# Multiple last names - when does it end? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 15, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574 "2010-03-15T19:20:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/41 "2010-03-16T21:42:13Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Getting back to the OP, the offsprouts of Miss Elk and Mr. Moose can be named Elk, Moose, Elk-Moose, or Moose-Elk. Now Miss Moose-Elk marries Mr. Wolf-Bear and they have kids. I gotta see these kids! ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/42 "2010-03-16T21:47:31Z")
> [@dhkendall](#): > > Was it Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern -schplenden -schlitter -crasscrenbon -fried -digger -dangle -dungle -burstein -von -knacker -thrasher -apple -banger -horowitz -ticolensic -grander -knotty -spelltinkle -grandlich -grumblemeyer -spelterwasser -kürstlich -himbleeisen -bahnwagen -gutenabend -bitte -eine -nürnburger -bratwustle -gerspurten -mit -zweimache -luber -hundsfut -gumberaber -shönendanker -kalbsfleisch -mittler -raucher von Hautkopft of Ulm? Tell me you didn’t just copy/paste that from somewhere else. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/43 "2010-03-16T22:20:05Z")
A friend of mine from high school has a hyphenated last name and two middle names. When he went off to college, though, he started going by just the portion of his last name that came from his father, so as to simplify things for computer records. I think this is probably pretty typical for children of hyphenated families, to keep the hyphens from accumulating. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/44 "2010-03-16T22:22:26Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > True, but it’s common to leave out the “y” in practice. Some Hispanics, especially in the US, have take to hyphenating the two last names in order to the avoid confusion of having the mother’s last name taken as an English-style last name (family name). ISTM the “y” is these days often perceived as an aristocratic usage (Felipe de Borbón y Grecia) and around here it’s more often used “ironically” under that assumption. As mentioned there are also those for whim the “y …” or “de…” actually signals a \*three-word \*patronymic or matronymic. The son of Juan A. Sube y Baja Rodríguez and Pilar M. Mata de Plátano López could be José C. Sube y Baja Mata de Plátano. He \*will \*kill his parents, but that’s another story… Roberto Clemente Walker used to style himself Roberto _W._ Clemente at the beginning of his career in Pittsburgh just so his paternal surname would not be misreported. But for the longest time it was pretty standard for many of us Puerto Ricans that in dealings with US offices we’d just have to “go American” and drop the maternal surname, which is how I used to do it and stuck with it mostly out of ease (4 letters vs 11 letters+space) until RealID meant that when replacing my lost passport I had to revert to the polynomial form since that’s how my birth cert is printed. Great fun was had last summer across the USA when Homeland Security demanded that the airlines start booking people under their true legal name. Suddenly Francisco Maldonado Nevarez started showing up on airline tickets as “Maldonadonevare Franci” or “Maldonado-Neva Francisc” as the data entry people had never foreseen this. (To their credit, AA and Continental, with a lot of Latin American routes, were quick to adapt) ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/45 "2010-03-16T22:50:46Z")
Ah, for the good old days when names that reflected your lineage were status symbols…one of the Roman consuls for AD 169, Quintus Pompeius Sosius Priscus, went by a moniker that included 4 praenomens, 14 gens or family names, and 20 cognomens. He’s in the _CIL_; I’ll have a look-see at school tomorrow to see how he’s listed. ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/46 "2010-03-16T23:07:02Z")
Apologies for the double post – found the article I was looking for on JSTOR for Quintus’s full name. Imagine calling in this kid for tea: Quintus Pompeius Senecio Roscius Murena Coelius Sextus Iulius Frontinus Silius Decianus Gaius Iulius Eurycles Herculaneus Lucius Vibullius Pius Augustanus Alpinus Bellicus Sollers Iulius Aper Ducenius Proculus Rutilianus Rufinus Silius Valens Valerius Niger Claudius Fuscus Saxa Amyntianus Sosius Priscus (_ILS_ 1104). Salway (JRS 1994, p. 132, n. 51) mentions Quintus in his article on Roman naming trends. Some of the names are duplicated, because they were hung round Quintus’s neck in sets; at least six sets of his name were inherited from his dad. Must have been some good times round the triclinium with that family. Funny, I was just reading about names as status symbols and public symbols of power for an article I’m researching before looking at this thread. ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/47 "2010-03-17T06:32:59Z")
Interesting thread…My girlfriend had a hypenated name, up til her dad died. Now she just goes by her dad’s last name. We definitly want kids very badly, and we’ll prolly hypenate. My uncles hypenate their son’s name…it’s not always a womyn’s lib thing. And yeah, hypenated names can be complex…I remember a song from when I was a kid that ended. It took so long to say his name that Eddie KootchacatchagammatovsavaWhackyBrown DROWNED! ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/48 "2010-03-17T06:58:25Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Great fun was had last summer across the USA when Homeland Security demanded that the airlines start booking people under their true legal name. Suddenly Francisco Maldonado Nevarez started showing up on airline tickets as “Maldonadonevare Franci” or “Maldonado-Neva Francisc” as the data entry people had never foreseen this. (To their credit, AA and Continental, with a lot of Latin American routes, were quick to adapt) I have a four-word firstname and my first lastname includes one of those “de”… eight-word full legal names make for lots of complications even in Spain (the government’s current SOP is to drop the two connectors in the firstname, so the name appearing in my national ID and passport doesn’t exactly match my birth certificate), so imagine in the US. There are many websites which don’t accept my name “as is,” I even once got a payment rejected because my “Card holder name as it appears on the card” included too many spaces :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/49 "2010-03-17T12:28:45Z")
