Despite major advances in gender equality, patrilineal naming—children being granted their father’s surname—persists as a largely unquestioned norm in those Western countries with predominantly Anglo traditions, even in families where mothers retain their birth names. In Australia, when parents cannot agree on the child’s surname, the issue will go to a court or tribunal, to be decided by a judicial decision-maker. Apart from Jonathan Herring’s (2009) work in the UK, such cases have been little examined by scholars. This paper explores the question of whether child surnames chosen by Australian courts—a supposedly neutral and objective third party—uphold patriarchal logic or provide more equitable outcomes. Using a feminist critical discourse framework, we examine five recent court judgments about child surname disputes, and six news articles about these types of cases. While these cases are not a representative sample, we find that, despite the existence of specific legal principles relating to children’s surnames, decision-makers’ judgments were inconsistent and subjective. Furthermore, mothers’ names tended to be granted to children when fathers were deemed to be ‘bad dads.’

中文翻译：

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命名权利？从性别视角分析澳大利亚法院的儿童姓氏纠纷

尽管在性别平等方面取得了重大进展，但父系命名——孩子被授予父亲的姓氏——在那些以盎格鲁传统为主的西方国家仍然是一种基本毋庸置疑的规范，即使在母亲保留其出生姓名的家庭中也是如此。在澳大利亚，当父母不能就孩子的姓氏​​达成一致时，问题将提交法院或法庭，由司法决策者决定。除了乔纳森·赫林 (Jonathan Herring) (2009) 在英国的工作外，学者们鲜有研究此类案例。本文探讨了澳大利亚法院（一个据称是中立和客观的第三方）选择的儿童姓氏是否支持父权逻辑或提供更公平的结果的问题。使用女权主义批评话语框架，我们研究了最近五项关于儿童姓氏纠纷的法院判决，以及六篇关于此类案件的新闻文章。虽然这些案例并非具有代表性的样本，但我们发现，尽管存在与儿童姓氏相关的具体法律原则，但决策者的判断不一致且主观。此外，当父亲被认为是“坏爸爸”时，母亲的名字往往会被授予孩子们。