Just my experience: my husband and I also each kept our names when we married, and then decided when I was pregnant that our kids would have my last name. We did get some blowback from our Midwestern, conservative-centrist families, but it wasn’t anything like I expected it would be. I think they figured it was just a wacky thing we did and rolled their eyes a bunch and have moved on. And since then, it’s been smooth sailing. Literally the only people who have ever questioned it were our families. And now that they know and love our kids, it’s a non-issue.
I just wanted to offer the perspective that you will need to feel good about your kid’s name forever; everyone else will adjust. And maybe you can use the story of Elliot to illustrate that to your MIL?
I am also here to say I think Kristianson-Surrapis sounds just fine. Or, maybe you’re the kind of couple that would like to get playful with your combined surnames. Kayess seems like a great last name to me. Or Eskay. Or how about Elliot? I think the story about your husband and his mom is really sweet, made extra sweet because you like the name too. Or a place name or nature word or virtue that’s significant to you both? Once you live in a world where it’s normal for kids to have a different surname than their mom, or their dad, hardly anybody notices that a surname is different than mom AND dad.
(I do want to push back a teensy bit on the idea that an easy-to-spell-and-pronounce Nordic name is inherently better than a where-is-that-from? name. I think one of the situations where the expectation that women change their name can be the most unfair is when their name also comes with a connection to a culture and identity that’s important to them and they want their kids to have too).
Just chiming in to add another real life story of hyphenated names. My kids have a 13 letter hyphenated surname. They are now in middle/high school and it’s been fine. Sometimes they drop one name or the other if they’re in a rush, but using the full surname has been no problem and they have several friends with even longer hyphenated names. I think I struggled more with the surname question than the first name question, including weighing the option of using either my mom’s maiden name or MILs. We ended up not doing that because both of the maiden names were more generic WASPy, and the paternal surnames were more specific to an ethnic heritage. At any rate, there’s a lot to consider but do consider the hyphen!
Same same! 13 letters of hyphenated goodness, complete with a very Germanic consonant-heavy name that for some reason people here in England can never get right first time (ESPECIALLY) in doctors waiting rooms. No regrets. It’s more important to me to see both our names up there every day than it is that she can’t spell it as easily as kids called Lee or Jones.
WASP is not a heritage to be particularly proud of, true, but I cannot in good faith claim any other. The few other strands are too thin for that. sigh.
I agree w/ Swistle and others that the big unanswered question here is: Do you like the name Clara for your daughter? Would the small confusions of sharing your name with her end up bugging you? If it’s the name you want your girl to have, go for it!
I know you didn’t mention it in your letter, but Just in case you end up thinking about second middle names, I’m adding my own experience here: I kept my maiden name as a 2nd middle when I got married. Having two middle names is no hassle at all– I fill in both on paperwork that has room for both, and just the first when there’s only room for one. I’ve never had any problems with legal paperwork or plane tickets or anything.
I mention this because if your daughter gets a first name from you, and then the middle and last from your husband, it still feels to me like she’s getting a lot of his names. Personally, I feel like you should get your last name in there as a second middle, even if she doesn’t end up using it much. (Although I just thought of initials– CES isn’t my favorite, because of cess, but then does CEKS end up sounding like sex? Oh, dear. This is why Swistle is the pro, and the rest of us merely followers!)
Long time reader, first time commenter! But I had to share that I actually have my mother’s first name, and I love the special connection. My parents intentionally chose to call me by my middle name, Clare, (fun coincidence with the OP!) because that was the name they actually loved. I ended up with Melissa in front because they thought it flowed better. I appreciated the connection enough that I did not drop my first name when I did a name change upon marriage, and I gave my firstborn daughter the middle name of Clare as well to continue/create a tradition of mother-daughter name sharing.
So I grew up having the same first & last name as my mother, and there were times that it was quite handy! But my day-to-day experience is not being called by the same name as my mother, so in that respect, I can see the appeal of Clare/Clara. Something else you could consider if you ended up using your exact name for your daughter is recognizing that she won’t encounter confusion on a daily basis in school or environments where you are not both present together. The main circumstance where I imagine it will be confusing is at family gatherings. That’s where families who pass on the name John from father to son end up with some going by Jay, JJ, etc. So you could plan for family to use a nickname (such as Cece, after her initials).
