Double barrelling
Aug. 30th, 2007 11:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackI thought of another solution for a fixed system of surname-transferring. (Obviously not having a system at all is another option.)
If Andy Philos marries Betty Andrews and Colin Riddle marries Dara Keyser-Soze, and they all want to retain their names, their children become hyphenated. But when their children marry, of the same mind to keep their history, what happens?
Traditionally they became Edward and Flora Philos. Next most traditionally, they took a name from each parent, but only the patronymics Philos and Riddle. (Particularly when eta: the woman is the heiress of an old male-descended name.) A symmetric but heterogeneous solution would be to have a patronymic and matronymic, keeping Philos and Keyser-Soze. Betty and Colin lose out, but Betty's daughters and Colin's sons retain their names. This does mean your name can only be passed on through same-sex-line descendants. If you didn't like that, you could take father's matronymic and vice-versa, becoming Andrews-Riddle, and it still matters what children you have, but you don't have male surnames and female surnames.
If you try and retain everything you become Edward and Flora Philos-Andrews-Riddle-Keyser-Soze, which is just about workable, but the next generation definitely need to choose. But once you've got to E and F P-A-R-K-S, maybe you should just become E&F Parks and start the whole thing again. Of course, that's still patriarchal because three generations further down only Andy's first letter would survive. Maybe choosing one of the first two letters would help make a name? :)
Of course, I'm starting to know a few non-famous people who abandon the whole thing, and have made another name their own, notably Naath and Ferret.
If Andy Philos marries Betty Andrews and Colin Riddle marries Dara Keyser-Soze, and they all want to retain their names, their children become hyphenated. But when their children marry, of the same mind to keep their history, what happens?
Traditionally they became Edward and Flora Philos. Next most traditionally, they took a name from each parent, but only the patronymics Philos and Riddle. (Particularly when eta: the woman is the heiress of an old male-descended name.) A symmetric but heterogeneous solution would be to have a patronymic and matronymic, keeping Philos and Keyser-Soze. Betty and Colin lose out, but Betty's daughters and Colin's sons retain their names. This does mean your name can only be passed on through same-sex-line descendants. If you didn't like that, you could take father's matronymic and vice-versa, becoming Andrews-Riddle, and it still matters what children you have, but you don't have male surnames and female surnames.
If you try and retain everything you become Edward and Flora Philos-Andrews-Riddle-Keyser-Soze, which is just about workable, but the next generation definitely need to choose. But once you've got to E and F P-A-R-K-S, maybe you should just become E&F Parks and start the whole thing again. Of course, that's still patriarchal because three generations further down only Andy's first letter would survive. Maybe choosing one of the first two letters would help make a name? :)
Of course, I'm starting to know a few non-famous people who abandon the whole thing, and have made another name their own, notably Naath and Ferret.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-30 05:00 pm (UTC)Er, I think I need a diagram to get your example, but if A&B's son married (or whatever, but had kids) C&D's daughter, and A&B's daughter married C&D's son, and both new couples then had 2 kids of each gender, then all four surnames would still exist on their own.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-31 10:53 am (UTC)I thought you'd be bothered by the segregation of names too? You'd have surnames which are primarily one or the other gender (as, if they evolve in both separately, would occur as random ones are invented and die out). It seems kind of sweet but not perfectly egalitarian.
Combining it with the idea of having a middle-name surname is a good one though, it should make it much less intrusive and practically practical.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-31 11:44 am (UTC)I actually did have a lot of diagrams. I was having a metaphor where surnames were infinite strings of surnames, and you formed a new one by alternating the two being combined, and current strategies were mappings turning this into a one or two barrel surname, eg. "pick the first" = "father's surname" = "oldest male line ancestor's surname", and my suggestions were picking the first and the fourth or something.
And Barrayar's supposed custom of using grandfathers' names for first names would be represented almost identically to the Spanish y double barrel system, but skipping a generation.
But it all got two complicated.
but if A&B's son married (or whatever, but had kids) C&D's daughter, and A&B's daughter married C&D's son,
Marrying in-laws always seems slightly incestuous somehow, even though it's perfectly sensible.
Yes, that's right. If everyone had a daughter and son, who had children, all the names would be ok. (They only lost out in the example because of the particular way round it was, there was no systematic unfairness.)