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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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OP
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
While scanning the weddings page of the local paper on Sunday, I once again contemplated the problem posed by hyphenated surnames. This first generation of hyphenates has enough of a problem, but if they carry on the practice, their poor grandchildren won't be able to fit their names on a page. One solution would be to combine the surnames of couples into a third name to be used by the whole family.
This suggested a game to me. Our paper, for example, announced the engagement of Susan Carman and Benjamin Davenport. Clearly, they and their children should henceforth be the Carports. Here are the other combinations from the paper. What other good combinations are there?
Dickeson-Kohuth
Brouwer-Grohman
Sebrell-Smith
Emery-Carpenter
O'Dell-Johnson
Dickinson-Christie
Monsma-Coens
Abramson-Marl
Uchida-Sharkey
Cornell-Saragoza
Boucher-Jehnsen
Hetherington-Schulte
Endres-Graves
Smith-Robel
Raymond-Chesher
Bishop-Wise
Galvin-Shoemaker
Klingbeil-O'Bryant
Chesnut-Weiss
Kraklau-Curtis
Pena-Cole
Meyer-Engstrom
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Sparteye: I can see merit in hypenated names when both are relatively common, so that the offspring will not be just "Jones" but will have a name different enough to avoid confusion. I can also understand that a girl with a famous name might like to keep it alive. Hyphenation is better than having married women continue to use only their maiden names, which I have encountered.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
better than having married women continue to use only their maiden names
Or married men continuing to use only *their maiden names, which *I have encountered.
When I bought my present house, the people from whom I bought it went to stay with her mother until they found new accommodations of their own. I needed to find them for some reason I misremember and could not have done so if the woman half of the couple who had owned the house had changed her last name on marriage.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Faldage:the woman I knew was an old time Yankee married to CIA lawyer with a mildly grotesque
ethnic name. I thought it an affront her husband must have found painful.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
I've suggested to my husband that he should have taken my name, not the other way around, because it's shorter and you don't need to resort to "T - O - L - L - E - F-as-in-Frank - S-as-in-Sierra - E - N" to spell it to people. (For some reason people don't hear the "f" preceding the "s".)
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
I was doing some data analysis the other day on a large database. Among other things, I needed to work out whether we had a major problem with hyphenated surnames (or multiple surnames without hyphens) before we populate a data warehouse. I found 34 entries where there are more than two names in a surname. I can't tell you what any of them are because of confidentiality, but I was gobsmacked by one of them, because it looks like someone's idea of a joke which was visited on some poor mite who'd just put in an appearance at a maternity ward. 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
A couple with whom I am acquainted, and who are both very liberal in their views, having married when they were both middle aged, decided to hyphenate both their names, so that the former Ms. Smith and Mr. Johnson both now use the name Smith-Johnson. The interesting part is what name their children would use (they don't have any, in fact). If they used the same name as their parents, what would you have if young Ms. Smith-Johnson were to marry Mr. Robinson-Brown? Only a theoretical problem, however, as I don't believe this kind of name coupling is very common. I do know several women who have hyphenated their maiden name with their husband's name, but the children all use the husband's name only.
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Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 688
addict
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addict
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 688 |
My daughter recently had a baby with a man, who did not share her last name. They had decided to hyphenate their last names for the baby's last name. Considering my daughter's last name is 10 letters and the father's last name another 5, throw in a hyphen, and you have a 16 letter last name! Much too long for a wee one. They settled upon dad's shorter last name. [relieved-e]
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
I have been told that in Scotland if there is a female who is the last of her line she can petition the Standing Council of Chiefs to have her fiance assume her last name upon marriage in order to preserve her family name. Permission is usually granted if the man involved has siblings to carry on his family name and if he is amenable to the idea.
Anyone ?
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Many of the males on my father's side of the family (That'd be the Scots side) have middle names that were last names of female branches in the family tree. My father, grandfather and I had no middle names in a tradition dating back time back way back. Family lore had it that the middle name convention was an old Scots convention that was banned after the '45 to muddle evidence of clan alliances. I'd always WAGged that the habit of having family names as given names (e.g., Craig, Scott, Murray) came about as a result of the mixing of this middle name convention with the continental practice of having a saint's name as a middle name.
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