if we want to stop the patriarchal concept of surnames being passed down the male line, we have a few options options that i’d be 100% fine with:
children get whichever surname is cooler, to eliminate uncool surnames over the generations
children get whichever surname is rarer, to achieve a utopian future in a few centuries where all surnames are more or less equally common
children’s surnames are randomly generated: say, heads for parent #1’s surname, tails for parent #2’s surname
parents pick the first names first, and then a court decides which surname fits it better. so if a couple named mr. madison and mr. liu want to name their daughter alison, she’ll get the surname liu, because alison madison sounds ridiculous
everyone stops having children right now