Last-Names

[plumtreeblossom]

A problem I see with giving children hyphenated last names is that a) lots of people are doing it, and b) eventually those kids are going to grow up and most of them are going to get married/partnered and have children, possibly with someone else who also has a hyphenated last name.

So if David Smith-Martin has a baby with Emma Jones-Johnson, is the baby going to be Hannah Smith-Martin-Jones-Johnson? My data entry field hurts.

Comments

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Plums: I have been wondering the same thing myself ever since the early eighties. How much do you want to bet that the kids will pick the last name they like best and go with that. However, they would have to legally change it, otherwise there would be no legal record that they exist. Although I deplore that my Dad's last name died with him because all he had were daughters, I am equally glad that my kids did not have to deal with a four-part hyphenated surname.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad I didn't have a hyphenated name!

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

Well, Miss Manners says no, the baby would be Hannah Smith-Jones, and the Martins and Johnsons would just need to be the bigger person about it. (Or the baby would be Hannah Smith-Johnson, and the Joneses and Martins would have to suck it up, or Hannah Martin-Jones, etc.) I'm not sure if these folks pay attention to Miss Manners, though.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

They should pay attention to her. Miss Manners is smarter and hipper than people give her credit for.

[thorbol.livejournal.com]

I don't know how smart or hip Miss Manners is in general. If I remember correctly, however, she gave the bad advice that one should send thank-you notes on paper rather than by e-mail. I don't know if I should trust her on the hyphens. :-)

Your point, though, is one I considered almost immediately upon hearing of such hyphenation. I asked the person making the presentation about it (it was in college), and she seemed to think the offspring would just figure it out.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I've always said it's a bad method because it's not scalable and just pushes the decision to the next generation. But heck, assuming we don't come up with something better soon, he'll handle it. :)

And I still prefer it to everyone just taking the husband/father's last name, anyway.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

If he decides to drop one of the names when he's an adult, will you be hurt?

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

The only thing I could see being kind of irritated by is if he marries a woman who automatically takes his name.

Anyway, anyone can change their name anytime. I really dislike that by default, the woman's name disappears, and as an adult, I feel like I'd be proud to carry a last name that represented both sides of my family in some way, even if it might be a little more annoying.

We're still open to all three of us changing names, in any case, if we come up with something that we like enough.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

The Highbeams! :-)

Or the High-Beams, if you prefer. *runs and ducks*

[minkrose]

This is why Andy & I decided we had to have a single, NEW last name for our immediate family. He grew up with parents who had different names, and while he wasn't hyphenated, he does have both of their names. The idea was that girls would get FirstName MiddleName DadsLast MomsLast, and boys got MomsLast DadsLast. But then they only had boys.

It's just easier for everyone if we all have the same name. Oddly enough, his parents were fine with it, and mine were rather upset (despite the fact that I'm the first woman in my family to take a name other than her husband's).

[minkrose]

Another thought: I know my Honduran math teacher said that in Latin America, they just keep adding to the last names. So, both of his parents happened to have the same last name (Salgado), but since you add all of the previous last names to your own name, my teacher's last name was Salgado Salgado ... plus all of his grandparents' last names! I don't know how this expands, though, because I was only 13 when I knew him and didn't really learn about the whole process. Perhaps someone else knows how this works in practice.

Plus, he was openly gay. We were a long way from marriage being legal, and I don't think he intended to have kids, so it didn't really come up.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

In Spanish speaking countries (including Spain) here's how it works, mostly:

Pedro Jimenez Garcia marries Isabel Rodriguez Alonso, who becomes Isabel Rodrigez Alonso de Jimenez. Their son, Pablo Jimenez Rodriguez, marries Maria Gomez Rivera, who becomes Maria Gomez Rivera de Jimenez, and their daughter is Claudia Jimenez Gomez.

So the matrilineal name only gets carried one more generation than it usually does in English speaking traditions.

My take on the whole thing is generally to pick whatever makes you comfortable and the kids will work it out.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

That breaks my brain into crumbly little bits. I love my short, one-syllable last name.

[dpolicar]

Yeah, I was gonna say that. My mom is "actually" Elisa Biton de Policar, and my dad was "actually" Roberto Policar Askenazi... with "Policar" being the family name.

Of course, when they moved to the US nobody knew what to do with any of that, so they adopted the American convention of "family name comes last" and became Elisa Policar and Roberto Policar. My mom could have actually kept a close approximation of her Cuban name than she did (by declaring "Biton" her middle name, which it isn't exactly, but at least it's in the same place as one), but it didn't happen. My Dad didn't have any real options, though; Americans don't know what to do with family names that don't come at the end.

When my nephew was born, in an attempt to placate everyone, he was dubbed "Darrin Silverman Policar" (Silverman being his mother's maiden name). Perhaps predictably, this made nobody happy... my mom was infuriated because that gave precedence to his mother's family (which it did, by the Spanish rules) and his other grandma was upset because it gave precedence to his father's family (which it did, by the American rules).

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

I like Sus's last name better than my own.

In fact, Sus is from a Noble family in Europe, and has several famous ancestors, including the murdered husband of Mary Queen of Scots and Jane Austen.

Because Sus only has a sister, and her father only has a sister, this will be the end of the last name in this immediate family, which is Old English and quite pretty.

But we didn't want hyphenation, because as someone noted above, that just pushes the decision off for a generation.

The notion that the child takes the father's last name is interesting, and we suspected it was due to the fact that in older times, while the child's mother was certain, there could always be an air of uncertainty about the father. So giving the child the father's last name was a means of affixing fatherhood. Now, with the advent of DNA testing, I wounder if this tradition will change?

She gets to give birth, I get to give the child my last name. It doesn't sound like quite the fair tradeoff, does it?

[thesynergizer.livejournal.com]

i love that you use the word gets here and seemlingly not in a sarcastic sense either. you are rockin aweseom

[bex77]

I'm in the "no way am I changing my name because I got married" camp. But people should do whatever makes them happy.

[dpolicar]

Yeah, that was my take, too.

I can't change my last name

[cthulhia]

I already have the url.

Re: I can't change my last name

[minkrose]

My sister has this "problem", in the sense that she's an established journalist under her maiden name. However, I'm pretty sure she intends to remain child-free for the rest of her life, so it won't really matter.

My parents firmly expect she won't change her name, which is probably why they thought I would keep mine instead of doing a new-mash-up with the husband.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I like those short uncomplicated last names. I married a Thomas and a Brown, and also my present name which is also simple. I was glad to lose my maiden name which most people could not spell or pronounce until a popular comedian on TV happend to have the same name and pronounced it correctly.

[kencf0618.livejournal.com]

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