Jus wondering what is going to happen to last names in the future in those cases where children have the mother’s and father’s last names together as a hyphenated name… So, like, when this child gets married, the last name will be something like:
“Smith-Jones-Doe-Deere”, for example? And, where will it stop?
Correction… I mean the offsping of Mr. and Mrs. Smith-Jones will become “Smtih-Jones-Doe” and then the next offspring will be Smith-Jones-Doe-Deere…and so on… -Jinx
Correction to correction! I mean the offspring Smith-Jones-Doe will marry and have an offspring named “Smith-Jones-Doe-Deere”!
There! I think that fixes everything! - Jinx 
I just love talking to myself! 
And, answering myself, too!
It’s possible that names like that may continue to grow. I have heard of some cases where Spaniards in the late 18th and early 19th century had managed to have over 10 last names by that time, partly from stringing names together like that. But I think some time common sense may break out and they will agree to name their childern something more managable.
[sup]I thought in the future we were going to be identified by number.[/sup]
[sup]Will the feminists insist on something like this: 989-54-1001 **-**764-201-9992? [/sup]
Before WWI the British Royal family’s name was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
Try saying that ten times fast.
In the US there aren’t really any laws about what you can name your children, so you could give them a totally new last name made up of parts from each parent if you wanted.
In Quebec (where if they don’t have a law about it, that’s because they haven’t heard of it), the law is that if Mr. Smith marries Ms Jones, the children can be called Smith, Jones, or Smith-Jones, but if Mr. Smith-Jones marries Ms Brown-Green, the children can be given any two of the four names lying around, but no more than two. So they have already faced and legislated on the question. Quebec, BTW, went from its being not permitted a woman to use her maiden name to being required to use it, with no optional period in between. Whatever isn’t forbidden is compulsory.
The problem already exists. When both Nazi Germany and Great Britain were wooing the Soviet Union prior to World War II, the naval officer chosen by Britain to head the military talks with the Russians was Admiral Sir Reginald A. R. Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (William Manchester, The Last Lion: Alone, p. 478).