The following apology was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Thursday July 12 2007





After numerous invasive tests, three rounds of IVF, and a complicated and difficult pregnancy, my husband and I are expecting our first baby in a few weeks' time. It will be a long-anticipated arrival for us and a first grandchild for my husband's parents. Despite this, the birth will also bring with it a storm of family controversy, my first act as a mother being to fly in the face of centuries of tradition and (according to various members of our families) deprive the baby of its birthright, emasculate my husband, cheat on my marriage vows and risk raising a man-hating, hairy-legged radical. What could possibly cause such consternation? Well, if the baby is a girl, I intend to give her my surname.

When I started going out with the man who is now my husband, it was immediately clear that, however compatible our personalities, our names were never going to work together. I am Appleby, he is Appleyard. "That rules out the double-barrelled option, should it come to that," commented a friend. Two years later, we decided to get married. Despite us both having a healthy tolerance of public ridicule, Appleby-Appleyard was never considered a viable surname option. Combining the names gave us Applebeard, which was marginally worse.

I immediately discarded the conventional solution - that I should change my name to that of my husband. From the time my peers started getting married after university, I have been amazed that intelligent, educated women of my generation still change their surnames to that of their husband. Some I know did so with a half-hearted apology - "I never liked my name"; "His name is more distinctive"; "It doesn't matter to me." Surprisingly, though, the men never seemed to prefer the names of the women they were marrying and it always mattered to them.

The women who did keep their own names often cited professional recognition as a reason. For me, it was more fundamental than that. A name is part of your identity, and, after 32 years as an Appleby, I saw no reason to change part of who I was to fit in with a conventional naming system based on a woman being part of her husband's estate. The reasons people cited to persuade me to change my name were less than compelling: "People might think you aren't married" (Why should I care?); "It will cause confusion when booking holidays" (I give both our names - how is this confusing?); "People might address Nick as Mr Appleby." The concept that I should permanently take on my husband's surname to negate the horrific possibility that he might occasionally be addressed by mine was indicative of the level of equality in debate on the matter.

In general, people accepted the Appleby/Appleyard alliance, but, five years on, when two blue lines marked the start of our new life as parents, the incompatibility of our names again became an issue.

Initially, my husband took the conventional stance. "But all children are named after their fathers," he said. Luckily he didn't expect the "tradition" argument to hold much sway with me. If we never moved on from the way things have been done, we would still attend public hangings, burn witches and my marriage pledge would have included a promise to obey.

The issue remained unresolved as the minuscule bundle of cells grew a tail, lost a tail, developed a liver, kidneys and eyes, and began to move its tiny limbs.

The solution arrived unexpectedly one evening, as I tried to throw out a potted tree, which had resembled a scorched stick for the last two seasons. My husband has an endearing sentimentality for dead plants, and can nurture them lovingly long after most people would have tossed them in the compost sack. In fact, I suspect he prefers plants dead, as the water and plant food often start being administered only after the souls of the plants have long since departed to the great green forest in the sky.

"It'll bounce back to life in the spring," he said, wresting it away from my murderous gardening gloves.

"Do you want to bet?" I said, looking disbelievingly at the withered leaves and desiccated stem.

"I bet you the surname of our children."

And there it was. A wonderful suggestion. A solution that was gender-neutral, fair, equal, the result easily determined. And, most importantly, a bet I had already resoundingly won. The tree was as dead as a doornail.

Through the winter, as our zygote blossomed into a foetus, opened its eyes, grew legs and learned to use them to kick me painfully in the bladder, the Surname Tree sat leafless and shootless. Spring arrived, my bump expanded and swelled, other trees sprouted buds, then leaves, but the Surname Tree remained bare and frozen, lost in a permanent winter. Eventually my husband conceded that the bet was lost, and the tree was dead. In turn I conceded Appleyard to any future son, but if our child was female I stood my ground. Our daughter would take my surname.

Given that I am the only woman in either of our families who kept her own name on marriage, I didn't expect a groundswell of understanding and support from our nearest and dearest on the announcement that our baby would be an Appleby if a girl. Even so, I was impressed by the level of prejudice this engendered.

My sister-in-law, for instance, who for years insisted on addressing me as Mrs Appleyard, could be relied on for a good, balanced, Daily Mail opinion. "You won't really let her emasculate you to that extent?" she said to my husband. I'm not sure if I was more bemused by her assumption that a man is emasculated by his daughter taking her mother's name, or by her implication that this was the final straw in a long process of emasculation to which my husband had been subjected.

Even my normally balanced brother gave a sharp intake of breath. "Do you really think you'll go through with it?" he asked, as though I was planning an unassisted ascent of K2.

My father-in-law took the whole thing more seriously, possibly as, lacking any daughters, he naively thought he might be able to influence events to his own satisfaction.

"What was the point of you getting married?" he growled, obviously regretting his contribution to the reception drinks. "You might as well have just been living together." I had obviously completely misinterpreted the function of marriage. Dazzled by the romantic ideal of staying loyal and looking after each other for life, I missed the small print about naming any baby after its father.

My mother, with perhaps a greater understanding of my stubborn streak, was resigned but pragmatic. She offered her gardening services to the Surname Tree, hoping that a bit of careful pruning might restore the plant to life. If my husband won the bet, the child could get its father's name and the world could be restored to its natural order without anyone losing face.

Despite the unanimous opinion that our daughter should take her father's name, none of my family believes that his name - Appleyard - should be anything but a temporary solution. She should be called Appleyard only until she marries, when she would take on the name of her new husband, whatever that might turn out to be. To me, this isn't to grant her a name, but a temporary label, and she deserves better than that.

I am not someone who enjoys a fight. I like the easy life. I'm desperately disappointed that previous generations of women haven't sorted out an equal and generally accepted solution to the issue of names to save me the trouble. They fought battles over other sexist labels. We've gone beyond the days when it was acceptable for a man to address a woman as "love" or "dear". Ms was coined to prevent women having to disclose their marital status to every double-glazing or insurance salesman who takes down her details, but it would take a brave bigot to deny that our system for naming children is still fundamentally unjust.

To pass this injustice on to my daughter for the sake of an easy life would be to fail in my first breath as a mother. My daughter might not care whether she carries her mother's or father's name. Many years from now, if she gets married, she might decide to take her husband's name. On the other hand, she might be proud to be one of the only women of her generation able to boast a name of her own, one inherited from her mother, intended for her for life, and one she might one day pass on to her daughters. I truly hope so.

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