the origin of hyphenated last namesWelcome aBoard, Grace!
I'd always thought that multiple surnames were simply the result of marriages where there was a desire to retain both (or all) surnames. The old standard (changing these days) was that the woman would by default forfeit her maiden name, but what if that name belonged to a highly-regarded family? Then the woman may want to adopt a new combined surname. The couple may then decide to pass that name on to their children.
I believe in legal terms children can have whatever
surname (as
well as first name) the parents choose. So even if the parents didn't decide they wanted to merge surnames until children arrived, they could do so then. In fact if you wanted to call your child whatever you wanted, even if it had no relation at all to any family names, you could do so. Scary really
FiskP.S. Incidentally over this side of the Pond we'd talk about "double-barrelled" rather than "hyphenated" names. Anybody else familiar with these terms?
