# Couples Who Should Not Hyphenate Their Names

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/couples-who-should-not-hyphenate-their-names/438671>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [February 22, 2008, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/couples-who-should-not-hyphenate-their-names/438671 "2008-02-22T02:43:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2008, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/couples-who-should-not-hyphenate-their-names/438671/61 "2008-03-07T15:13:20Z")

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Cute picture, **Barrels**!

My high school English teacher, Miss Stiff, married a guy named Gary Cox. Wisely, she did not hyphenate, but that didn’t stop 150 snickering teenagers from hyphenating her name for her at every opportunity.

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**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\
**Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/couples-who-should-not-hyphenate-their-names/438671/62 "2008-03-08T02:03:55Z")

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[QUOTE=Malacandra]  
I pity the child in my son’s nursery class who goes by the name of Swallow-Koch. I mean, what are these people _thinking_? :smack:  
[/QUOTE]

To be fair, I’ve met people named Koch who pronounced it “Cook”. In fact, I’d met enough of them that I was surprised when I found out the former Mayor of NYC, Ed Koch, pronounced it “kotch”. How does this kid’s family pronounce it?

> [@Jodi](#):
>
> My high school English teacher, Miss Stiff, married a guy named Gary Cox. Wisely, she did not hyphenate, but that didn’t stop 150 snickering teenagers from hyphenating her name for her at every opportunity.

Ha ha! I had a junior high English teacher (on whom I had a big crush … she was young and blond and pretty and wore short skirts … ahem) named Miss Buzzard. I heard she got married some time after I moved on to high school, but I never heard her husband’s name. I’m now imagining an English teacher name Mrs. Buzzard-Bates. 😛

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