> [@ScatteredFrog](#): > > All I have to say is that hyphenated names are bull$#!+; and it’s even worse when men do it. For God’s sake, either change your name or don’t – don’t do BOTH! > > And if there’s no other reason for my opinion, here it is (scroll to the penultimate person pictured at this link): > > [http://www.neptune.k12.nj.us/11361042510950/site/default.asp](http://www.neptune.k12.nj.us/11361042510950/site/default.asp) A friend of mine had the surname Green. He married a woman, let’s call her Miss Carter, and they both took the surname Carter-Green. Fine. Then they got divorced, and he met a new partner, who happened also to have the surname Green. I told him if they got married he should go for Green-Green. Sadly it never happened. If it had, I’d have paid their offspring big money to marry a Mr/Miss Grass. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/47e85d/32.png) [@Jump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jump)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/50 "2010-03-17T13:25:11Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > But then you have the issues where it’s not hyphenated and you don’t know which is part of the last name. Dick Van Dyke is very familiar, and his last name is Van Dyke. The country singer Ricky Van Shelton was popular for a while, and we continually had to correct stories that referred to him as Van Shelton, when his last name was Shelton. His “first name” was Ricky Van, a la Billy Bob. Well my full name is similar to Bruce B Wayne, “B” is my full middle name although i will generally use Bruce B as a first name. SO when things come in the mail to “Mr B Wayne” I don’t know if they are saying Mr B(ruce B) Wayne or Mr (Bruce) B Wayne. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/51 "2010-03-17T18:02:05Z")
Which all brings up the old question of, if Tuesday Weld had married Hal March II, would she have been Tuesday March the second? ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/52 "2010-03-17T18:47:47Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > A friend of mine from high school has a hyphenated last name and two middle names. When he went off to college, though, he started going by just the portion of his last name that came from his father, so as to simplify things for computer records. I think this is probably pretty typical for children of hyphenated families, to keep the hyphens from accumulating. I have a hyphenated last name and, yeah, when I started college I unofficially dropped the post-hyphen part. I haven’t gone through the legal process of changing it, mostly because I don’t feel like dealing with getting a new driver’s license and passport and such before I need to - but that’s the same laziness that made me feel like just typing “Smith” instead of “Smith-Jones”. In answer to the OP: assuming they’re not in Quebec, they do whatever they want to. It is not, in fact, 1950 anymore, and it’s perfectly acceptable for a woman to keep her name after marriage. Or change it entirely. Or hyphenate it, even if it’s ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/53 "2010-03-17T19:19:07Z")
> [@](#): > > But then you have the issues where it’s not hyphenated and you don’t know which is part of the last name. Dick Van Dyke is very familiar, and his last name is Van Dyke. The country singer Ricky Van Shelton was popular for a while, and we continually had to correct stories that referred to him as Van Shelton, when his last name was Shelton. His “first name” was Ricky Van, a la Billy Bob. Lois McMaster Bujold confuses people. I’ve seen her books filed under both M and B. In some cases, even in the same store. ---
**Author:** ![phreesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@phreesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phreesh)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/54 "2010-03-17T20:00:20Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#): > > I have a hyphenated last name and, yeah, when I started college I unofficially dropped the post-hyphen part. I haven’t gone through the legal process of changing it, mostly because I don’t feel like dealing with getting a new driver’s license and passport and such before I need to - but that’s the same laziness that made me feel like just typing “Smith” instead of “Smith-Jones”. > > In answer to the OP: assuming they’re not in Quebec, they do whatever they want to. It is not, in fact, 1950 anymore, and it’s perfectly acceptable for a woman to keep her name after marriage. Or change it entirely. Or hyphenate it, even if it’s ridiculous. Fair enough. I don’t want to make anybody do anything they don’t want to do to their names. I was just wondering what people ARE doing. It seems unmanageable to continue hyphenating names through the generations, so I was wondering what the accepted convention was. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/55 "2010-03-17T21:20:51Z")
> [@kenner116](#): > > A better method would be to combine parts of the each name into one unhyphenated name. Yeah, I’m a proponent of the portmanteau, personally. (Though that may just be 'cause I fucking love me some portmanteaus.) Two of my very best friends got married last June (to each other), and when they were debating what to do about their last names, I was pushing for a combo name. They decided to just say to hell with it and keep their respective unmarried names, but I still refer to them collectively by the portmanteau. 