Backstory - My brother's son (five years old) is technically my sister-in-law's son from a previous marriage. However, vile ex-husband hasn't been a figure in the child's life since a few months after he was born, while my brother has been the "dad" since my nephew was one and a half. Ex-in law family have pretty much disowned the ex-husband and completely love my brother. My brother, his wife, and the kids vacation with the ex-in-laws, etc.

With the addition of my new niece, brother and sister-in-law are considering changing the son's name to better fit in with the family. They don't want to offend my nephew's biological grandparents, but they also don't want my nephew to feel too different by not having the same name as the rest of the family. Additionally, they don't feel that my nephew is emotionally ready for the "Whys" of a different last name.

So...

1) Have you ever been in a similar situation? Either as the parent, child, grandparent?

2) How, if at all, would having a different last name than your siblings affect you?

3) Would you feel offended if you were the biological grandparent in this type of situation?


There are ways to go around this, doing hyphenated names and whatnot.