{"id":3260,"date":"2026-10-26T11:31:51","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T16:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/?p=3260"},"modified":"2026-10-19T09:18:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T14:18:52","slug":"who-determines-a-childs-last-name-when-divorcing-parents-disagree-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/who-determines-a-childs-last-name-when-divorcing-parents-disagree-in-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Determines a Child\u2019s Last Name When Divorcing Parents Disagree in Texas?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When parents disagree about a child’s last name during a Texas divorce, neither parent has the exclusive right to make that decision. Under Texas Family Code \u00a7 45.004(a)(1)<\/a>, a court may order a child’s name changed if the change is in the child’s best interest.<\/p>\n

A recent Texas appeals court decision examined whether a mother could retain the surname she selected for her child without the father’s input, despite the parents remaining married when the child was born: In re Marriage of Callahan and Lewis<\/em><\/a>, No. 06-25-00104-CV (2026).<\/p>\n

Background of the Case <\/strong><\/h2>\n
Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When parents disagree about a child’s last name during a Texas divorce, neither parent has the exclusive right to make that decision. Under Texas Family Code \u00a7 45.004(a)(1), a court may order a child’s name changed if the change is in the child’s best interest. A recent Texas appeals court decision examined whether a mother […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[289],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-change"],"yoast_head":"\nWho Determines a Child\u2019s Last Name When Divorcing Parents Disagree in Texas? — Texas Divorce Attorney Blog — October 26, 2026<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When parents disagree about a child's last name during a Texas divorce, neither parent has the exclusive right to make that decision. Under Texas Family — October 26, 2026\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/who-determines-a-childs-last-name-when-divorcing-parents-disagree-in-texas\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Who Determines a Child\u2019s Last Name When Divorcing Parents Disagree in Texas? — Texas Divorce Attorney Blog — October 26, 2026\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"When parents disagree about a child's last name during a Texas divorce, neither parent has the exclusive right to make that decision. Under Texas Family — October 26, 2026\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Francesca Blackard\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Who Determines a Child\u2019s Last Name When Divorcing Parents Disagree in Texas? — Texas Divorce Attorney Blog — October 26, 2026","description":"When parents disagree about a child's last name during a Texas divorce, neither parent has the exclusive right to make that decision. Under Texas Family — October 26, 2026","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/who-determines-a-childs-last-name-when-divorcing-parents-disagree-in-texas\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Who Determines a Child\u2019s Last Name When Divorcing Parents Disagree in Texas? — Texas Divorce Attorney Blog — October 26, 2026","twitter_description":"When parents disagree about a child's last name during a Texas divorce, neither parent has the exclusive right to make that decision. Under Texas Family — October 26, 2026","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Francesca Blackard","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/who-determines-a-childs-last-name-when-divorcing-parents-disagree-in-texas\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/who-determines-a-childs-last-name-when-divorcing-parents-disagree-in-texas\/"},"author":{"name":"Francesca Blackard","@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/99f9f1e83401bfe81629c93e6c6c0cc2"},"headline":"Who Determines a Child\u2019s Last Name When Divorcing Parents Disagree in Texas?","datePublished":"2026-10-26T16:31:51+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/who-determines-a-childs-last-name-when-divorcing-parents-disagree-in-texas\/"},"wordCount":616,"articleSection":["Name Change"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/who-determines-a-childs-last-name-when-divorcing-parents-disagree-in-texas\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/who-determines-a-childs-last-name-when-divorcing-parents-disagree-in-texas\/","name":"Who Determines a Child\u2019s Last Name When Divorcing Parents Disagree in Texas? — Texas Divorce Attorney Blog — October 26, 2026","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2026-10-26T16:31:51+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/99f9f1e83401bfe81629c93e6c6c0cc2"},"description":"When parents disagree about a child's last name during a Texas divorce, neither parent has the exclusive right to make that decision. Under Texas Family — October 26, 2026","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/who-determines-a-childs-last-name-when-divorcing-parents-disagree-in-texas\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/who-determines-a-childs-last-name-when-divorcing-parents-disagree-in-texas\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/who-determines-a-childs-last-name-when-divorcing-parents-disagree-in-texas\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Who Determines a Child\u2019s Last Name When Divorcing Parents Disagree in Texas?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/","name":"Texas Divorce Attorney Blog","description":"Published by Texas Collaborative & Family Attorney \u2014 McClure Law Group","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/99f9f1e83401bfe81629c93e6c6c0cc2","name":"Francesca Blackard","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e7d6bd0746d1242f148b58f0c2370bd74ae47909972ca07543b91263b77fc637?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e7d6bd0746d1242f148b58f0c2370bd74ae47909972ca07543b91263b77fc637?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e7d6bd0746d1242f148b58f0c2370bd74ae47909972ca07543b91263b77fc637?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Francesca Blackard"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/francesca-blackard.html"],"url":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/author\/mcclurelaw4\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3261,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3260\/revisions\/3261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}