I have read the topic posted on changing a surname and I am going through a somewhat similar situation and would like to know if there are other people who have been through this and what it the best way to handle it.
I have been a single mother to my daughter who is now a teenager. I am now pregnant and engaged. My fiance and I are going to get married before the baby is born so the baby is going to have his father's surname. What I am struggling with right now is since I am going to take my fiance's surname once we get married, should I change my daughter's surname as well? She is using my maiden name. My fiance has no problem if I want to change her surname to his and he likes the idea of all of us using the same surname and he wants to legally adopt her. Her father has not been in her life her since she was 2 and I do not know his whereabouts. I have tried locating him through his relatives but no one wants to tell me where he is so I have basically given up on trying to find him. He once called my daughter after I left my number with one of his relatives but this was 2 years ago and he has never contacted us since then. I even explained to them why I need to get a hold of him but I am still not getting anything.
I am just concerned that if I dont change my daughter's surname, what would that mean for her? Right now, I am not sure if she will be comfortable with changing her surname since she has used mine all her life but at the same time I dont want her to feel that she is not part of the family by keeping a different surname.