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

Forget about the Gay Marriage Amendment. We should stop people from getting married and having kids if they are going to hyphenate the last names of the kids. This is just going crazy.

OK, when women started doing it, I thought, "Fine with me if they want to get carpal tunnel syndrome signing their checks 'Jennifer Hossenfeffer-Krzyzewski.'" I understand the various reasons for it. However, it has always been a personal choice.

Now, I'm hearing about more couples adopting the hyphenated surname for both husband and wife which leads to their kids having hyphenated names too. We all know how big kids write on that elementary school lined paper. They'll need a whole separate page just for their name when they do homework. Do you know how many more trees that would kill?

More importantly: What happens when those kids grow up and get married to another person with a hyphenated lastname? Do we link all four last names with hyphens? Where does the madness end?

We need to band together and stop parents from giving kids hyphenated surnames.

I once came across a fellow who had incorporated his (by then ex) wife's surname into his: we all knew him as Tony Green, one fine day there was reference to Tony xxxx-Green and we were all wondering, then he explained that xxxx was his ex-wife's surname (obviously not xxxx but I don't know if he'd want me mentioning all this on an internet website )

And before any of you guys start wondering about my name, my surname is Lim, "Yee Ming" is my given name and I only hyphenated it so you fellows don't get the idea my surname is "Ming" or call me just "Yee"; but that still happens...

This is a great idea, I'm all for this. I also take a promise that I will not be hyphonating my last name in the event of marriage, my last name is 10 letters long and that's way too many when trying to write out a check, so I will not be seaking to lengthen it with my future wife's sir name.

i'm sure the first thing that many of us will think of when reading this thread is george carlin.

spoilerized for george carlin's foul mouth
hey lady, PICK a FUCKin name, would you please? "hi, i'm emily jericho-fortesque" "hi i'm george jackmeoff-fuckyoutoo"

CJ

Ricardo,

It's a south american thing. My mexican girlfriend uses her full name, Rita Nicole Alexandra Garcia Medina, with Medina being her father's name and Garcia her mothers.

Personally, I think it's pretty cool, to recognize both parents, but I would never go by Justin Schoenbeck Cleveland.

My wife's parents gave their daughters only a first and last name so that when they got married they could keep their family name as a middle name and add on their husband's name for a last name, with no hyphen.

My last is two words. Brown Eyes, not hyphenated. I once worked a 6 month contract with a company that used Lotus Notes for email.

The tech department decided all on their own that I would only accept an email address of.

David.Brown [email protected]

It took them over a week to get email working agian

Before the no call list I could identify telemarketers imediately becuase they always asked for Mr. Eyes

I too have casually wondered about people with hyphenated names marrying other people with hyphenated names.

What is the purpose of the hyphen anyway? What's wrong with just adding more names to the name? Take, for example, two members of our last two first families. We had Hillary Rodham Clinton. No hyphen necessary. And George Walker Bush. Again, no hyphen necessary. Maybe it's only the 'commoners' who feel the need to add the hyphen, while the American nobility are too sophisticated to add extra punctiation to their names.

I like the way people from Mexico and further south create their names.

Leo Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez Hinze

I'm going to avoid the hyphen and I'm not going to change my name if I get married. I'm now 32, it's been my name for a long time. I like it. (Besides, it's one of those horrible silent lettered east european last names and I have to spell enough letters already!)

I wonder if there's many people out there with a surname of Hyphen, who then, hyphenate their name.

hmmmmm...

if you ever chose this option, you would luck out, your first name is higly suitable for using just one name.

CJ

I just thought of another reason why I am glad that my parents didn't do this and that I don't have to do it.

If my parents had done this my full name would be

Casey John Calvin Christiansen-Trowbridge. No thanks

..and then there was the guy that used to play bass for Jethro Tull, named Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond.

I think that would be an incentive to change your name.
Then again if I get married, would my wife want to take my name? For some reason few people can pronounce it correctly at first, and no one can spell it right. It sounds just like it's spelled, how hard can that be?

In South American countries what name does the woman use? And where does it end? If the child is given the name of both parents, what do they pass on to their children?

When my wife and I announced our engagement my father asked her, "You aren't going to do that smith-jones bullshit, are you?" I'm glad he asked. I hadn't thought of it. Wouldn't have married her if that was her plan.

My wife kept her last name when we got married, and I kept mine. We're both published under our names, and it didn't matter that much to either of us. Her last name is already hyphenated, from when her parents got married.

We haven't decided what we're going to do about kids though.

We had friends that got married two years ago that combined their last names. She was Watson, and he was Miller. Now they're both legally known as Watermill. My wife and I tried to figure out something clever to do with our last names, but couldn't come up with anything, so we just left 'em alone.

I heard it becomes a hassle sometimes if the kids are given the father's (or mother's) surname and the mother keeps hers. The mother then has to constantly explain herself when she deals with their schools or the hospital or whatever. "Yes, I really am their mother." "No, we're not divorced." You get the idea.

Also, people who know your wife probably call you Mr. Jones (or whatever her lastname is.)

Happens to me every now and then. My wife still uses her own surname (Tan; mine is Lim), so if she makes the reservations I get addressed as Mr Tan.

But around here, most women never take on their husband's names, and get called Madam so-and-so, rather than Mrs husband's-name, after marriage. Seems to be a cultural thing, growing up a lot of my teachers were Madam something-or-other. Nowadays of course the more modern "Ms" is preferred for married women retaining their maiden names.