Today, women frown at you in confusion if you ask them if they are taking on their husband's first names, as well as his surname. They may then smile, but only out of civility. A woman changing her name in any way at all is seen as risqué in some circles. She might refer to herself as Mrs Theobald, but only to her friends, and only as a joke.

This week's spirited outburst from the newlywed Mrs Victoria Beckham about the joys of giving up her maiden name, Adams, and taking on her beloved's surname, was curiously shocking. "I feel much more famous now," she confided to the tabloids. "When I say I'm Victoria Beckham, a lot more people take notice and know who I am."

But Posh - as the Sun continues to call her - has already made an even more telling decision. The couple's son, born out of wedlock, was of course named Brooklyn Beckham. According to figures released this week by Bella Magazine, Mrs Beckham is flying in the face of modern thinking. A suitably unscientific poll of 500 men and women apparently revealed that 63% of the women would refuse to give their child its father's surname, while 25% were adamant they would give the child their own surname.

This appears to suggest that 38% of the women polled would use neither their own surname or the father's surname for their children. So what are they going to do? The answer is painfully simple: like so many modern couples, they're going to fudge it.

One fudging-it option is to dream up a new surname for your children. You can even be radical about it. Jackie Olive, 34, a housing officer, is the mother of two children by two different fathers. She decided that she didn't want to call her two little girls either by her surname - which she had always disliked - or the surnames of the children's fathers.

Following in the footsteps of Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain (who gave their daughter, Frances, the surname Bean), Jackie, with the agreement of the respective fathers, decided to give her daughters completely independent surnames. When her first daughter was born, Jackie registered her as Jaime Georgia Ruby Jazz. "Her father was a jazz fan," she says. "I've always thought the obsession with surnames was mere vanity. I'm suspicious of people who have kids because they want their name and their genes to be carried on. You know the child is yours. A name is just incidental."

A few weeks later, Jackie decided that Jazz sounded ridiculously hippie as a surname, so she went back to the register office, paid £50 and changed Jaime's surname to Wild. Her second daughter is called Mathilda Wild. Jackie says it was an idea she had when she was active at Greenham Common - "at that time a lot of women were calling their kids Wild. It was a kind of screw the establishment thing. The idea was that if everyone was called the same name then the state couldn't keep tabs on you, they would never have your real identity."

The double-barrelled option, formerly the preserve of the upper classes, is becoming increasingly common - 23% of families now boast more than one surname. It tends to satisfy both parents, once they've finished rowing about which order their names should go in, but traditionalists are predictably horrified.

Charles Kidd, author of Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage, describes the trend as "tedious". He is particularly incensed by the "hyphen issue" and is irritated by couples such as Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, who have given their children, Isabella and Connor, the surname Kidman Cruise. "If you are going to give your child a double-barrelled name, at least you must hyphenate it or nobody knows if it is a first name or a surname," he says.

Splicing surnames to create a new name is becoming another popular option but such compromises are rarely settled on without a battle.

Women have been given their husband's surname since the middle ages and it remains largely a patriarchal phenomenon. In South America and Spain, a child is given two surnames - one from its mother and one from its father. But it's still the father's name which is passed on to the next generation.

British couples actually have it fairly easy, since they are free to call their children anything they like on the birth certificate. In France, children must take either the mother's surname or the father's, or, in exceptional circumstances, both surnames. But that's it. You even have to make a special trip to the town hall to plead with notaries if you want to give your child an unusual first name. There was a recent case of a disappointed parent who'd wanted to call his son Tarzan.

The Bella survey suggests that British men would happily trade in their right to call their first daughter Batgirl in return for a guarantee that their surname will make its way down the generations. Only one in five men questioned said they would agree to their child taking its mother's surname. A third of them said they believed women were being selfish if they insisted on giving a child their own surname.

Susan Hastings, 33, a mature student from London, says she never realised what a big deal it would be to give her baby son her own surname instead of her male partner's. Her partner, Sam, was initially extremely unhappy about the idea, although he was loath to admit it. "My name's come down through my family for generations and that means something to me," he says. "I also can't help feeling slightly annoyed that my son's names don't reflect mine in any way, as if the mother is somehow more important nowadays."

The in-laws may also be less than delighted. "My parents were pleased," Susan says, "but my partner's mother was a bit upset. She'd wanted our baby to have her maiden name, which at least was more of a matriarchal idea."

Susan now wishes she'd given her 10-month-old son a different, unrelated, surname, but thinks it's too late to change it now. "When you think about it, the male root always gets through anyway," she says. "My name, Hastings, is from my father."

And, finally, a cautionary tale for all those women caught up in the first flush of love who decide to renounce their name for their husband's and then start breeding. Jane Hoskin, 36, lives in a tiny village in Scotland. Three years ago she married a man, whom we'll call David Stevens. They had a child named Holly who took her father's surname. Then Jane discovered that her husband was an alcoholic. He left them a year later.

"The biggest disappointment in my life is that Holly bears the surname of that odious wanker," says Jane. "Because his name is on the birth certificate I can't change it back to my name without his permission - and he won't give it. At school she had to be registered as Stevens. Sometimes it's embarrassing. This is such a small village. Everyone knows everyone. The name Stevens has a real stigma attached to it."