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Two surnames, with love: choosing your child's last name

What's in a name? We asked parents with firsthand experience

Shandley McMurray,

Originally published in Today's Parent April 2005

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Meet the Thorson/Borons. They’re your typical nuclear family: one mom, one dad, a house and two kids. Dad, Robert Boron, works in marketing and mom, Stephanie Thorson, is a program manager at the Clean Air Foundation. They live in Toronto and their kids, eight-year-old Abby and six-year-old Annika, both love swimming, dancing and reading stories.

Pretty average, right?

Here comes the confusing part: Abby has her mom’s surname (Thorson), while Annika shares her dad’s (Boron). So far, the kids haven’t had any real problems with confusion at school, but the dance class administrators have trouble finding them in the computer because they can’t remember under which surname the kids are registered. As for the kids, for the most part, they think it’s cool to have different last names, says Thorson (Mom, that is). “Abby likes that it’s something different that sets her apart from the other kids.”

Women keeping their own name or hyphenating their last name upon marriage is so common that it’s barely worth mentioning, but their passing of these names on to their children had us curious. Just how many parents are giving their children different surnames, whose last name are parents choosing most often, and how easy is it to change a child’s name in the first place?

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