My question involves name change laws in the State of: Virginia
Me and my ex boyfriend (never married) have a 3 year old son together. he is both on the birth certificate and AOP. We have a custody agreement where I am primary and he has set visitation, we both share joint legal custody. The other night he brought up changing our son's last name to his instead of mine. He brought up how I was married now, which I am, but I did not change my maiden name. My last name is still the same as our son's last name. At the hospital when our son was born, he picked out the middle name and I gave the child my last name. He did not argue for or against this at the time. In fact, it has been a non-issue up until my new marriage. I did not change my maiden name for two reasons, I want to keep it and I also wanted my son to continue having the same name as me without added confusion. He was not very involved throughout the pregnancy, and his current involvement has only increased due to his new girlfriend, who is good to my son.
My question is if he petitions the court to change the child's name to his last name what are the odds he will succeed? I have looked into some case law in VA about this, but there isn't much to go on from what I have found. I understand it is in the child's best interests, but wouldn't that be keeping the same last name he has had since birth, the one that is on all his documents, doctor offices, daycare, etc. I understand that all that can be changed, but I just fail to see how that is in his best interest?
It's not that i don't sympathize with his wanting his last name carried on, but so do I. Why should his last name be more important than mine simply because he is the father or male. I would be willing to hyphenate if it came down to it but would still like to keep my name on the end as it has been for three years, i.e. (lets say mine is Jones, his is Smith, the hyphenate to Smith-Jones.) I grew up with a different last name then my mom and it was hard. I always got asked questions at a young age, even got picked on for it, that's one of the reasons I kept my maiden name for my son. I'm not trying to be unreasonable or let emotion run my thoughts on this, but my last name is just as important as his and to force me to change our son's last name, that he's had since birth, because suddenly he wants to is throwing me off abit.

