Double barrelling

[jack]

I 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.

Comments

[naath.livejournal.com]

I have failed to come up with a surname though.

I quite like the idea of using your parent's first name - so for instance Sam Fredsson and Jane Sallysdaughter which do away with the idea of perpetuating a name through endless generations all together. Or maybe picking a new name based on your profession (Sid Sysadmin) or distinguishing characteristic (Richard Bignose) or some such concept with children keeping the parents' surname only until they picked a better (more descriptive) one for themselves.

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I should take my nickname for a surname. It's Mongoose.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Oi!

[karen2205]

Also double-barreling doesn't sound 'right' with some names - ie. my own 'McAtamney' would be pretty hard to double-barrel with anything else and sound vaguely sensible.

I suspect when I have kids they will either take my name or their father's, possibly with the other surname as a middle name.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Wait, you have a special big nose icon? Or is that a hat? :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Aw *cuddle* that suits you :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I don't think you need a surname. When there are thousands of naaths running around, they will, but you're completely disambiguated all by yourself :)

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Eeee! :-) *return cuddle*

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... That makes sense. It's both traditional and non-hidebound. And children don't need to *change* their names, so the parents can double-barrel if they want (or not) without worrying about passing it on to their children.

Jack Pedantic
Jack Mathmo
Jaques Descartes
Jack Ruthsen
Jack Ruthsdotter
Jack C. D.

But if I were naming a child I'd pick something more traditional so they don't get teased -- Jackson ought to do.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yes. Don't give up hope -- some double-barrellings are very long and seem to work. Wotherington-McAtamney isn't very convenient, but sounds very respectable, and rather solicitorish :) Maybe Wotherington-Atamney would be better, if you didn't mind.

And others sound stupid but we've got used to them. (I don't think "Spencer-Churchill" is naturally euphonious.)

But some definitely aren't built for it. And I don't want to encourage you to do it -- it's a nice solution but can work for one generation at most, so if most people choose one or the other, it leaves so many the more opportunities for other people to use it :)

[saraphale.livejournal.com]

This is reminiscent of the scottish tradition. Both my parents have their mother's maiden name as a middle name.

[cornute.livejournal.com]

The problem I find with hyphenated surnames is that there's no way to tell "First Last-Last" from "First Middle Last" verbally, except by introducing oneself in a Bond-like manner. (And that doesn't work if your last name is also used as a first name sometimes.)

The other problem is that, given that sort of misunderstanding, there's NO telling where your records will be alphabetized, and if they have to truncate your name, there's no telling how they'll do it.

My husband and I considered all this, when we married, and decided to take his last name as a second middle name in both our cases, and my last name as our family last name. We then told everyone that we'd registered for a hyphen, but no one had got it, so we'd had to make do without.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

:)

Where *did* mongoose originate from? Did you tell me before?

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

It dates back about twenty years. Someone called me a little fluffy creature, and I smiled and said that indeed I was, but I was a little fluffy creature with teeth. Someone else exclaimed, "Mongoose!" and it stuck. :-)

[sonicdrift.livejournal.com]

The same-sex descendant thing seems fairest, as it preserves both names as much as much as the usual system preserves one. Using the other parents surname as a none hyphened middle name would make it easier to convince immigration officers you're not smuggling children whilst avoiding doublebarrelledness and it's easy enough to drop random middle names on none passport level things.

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.

[simont]

It's happened a couple of times now that a friend of mine will refer to a mutual acquaintance by their full legal name, and I'll look blank; my friend will elaborate by saying things like "He went out with <person>, lived with <otherperson>, hangs around with <somemorepeople>" and at some point during that process the penny will drop and I'll say "Oh, you mean ljusername, why didn't you say so?"

Surnames are obsolete for all purposes but the law. People have a first name and a set of online handles :-)

[mair_in_grenderich]

... and in Norway where I stayed, the surname was the name of the *farm*, so husband and wife both kept that (and it was her family farm, so he took her name, effectively).

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

LOL. Yes.

Though they're a choice for handle. Matthew D. has to be Matthew D., because there are too many mathews and they all hang around with people not on the same online networks as them. Bill Walsh, Bill Gates, etc aren't anyone but that. I sometimes go by Jackv.

It seems like some people just cry out to use their surnames and some don't. (Some people are known by their surnames only.)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

The same-sex descendant thing seems fairest, as it preserves both names as much as much as the usual system preserves one.

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.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Er, I think I need a diagram to get your example,

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.)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's cool.

Come to think of it, considering how many variants are common in other countries, I don't know why any multinational company's (or a government's) database should ever have a problem with what people choose to do. But it seems like they often *do*.