😃 > [@dtilque](#): > > It’s going to end when a Mr Cox marries a Ms Ucker… IME, when a couple hyphenates, the woman’s name usually goes first. So they’d be the Ucker-Coxes. 😃 > [@ScatteredFrog](#): > > All I have to say is that hyphenated names are bull$#!+; and it’s even worse when men do it. For God’s sake, either change your name or don’t – don’t do BOTH! Yes, how dare people try to keep their pre-married identities in a way that doesn’t hearken back to a time when one of the partners was pretty much considered the property of the other, while still publicly marking their partnership. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/56 "2010-03-17T22:14:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Lois McMaster Bujold confuses people. I’ve seen her books filed under both M and B. In some cases, even in the same store. I recently complained to our local library, because some employee had alphabetized a CD under “T” for _The Rolling Stones_. Continuing that policy would result in most of the CD’s under “T”: _The Beatles, The Who, The Clash, The Boston Symphony Orchestra_, etc. And the clerk at the desk seemed to have a hard time understanding why I was reporting this! ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/57 "2010-03-17T22:26:34Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#): > > In answer to the OP: assuming they’re not in Quebec, they do whatever they want to. It is not, in fact, 1950 anymore, and it’s perfectly acceptable for a woman to keep her name after marriage. Or change it entirely. Or hyphenate it, even if it’s ridiculous. Note: it’s perfectly acceptable for a woman in Quebec to use her husband’s name as a social courtesy. It’s just not her legal name (unless she applies for an official name change, I suppose). ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2010, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/58 "2010-03-18T01:46:58Z")
My sister got married in the early '80s and took her husband’s last name, in traditional fashion. 13 years later, they split up for a short time. When they decided to reconcile, they symbolized their new commitment by hyphenating his last name and my sister’s maiden name – let’s call it Kroger-Jones. They, along with all three of their children, started going by Kroger-Jones. That was almost 20 years ago, and they both still use the hyphenated name. Their oldest son dropped the hyphenated name when he joined the Marine Corps. He felt like it was just too long and unwieldy. He switched back to Kroger (his dad’s family name). He is married now and his wife took his last name when they got married. They have a couple of kids, also with the last name Kroger, natch. Their oldest daughter is single and still uses Kroger-Jones. Their youngest child is married with 2 kids. When she married, she and her husband both took a triple-header name – her double-header last name hyphenated with his last name: so, Kroger-Jones-Fernandez. No idea what their girls will do when they are grown… they’ll come up with something, I guess. No need to come up with a rule for this – people will work it out for themselves. I very much doubt we’ll ever have a serious rash of people with 5 names hyphenated together. My guess is that we’ll have some folks (like my neice and her husband) who go to the trouble of bothering with triple-headers; a very few who take on the hassle of 4 hyphenates; and most who come up with some less difficult version on their own. Maybe choosing one name out of the many; choosing two (one from him, one from her) to form a simpler hyphenate; making up a portmanteau name out of components from all the names; or simply choosing a whole new name out of whole cloth. None of these options bother me in the least – many of them might bother future geneologists, though. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/59 "2010-03-18T02:44:16Z")
> [@SkeptiJess](#): > > None of these options bother me in the least – many of them might bother future geneologists, though. Considering genealogists are already tracking lineages of women who changed their last names at least once… That shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Of course, I’m slightly biased and think it would all just be easier if everyone took a last name from each parent, and everyone kept their unmarried last names. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2010, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574/60 "2010-03-18T03:26:47Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > Note: it’s perfectly acceptable for a woman in Quebec to use her husband’s name as a social courtesy. It’s just not her legal name (unless she applies for an official name change, I suppose). Correct. A married woman can apply for a name change in exactly the same way an unmarried woman or man (or married man!) can - through the courts, with all the fees, reasons and public notices that [entails](http://www.etatcivil.gouv.qc.ca/en/change-name.html#who). It seems it costs about $300 to change your name in Québec. It’s simply the case that for various reasons (largely bureaucratic I suspect), getting married doesn’t give you a freebie. To a large extent, it makes sense for a government to want to keep a person’s tax, medical, driving, social insurance, passport etc history under one consistent name, especially since so many marriages end in divorce (and the subsequent name change again!) anyways. Restricting legal names to combinations of the parent’s name and not never-ending strings (as well as having only English or French characters, and not letters from other alphabets, and other restrictions) also makes sense simply in terms of organizing data in a meaningful way. There’s nothing stopping you from going out and presenting yourself as John-Joe Buckingham Elk-Moose-Dear-Smith-Bottom (as long as you aren’t doing so for fraud or other illegal motives), but for the sake of paperwork, let’s just keep it simple! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/multiple-last-names-when-does-it-end/532574.md?page=4)