Anytime I have explained why I go by my middle instead of first name, I say that my first name is the same as my mom’s, and despite it being very unusual for an 80s baby to be named after her mom, no one has ever commented on it being odd or looked askance, so I do not think you would actually encounter people thinking it’s egotistical. And I definitely didn’t get any reactions like that about using Clare for my daughter’s middle. I also know of a mother-daughter pair named Sharonda and Shalonda, and my personal reaction to realizing the connection was completely positive. I hope you do stick with the idea of naming your daughter after yourself, whether it’s just the first name or first & last!
I am definitely wondering if you can bring the smoosh last name trend to the Midwest. Here on the Left Coast nearly every family goes socially by The Smoosh. The Wakaneisons are coming for dinner. Are we hanging out with the Septileys this weekend?
Big fan of Kristipis and Surakristians!
For an actual legal surname, go with whoever holds health insurance in your family? It makes everything easier down the road.
Our health insurance has changed btwn us several times since having kids, so that would not be a factor in my opinion!
Clara Elliot Kristianson would be my vote.
This is just a little anecdote for “people have done this before and will do it again”. My dad’s oldest sister (my aunt) shares a first name with my grandmother (her mom. She has a different middle name, which is from her mom’s side of the family, and she has her dad’s surname. So for instance if my grandma was named Jane Greenwell Fairchild, my aunt is named Jane Randall Fairchild. She goes by Randy :-)
My grandmother was named directly and exactly for her mother, my great-grandmother.
Clare or Clara, either one is lovely.
Agree with much of the above, including potentially including your surname as baby’s second middle or husband’s surname as second middle and your surname as baby’s surname.
This is slightly complicated, but bear with me!
Growing up, my brother had a different last name from the man he considers his father (his stepfather). Brother had my mom’s last name.
When he was a teenager, his stepdad adopted him and they changed his last name to match. So Brother now had a different last name than our mom, but the same as his dad.
When Brother’s name differed from his dad, absolutely everybody assumed he was not biologically related to his father. Absolutely everyone.
When Brother’s name differed from our mom’s, nobody ever even suggested that. It never occurred to them that she might be a stepparent–they just assumed she kept her maiden name.
My only point in sharing this story is that having a last name that differs from your parent will be be perceived very differently depending on the gender of the parent. Is that fair? No. But it’s important to take that into account, and I think it gets glossed over in these discussions. OP’s husband may be totally fine correcting people about this throughout the children’s lives, or it might bother him a lot. That same assumption won’t usually happen to the mother. Food for thought.
(Also, I think the double-barrel last name is fine. It’s not too long, in my opinion.)
But maybe today we are all more accustomed to a diversity of family names? The experiences you share don’t surprise me, imagining that your brother grew up in, for example, the mid-80s. Today, if someone suggested to my partner that his children weren’t his own due to their having my surname, he’d see it as patently ridiculous and would wonder what outdated cave that person had been occupying.
My kids don’t have their dad’s last name and no one has ever assumed (out loud) that he isn’t their father. They do sometimes assume that he has the same last name as the kids and me, but that’s easily and quickly corrected. We’ve lived in four different places, and that’s been true in all of them.
I have good friends who decided not to hyphenate but gave each kid one parents surname. Mom first, dad second. And surprise baby #3 was mom. It’s delightful. Very fair, no long hyphenated name and no one ever questioned if they were a family.
Commenting to share our family’s naming decision (along with some of our sibling’s choices) as encouragement to think completely outside the box:
My last name sounds like Sailing, my husband’s last name like Casarel. We both kept our names the same at marriage. We have one child who is First Name First Middle Sailing (Second Middle) Casarel (Last Name) and one who is First Name First Middle Casarel (Second Middle) Sailing (Last Name). So 2 kids, each with a different last name and with the other parent’s last name as a second middle name. Never any trouble with paperwork, travel, literally no issues We LOVE our choice to mix it up like this, we are 10 years into the experiment and the kids are content and like their given names and know that we would support any desired changes. A++ recommend.
