| Adapted from an online discussion. Dear Carolyn: My husband and I are expecting our first baby. I didn’t change my name when we got married, so we need to decide what last name to give our child. I’m pretty adamant that we hyphenate, though I don’t really care about order. I’m also open to giving the child some new last name that combines both our names, though there isn’t a natural one given the way our names go together. It’s important to me that we both be identified as equal parents to our child and that there’s no subtle preference given to one parent/family or the other. My husband thinks we’d be setting our kid up for a lifetime of confusion and challenges by hyphenating. He says when our child gets married, having a hyphen name will cause all kinds of problems. My perspective is that we don’t know that our child will get married at all, and if they do, they can figure it out then! Husband wants to give the kid his last name and have my last name as a middle name, which from my perspective perpetuates sexist ideas about male ownership and lineage. I suspect the hyphen concern may be rooted in the fact that he had an unstable home life growing up (both bio dad and stepdad were deadbeats) and thinks a single last name indicates stability. What do we do here? Is there some other option we’re not thinking of? Are there really problems with hyphenating that I’m not taking seriously? — Expecting | 
