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Question:My husband was adopted, and he is close with his birth father. He has always thought about hyphenating his last name to honor his roots. How would you go about doing that? Would I change my name to a hyphen as well? how about our future kids? Any thought, ideas, or tips would be helpful, thanks in advance


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: My husband was adopted, and he is close with his birth father. He has always thought about hyphenating his last name to honor his roots. How would you go about doing that? Would I change my name to a hyphen as well? how about our future kids? Any thought, ideas, or tips would be helpful, thanks in advance

I wouldn't use his hyphenated name as yours. In latin tradition, where hyphenating is very prevalent, it is the husband and wifes name. for exampe he's john smith and your jane doe... your son could be bob smith-doe.
i suggest he drop the adoptive fathers name and just keep the one of his roots. this way everything is much more easier to undersand and search genealogy and stuff.

My names hyphenated, my husband just has his surname, and our son has the hyphenated name as well. My dad died just before we got married, and my husband and I agreed that this was a lovely way to honour my dad. Now all of my siblings ( five of them) have their names hyphenated with the family name included.

I know a family who chose (after they had two children in college) to completely redo their family name. They hyphenated it, and the entire family went to court (including the two children (1 son and 1 daughter), and they now are all hyphenated family!

You'd have to do it through the courts.

Depends which country you are in! In the UK you can call yourself what you like so long as it is not for crime or fraud, and the name is not obscene or offensive.
To benefit from anything relating to your "old" name you would need to take out a deed poll, which is not too expensive. This would legally change your name so any insurance policies, will bequests, passports, National Health and N.I. number, pensions etc. would be legally assigned to your new name.
In the UK hyphenated names are considered a bit "upper class" so it could be worth doing, just for the fun of it!
Adding it as an (extra?) middle name would probably be a bit simpler.
Any genealogist will know that surnames were often used as middle names in times gone by.

I just came here to answer your question rudely like you did mine. (BTW, no where in my pregnancy question did I say I was unmarried. In fact, I've been married going on 4 years). How does the Bible teach, Mrs. I'm a Christian? OH yeah--- judge not unless you be judged / let he with no sin cast the first stone.

Now, to answer your question, why would your husband want to honor his roots if his mom/dad didn't care enough about him to keep him and instead tossed him to the wind?