One set of our sibings went with hyphenated last names and are just as happy.
Another set of our siblings legally blended their last names together and are just as happy.
The only sibling between our families who is not happy is the one who went with the father’s name for tradition. The concerns about connection/being the weird ones haven’t born out and they wish they had done what they wanted, which is use mom’s last name instead.
Anecdotes are not data but I HATE how many voices are out there discouraging people from making different choices because of “paperwork” or “government” or “social embarrassment”. No one really cares what you name your kids, certainly no one cares like you do. Do what you like! Clara is a great name.
As someone who kept her name, and whose kids are double-barrelled with both our names hyphenated, here’s my opinion: all that matters is that the name feels good to you (and you know, ideally your husband but he’s not the one growing a human…).
If every time you look at the name in future, you’re going to have a twinge of ‘oh that is not balanced or fair!’ then it needs adjusting. If your only concern is what other people think, then it does not. People are, generally speaking, idiots anyway. Clara is a beautiful name, if you love it and it gives you a little tinge of pride that she’s named after you, then that sounds brilliant. But you could always consider your last name as a second middle? Clara Elliot Kristianson Surappis? You get first, he gets middle, you get second middle, he gets last? Sure, on official forms it’s a few extra letters, but for day to day she’d be Clara Surappis and you’d both be represented?
How about using Elliot for this and future kids’ last name?
I love that you are considering naming your daughter after yourself! People used to do this, fwiw- think Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. I don’t know why the boys made it seem like only they could. Oh wait, I do! Patriarchy!
Anyway, I did this only a little bit- my second daughter and I share our middle name. I am surprised by how much it pleases me, especially given how bored I was by the idea (to which I agreed), that if we had a boy, he would have my husband’s name.
Your choice for your child’s name is none of your family’s business (see: your MIL’s enduring name regret). Sharing name ideas before the baby is born makes it seem like they are open for negotiation. Nope! Keep it a secret and share it with joy and confidence when the time comes.
It’s actually more common in my paternal line than male first names getting passed father-to-son, though Dad did get his father’s first name as a middle name.
My husband and I both kept our own last names after marriage. We have two daughters and they both have my last name. There has been surprisingly little push back or confusion about the issue. That is probably because I did most of the school and doctor related things so the staff didn’t often have any occasion to know his last name. A couple of times, but surprisingly few, my girls were asked if my husband was their stepfather because he had a different last name. They just laughed and said no. When we are asked why we chose to give the girls my last name, I say smash the patriarchy baby and he says because he has three brothers and I had none. Either way, I’m very glad we did it. And my daughters like it too because of the feminist aspect.
I wish your husband would say ‘smash the patriarchy, baby’ too!
Yep, me too. But he went along with it so I’m happy with that.
If you love Clara, please use it! I am from the deep south, so I consider my region more conservative than the Midwest (not that there is an objective scale for these things). My mother is Vicky Lyn and she name me Victoria and my sister Lindsey. I am 42 and have always loved the connection the three of us share. If I had been a boy, I would have been John Douglas III, called Trey. I have a cousins with feminized versions of their dad’s names and others with our/their grandmother’s name, but none named after their own mother. I have never heard any snide remarks or negativity directed at my mom. The only issue that has ever come up was one of mom’s credit cards somehow showing up on my credit report (we only found out when I bought my first house), but it was easily corrected (at the time, we had the same last name). It is not egotistical to want to share a name with the beautiful human growing inside of you.
I’m also from the south, with a pretty conservative family who’s been here for centuries (so like, really truly southern), and I honestly don’t understand when people act like the mother as a namesake is such a revolutionary thing. My grandmother is a junior. My great grandmother was named after her grandmother. I’m named after my (other) great grandmother. Several of my cousins have names honoring our grandmother. A male cousin has his mother’s maiden name as a middle name. All told, the female honor names at least equal the male honor names. A nontraditional last name would certainly get some raised eyebrows in my family, but maternal honor names feel completely normal to me. Maybe it’s a southern thing? I feel like maybe I’ve heard that honor names as a whole are more prioritized in the south? I really don’t know. But if you love the name Clara and want to share your name with your daughter, absolutely go for it. I really don’t think you’re likely to get much, if any, pushback for it, and the fact that it’s a slightly different name helps a lot with the confusion aspect. (I’m personally not a fan of repeating identical names in families, because my family has that and it’s a little confusing, but passing down middle names or variants is an awesome way around that.)
