Hyphenated names--they must be stopped (1 Viewer)

[JamesMH]

The only thing worse than hyphenated names is the:

Sam Jones IV

or Sam Jones Sr

Parents, please give your children their own identity. I a have worked with people who have ALL three names of their father. These fathers must have one BIG ego.

The surname is enought. Thanks...

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Well, for some reason probably character limits that I didn't notice until it was too late the E is missing off of my last name. So in the technical sense, I am going under an alias, but its not really a clever one.

 

[Ricardo C]

I'm not deceiving anyone. "C" is actually my last name

 

[BryanZ]

So, your last name is 'Yes'?

A couple I knew had the same last name, ironically enough. Before they married they had to go back and make sure they weren't related. The sad part is whenever his wife gets asks for her maiden name it is the same as her married name. "What's your maiden name?" "Smith." "That's your married name. What is your maiden name?" "I told you: Smith."

So, you could say she adopted his name or he adopted her name. In either event, it makes for some hillarious stories.

 

[Malcolm R]

My parents also had the same last name before they married. I had similar problems for years (maiden vs. married), but that was all solved after they divorced and my Mom remarried.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Actually a recent study suggests that this practice, one of the more unnecessary and silly manifestations of the feminist movement of the early 70s, has been in a steady decline for awhile now. I say "good riddence" But then, I'm a computer network admin and have to contend with all the stupid changes as various co-workers who are still living in the 70s divorce, marry, divorce again and re-marry, requiring me to change their damned user names and e-mail addresses. (Then there are the ones who have kids or whose kids hit school age and decide the hypenated version is too confusing/-much-trouble and just go with the husband's name. I work for a government agency and our policy is to have the name in the system match the legal name as it appears on the Social Security card - so I've changed some users four and five times in the space of few months - more if you count the times they had a fix a typo made by some clerk at the Social Security office. )


Er, "no". The "bar sinister" is the diagonal bar that bisects the shield on a coat of arms. A legitimate son would inherit the father's arms and display the "bar dexter", which runs from the top left to the bottom right. A bastard would have the father's arms but his illegitimacy would be indicated by the "bar sinister", with the bar running from the top right corner to the bottom left, "moving" left. (Sinister derives from the French for "left") Since the hyphen isn't "directional" it is hard to see how it could be "sinister" in the literal sense. (BTW, does anyone remember Simon Bar-Sinister, the villain from Underdog? It must have given the guys who wrote the cartoon in the 60s a kick to know that they were calling someone a bastard on Saturday morning network TV and that hardly anybody knew it besides them. )

Hyphenated names in the English aristocracy probably arose from the need to emphasize the wife's name and ancestry when the husband was rich or a brave knight or had some other personal distinction that had raised his social status, but he didn't have any ancestors of his own worth speaking of. The practice never had any connection with bastardry that I'm aware of. Perhaps you were thinking of names beginnig with "Fitz", which were sometimes used to denote bastards. A Fitzroy, for instance, would be the bastard child of a king. ("Roy" from the French "roi", "king")

Doubtless others who know more about both subjects will amplify and/or correct the above. I hope so, since I'm working from memory and am too lazy at the moment to check the details.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

You're saying it should be "John bastard-son-of-Gerald Kennedy"?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Well, in his particular case I believe that would be modified to "John, son-of-bastard-Joe, Kennedy", but you're on the right track. Somewhere back along the family tree there was likely a Gerald where there shouldn't have been.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Holadem]

I am probably the only person I know who would go out of his way to not bestow (yes, I said bestow) his last name on anyone.

I DO NOT want my wife (should I ever get married) to have my last name. That name belongs to the children of my father and his direct descendants, plain and simple.

Which is why I find it hilarious when I hear some women defiantly proclaim their aversion to the name change.

My answer: "What the hell makes you think that I would want you to have my name anyway?! Marrying me does NOT give you the right to bear my name". I feel quite strongly about that. The grilfriend takes it personally for some reason...

Needless to say, there is no way in hell I am giving up my last name.

--
H - I'll keep mine, and PLEASE, DO keep yours...

 

[Ryan Tsang]

I've been thinking about it for a bit.....what's the purpose of marriage anyway? I am not religious so it has no meaning to me. I am not traditional, so I could care less. Marriage is but a public and legal declaration that you share your life with this other person. But why is that necessary? It doesn't change anything. For common-laws, it doesn't change their daily rituals. A piece of paper doesn't make you love the other person more or less. Sharing names doesn't make the bond stronger. Having a shared bank account doesn't make the friendship better or worse.

