‘She should have a bit of me’: the Dutch mothers fighting for their children to carry their surname

Women are challenging the law that prevents them giving their kids both family names without father’s consent

When 43-year-old Rebecca Lee took her birth mother’s Korean surname, it was a revelation. “I was adopted and got a Dutch name but I never felt completely Dutch,” she says. “When, a few years ago, I first went to Korea, things fell into place. You don’t just go ‘one, two, three’ and change your name, but now I feel more whole.”

The entrepreneur from Groningen split from her husband and wants to give her five-year-old daughter “Lee” as part of a double-barrelled surname – but she cannot, under a Dutch law that some women, a leftwing MP and legal experts believe is unfair.