Yeah, traditional family background here (immigrants who live in the northeast, though) and my mom was named after her mom! And my name is after both my mom and her mom, but their middle names so I don’t share their first name. (And every single one of my uncles has a son named after him… the repeated names are out of hand- the newer generation has made it easier by either not continuing the tradition or having Jr. go by his middle name!)
I just want to mention the importance of equity over equality. Equality is where everyone gets the same amount and equity is everyone gets what they need (ie everyone’s needs are different). I wonder if it’s not the lack of equality but the lack of equity in naming your baby.
As others have mentioned, do you love the name Clara? It is a great name, but is it your most favorite name that you have always wanted to name a daughter? Or is it a way to balance your husband’s last name and make things equal and fair? To me, the way to have equality and equity is to double-barrel it or alternate it (if you feel confident about having more than one child) and to pick names—first and middle—that you both love. I wish you luck!
My favorite thing EVER is when there is a feminist angle to a question and Swistle BRINGS IT!! Note to readers: always ask Swistle for the feminist angle! :)
For what it’s worth, I have a 16-letter, 6-syllable hyphenated last name that few people can immediately identify how to pronounce. Growing up, my siblings and I loved how long it was, even with the clunkiness, and how balanced it felt with a name from both of our parents – to the point where we’d immediately correct anyone who used only one of the names. We also REALLY loved that our mom did it to take a stand against the patriarchy, back when it wasn’t quite so commonplace. It took a couple years for her parents to fully wrap their heads around, but having a grandchild to whom the name was attached really helped.
I’d also echo the suggestions of your last name as a second middle; my brother has two middle names (yes, five names total!), one being our grandmother’s maiden name, and even though they don’t flow perfectly together he’s always been very proud to have that extra piece of family honor there. With two names from each of you, it feels much more balanced!
I have some thoughts…. Why is handing down the surname that came from my dad, his dad, and so on more feminist than handing down my own name? Growing up I felt much more attached to my first & middle names than my last. My parents picked my names for meaningful reasons; my surname was just what I got. I’m expecting my first daughter and plan to pass down my middle name to her, and my frontrunner first name is a name connected to my own first name. She’ll have my husband’s surname as myself and our sons do. For me I find a lot more significance in picking her first & middle.
So I understand and love that Clare plans to use Clara!
First, a clarification (wordplay not intended but enjoyed!), in order to explain why it’s considered feminist to keep your surname and/or give it to your children: it is YOUR birth surname. It might have been your dad’s birth surname, too, and his dad’s, but now it is YOURS. If we frame it as choosing “your dad’s surname” vs. “your husband’s surname,” then the takeaway is that men have real surnames that belong to them but women do not. Is that something we believe? I hope not. Once you have been born and named, that surname is now YOURS. And so keeping YOUR OWN BIRTH SURNAME is “more feminist” than following the patriarchal tradition of switching to your husband’s birth surname.
Whether handing down your own FIRST name or your own LAST name is “more feminist” is not something we’re taking a stand on here, and not something I even know my own opinion on. (But if you never felt very connected to your surname, that may be at least partly due to patriarchy, which tells us that surnames are an unimportant default decision, chosen for no meaningful reason, and also tells women that the names don’t belong to us but to our fathers.) The issue we’re addressing is whether, once a woman has handed down her first name (or a variation of it), that means she should give up the rest of the name. Which is not something men tend to do when they hand down THEIR first names.
We all understand and love that Clare wants to use Clara! The question is whether that means she should now give her daughter her husband’s surname (which she herself has NOT taken, unlike you and unlike me: she has kept her OWN birth surname), instead of giving her daughter HER surname or some combination of both parent’s surnames.