Think about it: Do you need to "officially" declare your friendship with your best guy/gal friend. No.

If you truly love this other person, then that's all that is required. IMHO, couples (married or not) often lose sight that friendship is the foundation of their union. If people focused on simply being better friends, there would be a lot less divorces. Love is all. The rest is fluff.

for the record: I am engaged. We don't want kids. I told her not to change her name. She wants separate bank accounts. So do I. Many would consider this rather cold, distant, and anything but a union. I could not disagree more.

 

[Jerry Almeida]

When I got married, I didn't see it as giving up my last name, it was more like sharing it with my wife. I can see where you respect your name, as do I for mine. That's why I saw it as an honor and a precious gift to be able to present to my wife.

I'm not trying to change your mind, just offering you a different viewpoint.

 

[Holadem]

What I meant in the part you quoted was forsaking my name for hers, like some have suggested in this thread.

--
H

 

[Ricardo C]

Does she have any sisters?

 

[Jerry Almeida]

Ah, my mistake.

 

[Ryan Tsang]

Ricardo C:

Actually, she does. And she's single too!

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I've spent the summer working as a clerk for a local Parks & Rec office. Needless to say, when I'm making identification material, it's a real bitch. Especially families who come in to get photo IDs for the town pool. For each person I have to ask "Do you have the same last name?" and record keeping's also a nightmare. Instead of having an entire family under one listing you can get each person in a different section of the alphabet. So should something happen to one person we'd have no way to contact their loved ones except by looking up the files modified on that date and hoping the whole family came in as one.

As for me personally, I plan to keep my last name, don't care if she keeps hers or takes mine, but want the kids to have mine. I don't think it'll be a big problem as I doubt I'd be attracted to the type of woman who one associates with the hyphen enough to marry in the first place; I'm not a fan of the PC movement and can't stand the people that want to impose their standards of decency on me. The feminist movement was a totally proper and legitimate evolution of society, but this Johnson-Jerry-Smith-Jones-Kennedy bullshit goes far behind the aims in which it's based.

That's me, though, and I guess it's a personal thing.

 

[Sam Posten]

Well, as for myself and Mr. William Gates III, we disagree with you!

My grandfather (who sad to say I never met) was 'Big Sam', my father was Little Sam until his father passed on then pretty much just became Sam, and I was given the same nickname that Mr. Gates and thousands of III's share: Trey.

Now that I'm older I use the name Sam for business dealings, which makes for MUCH fun when I call my dad's secretary and announce 'Hi this is Sam Posten, is Sam Posten in?" :p

Personally, I'm hoping if I ever have a son to nickname him some bastardized form of the word Four, maybe 'Kat' to mock the french 'Quatre' =)

I very much like having the honor of the same name as my Grandfather and father, and all of the IIIs and Juniors I've ever discussed it with seem to as well.

I'm right with ya there on one last name per family tho, his hers or some made up new one. My idea of a family is a unit that isnt afraid of sharing a name, and it helps with safety, bank, and other identification issues too. I dont care if others dont see it the same way, but I reserve the right to snicker at those who choose hyphenation =)

Sam

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Well, I'm a "Jr." but my dad is very humble, so I don't think ego played a part. Also, he goes by "Bob" and I was "Robby" as a child and "Rob" since 5th grade. My sister was named Rebecca Lynn so that my dad, my sister, and I all have the same initials: RLG.

I have heard that in some cultures, it is traditional for a boy's middle name to be his mother's maiden name. In that case, I would have been Robert Michalowski Gardiner.

 

[Yee-Ming]

I wouldn't go so far as to say that. I can appreciate the sentiment of honouring someone by naming him/her after them, e.g. Pres Bush's two daughters are named after their two grandmas.

In Chinese culture, it's actually the opposite, because it is considered not respectful to name a young 'un with the same name as an ancestor. So we don't have the "Jr" thing around here.

For the Malays and some Indians, they don't have surnames at all, instead their names are, in effect, John son of Robert, or Jane daughter of Robert. And you don't call him "Mr Robert", it's "Mr John". Just like the Icelanders, e.g. Eidur Gudjohnson is literally, "son of Gudjohn".

 

[Lew Crippen]

Just take a look at the number of Malays, whose sole name is “Muhammad”