Lewis Hamilton is right to change his name – why should fathers automatically get priority?

The system needs a complete overhaul – we need to do away with ‘tradition’ and make it routine for both parents to have their names included when they name their kids

Bravo, Lewis! If only all Britons were so progressive (PA Wire)

I’ve often wondered why I changed my surname when I got married. I never wanted to; it wasn’t through a burning desire to be absorbed into my (then) husband’s family – I felt part of them, regardless. I certainly don’t regret my marriage – but I will always regret giving up the name that had carried me since birth.

And so, while I was still married, I changed my name back by deed poll. It felt like I was reclaiming my identity; putting right something that had always felt wrong. I felt like “me” again. What’s more, I’m now doing exactly the same for my kids: applying by deed poll to add my maiden name (the name that tells the world who their mother is) to theirs.

So, too, is Lewis Hamilton – the seven-time world champion has announced that he will change his name to honour his mother’s surname: Larbalestier. He said he made the decision partly “because I don’t really fully understand the whole idea of why, when people get married, the woman loses her name”.

Bravo, Lewis! If only all Britons were so progressive. For while there are those who do keep their name, of course, and those who come up with a welcome new arrangement – such as the couple on Twitter who “swapped” surnames; the pair I know who took each other’s names so they were both hyphenated; the couples who combine the two (see: Chris O’Dowd and Dawn O’Porter) – it’s certainly not “the norm” here, and it should be.

Instead, keeping your maiden name when you get married, or giving your children both parents’ names is still seen as slightly leftfield, or radical. But it’s time for the world to wake up – there are so many options now, and we need to stop impressing archaic, heteronormative ideals on our kids.

We need to tell them they can marry whoever they like, and tell them they don’t have to marry at all. They need to know that if they marry and later decide they aren’t happy, it doesn’t have to be “til death do us part”. They don’t have to change their name either, because their name is their identity – and who they are will always be more important than who they “belong” to. They should know that they belong to nobody but themselves.

It’s also worth reminding ourselves, and our kids, of the reason for marriage in the first place, because it was never meant to be about love and romance. The original meaning of marriage was possession. Marriage was designed to give women economic security; to pass on the responsibility for the woman from the father to the husband. On getting married, women gained a home and (in some cases) relative wealth, but lost the right to an identity. Their husbands became their legal guardians, “until death us do part”.

Critics may argue it’s ironic to make a fuss about the male-dominated system which led to women bearing the names of their husbands (like chattel) – when it’s effectively swapping one type of male “ownership” (a husband’s) for another (a father’s), and they’ve got a point. In this country, many of us will have our father’s last name – unlike, say, the Netherlands; where you are asked which name you want to use, or Sweden, where women traditionally keep their given family name.

We’ve clearly got a long way to go, despite small shoots of progress: in May last year, the Marriage Act of 1837 was amended to add mothers’ names on marriage certificates across England and Wales, where before only the names of the fathers of the bride and groom were included. Small steps, but positive ones.

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The system is by no means perfect, but for me, the name I have carried since birth holds a great deal more resonance for me than the name I “fell into” upon getting married, and I want my name to have equal representation in my children’s lives, as I would expect in every other area. I already co-parent; they’re as much part of my family as they are of their dad’s. There are two bloodlines running through them; two wells of love and care and silly, sweet family stories. To have just one ancestral name, one legacy, feels sad and remiss – almost like erasure.

The system needs a complete overhaul – we need to do away with “tradition” and make it routine for both parents to have their names included when they name their kids; or make it much more common for a couple to choose, rather than automatically fall back on the father’s. Nobody should be forced to give their kids the name of a parent who is absent or abusive, or where the relationship is problematic – making it more common for mothers to have their names given to their kids would help mitigate those pressures, too.

Normalising maternal naming would also help logistically in situations like this: at the moment, parents like me who don’t share a last name with their children can experience problems if we want to take them on holiday. In fact, I have to get a signed letter from their father to tell the airport authorities that I have his permission to take them away with me – I may even be asked for their birth certificates to “prove” we are related.

If you want to make a change to your kids’ names, take heart and use me (or Lewis Hamilton) as an example: it doesn’t cost much, and is remarkably easy. There are many services available online, but I used the official government “enrolled” deed poll service. I paid £36, asked a good friend to be a witness, had my documents verified by a solicitor for a fiver, then applied to the Royal Courts of Justice to make it official. A few weeks later, my certificate of my name change came back – along with official notification in The Gazette.

Yes, it’ll add a bit of a mouthful to all the forms my kids will have to fill out as they grow up, but it’ll be worth it for them to know exactly who they are – and where they come from.