Exactly Swistle! I will never understand when people say that women’s last names are either their dad’s or their husband’s. So by that logic women never get the right to claim their own last name. It makes no sense. Thank you for making that point so clearly.
Most surnames in the world are like that. A lass has to claim some name, after all, and we generally like to have a family connection with it.
I like mine, so I keep it, regardless of who else has it. MIL hated hers so she took FIL’s. She didn’t even move her maiden name into middle name territory. In turn, FIL actually has his mother’s maiden name, because he came a little bit before the wedding. (Good on FIL’s grandparents for not making their unwed daughter give up her baby nor forcing them to speed up the wedding! Practically radical in 1950s Ireland)
I’m inclined to agree with feeling less attached to my surname as compared to my other names – I don’t *think* it has to do with being a woman, but obviously I can’t completely know how I would feel in the opposite situation.
I thought about this a lot when I got married, and to me, a surname is not a personal name, but a family name. My first and middle names are me, while my last name is the group of people I belong with. When I was a child, that group was my parents and siblings (who all shared a surname), and now it’s my husband and child. Sharing a surname with them is very important to me for that reason. Now, that doesn’t have to be the husbands surname – it could be a hyphenated or combined name and still serve the same purpose. I do, after all, still belong just as much to my birth family as my husband’s birth family, so having elements of both their names could make sense. But I also really prioritized simplicity in my name/the process of changing it, and my attachment to my birth name didn’t outweigh that desire, so I just dropped it, and I think that was the right decision for me. (And amusingly, in my family, NOT keeping it as a middle name was the thing that felt a bit odd – but I was much more attached to my (beautiful unique family) middle name, and having two middle names went against my desire for simplicity.)
People have said “your name is too long” to my 9 letter first name. To which I retort “Bull[redacted]. If I can learn to spell it at 4, your grown self can handle it.” My full name often doesn’t fit on standardized tests, for some bizarre reason. You’d think the number of Elizabeths and Catharines alone would encourage them to add a couple more spaces. But again, _their_ problem, not ours. Harumph.
Our kids did get the hyphenated 16-letter version, but we emphasis the first half, which is _my_ surname. DH’s preference as well as mine; his name rhymes with duckin’ (and a few other things) and it’s always bugged him. He likes it when he’s called Mr. MyName. Our families, even the conservative members, were cool with it.
I think Clara Elliot Kristianson sounds lovely, as would Elliot Clara Kristianson or Clara Elliot Surappis-Kristiansen. Any way you go will work beautifully.
I just wanted to suggest what a few others have already mentioned – keep Elliott for a future child’s first name.
It is a great name and has a special story/family connection to go with it. It would be a shame to hide that away in the middle name (which so very rarely gets used in a daily basis), especially if it means that you used all your personal family names for your first child (a name from mom & a name from dad). Clara for this child and Elliott for the next?
My dear children have a 14-character 5-syllable hyphenated last name and it is not.a.problem. I promise.
Also, I used a name my MIL loved and wanted to use herself (her mother’s) for our daughter because my husband wanted to so very much, and did MIL ever seem pleased? No. In fact, mostly the opposite. So don’t worry how MIL feels or doesn’t. Your baby, your turn to name.
Lastly, my favorite of our children’s names is the one who shares my middle name, because that connection feels extra sweet to me. Hope you’ll smile every time you see Clara. You’re the best person in the world for her to be named after!
My grandma was given her mother’s exact first and middle name back in 1924 so I guess naming a daughter after her mom has never felt like a new/trendy/overtly feminist thing to do in my family. (There were the same issues father/son pairs with the same name face.) My grandma didn’t like her actual name, but as far as I know she did like the connection to her mom.
Kind of off base, but I knew a family where the mom kept her last name and they had two girls. The mom’s last name was Mackenzie, and they named one daughter that and named the other daughter after the dad (Claire from Clermont). Always thought it was so sweet. That being said, I think using a variation of your name is a great way to continue your name lineage without the last name connection. We name boys after their dads all the time without question, often using a nickname, should be the same with girls as well!