To not understand why double barrel surnames are so wrong/bizarre to some people?

@Kumri me too. I've known people create really great surnames that way.

I suggested it to DH too. That he merged his two surnames and the double barrelled with mine but he wasn't keen.

I sheepishly took DH’s surname but only as I’d always disliked mine (think similar to ‘Miss Pratt’).

I love it when families create their own surname, some friends of mine did something similar to Grey + Woods = Mr&Mrs Greywoods. Doesn’t work with all names though obviously.

In history, only important families got their name passed on through a female. That’s why inlaws can be such dicks about it I suspect “who does she think she is” 🙄

Quite interesting looking at the Sackville-West family. In 1813 Lord West married Lady Sackville, and they both changed their surname to Sackville-West. Their children were called: George West, Charles Sackville-West, Reginald Sackville, then six more who all had the Sackville-West surname. So I guess lots of conversations were had around all that 🤣

My DH and I are married but neither of us ever changed our surnames. Honestly it just seemed like unnecessary admin for me and wasn't that keen on losing my name anyway. DC came along later and is mysurname-DHsurname, but as they're both short names DC could easily drop the hyphen if they wanted. Think something like Short-Hill.

ILs here also only use DH's surname for DC and me, which really annoys me. Especially when they post things that need to be collected from the sorting office and there is literally NO evidence for the name that's on the package. They still won't use the right names though...

Baffled as to why being unmarried is a class marker tbh. But that aside - I’m married and double barrelled - we both took each other’s names. I didn’t want to completely change my name, husband wanted us to have the same name, and it felt like a nice meet in the middle compromise. So the kids are double barrelled too. I actually prefer the sound of it now to my pre-marriage surname - it has a more even number of syllables and balances out my first name better!

But I dunno, some people are just weird about it. When I was pregnant I had someone ask me if child was going to have my husband’s pre-marriage surname and I was like, err, no? That’s not either of our names…

And as for what they’ll do in future if they get married - I dunno, it’s up to them? Same as it was for me. I literally don’t care. It’s also pretty presumptuous to assume that marriage will be in their future.

@underneaththeash I knew someone who's double barrel would have been either Monk-Hatcher or Hatcher-Monk. Neither sounded that good.

Agree some surnames just don't work together.

In our case both are common surnames and very short.

Leaving your marriage is a marker of privilege argument aside....

Being married does not equate to having or not having a double barrelled name In my social circle all of the married women have either kept their own name or double barrelled. It's the done thing in most professions. Others on here have said the same. I think your views are quite outdated if I'm brutally honest.

I've never heard people refer to DB surnames as common, in my experience it's the opposite. My own parents DB their surnames when they married so I also had a DB surname growing up, then kept it when I got married (my husband has a common surname and I didn't want it plus couldn't be arsed with the sheer faff of changing anything accounts wise)

My own kids have one of my surnames as a middle name and my husband's surname as their own surname. They can decide what to do when and if they get married.

Tell your ILs to keep their beaks out!

My sister once had dealings with a Mrs Crumbley-Chaize. Crackers!

@properdoughnut

Yes my FIL was similar. All this fuss about the "family name"

Yet funnily enough it's always their family name that needs to be respected, never ours.

There's definitely two camps in my experience- the educated, professional married women who retain their own names and hyphenate/double barrel their children's names (the traditional "posh" I referred to - though as the product of a council estate upbringing I suppose I mean that to encompass middle class and "upwards") but also the unmarried parents who don't share a surname and therefore their kids have both.

The difference I see is the married couples where the wife makes an affirmative decision to retain her name, and the unmarried couples who never shared a surname to begin with.

I think it's hilarious that a lot of pearl clutchers don't like it because they think it's "common" (I suppose because of the association with unmarried parents).

Most people I know with double barrelled surnames are extremely posh (with titles and lands). E.g. Catherine Tate posh mum sports day sketch

For a number of years it's been recognized that marriage is a marker of privilege. If you Google it's there's lots of articles and studies cited. Here is just one:

amp.spectator.co.uk/article/forget-race-or-class-marriage-is-the-big-social-divide/amp

Having parents who are married to each other is pretty determinative of your educational/income trajectory. Of course, there are always exceptions, eg. parents who have been widowed, but the data is there.

All this bullshite about it being pretentious and the such like. I'm mid 50's and have been double barrelled my whole life. When my daughter was born out of wedlock ( clutch those pearls all you DM readers) we chose one of my names and her dads last name and she has a unique surname. I married recently and kept one of my last names and adopted my DH as the other.
It never caused any problems and saying it causes problems with emails is just absurd. Would you say that to a colleague with a name that's double or triple barrelled as the are from a Mediterranean, African or South American country? If you would you need a long hard look in the mirror as to why

Names are personal and we can do with them as we wish.... to call people pretentious and hard work because their choice is not as simple as yours would be?

All the people going 'but you end up with 6 last names in a few generations'
Or you know, people spend a day or so pondering it and pick a variation that sounds nice etc. What an inconvenience, that thinking slightly outside the box lark. My god, what a disruption it will be, wont someone thinking of the children, forced to starve whilst their parents agonise for weeks over deciding last names then setenced to a lifetime of it taking 5 more seconds to fill in an online form and unimaginative people thinking their last name is pretentious!
Oh wait.

There is another option! People will have 6 surnames and it will cause untold confusion such as:

Jane: And how do you spell your last name?
Susan: Jones-Tyler-Stevens-Edwards-Hunt-Dyer
Jane: Huh, thats unusual. Okay appointment booked.

See how devastating this was for Susan and Jane, how it caused so many issues! 😆

People are bloody weird in general about the names of children who are not their own. I don't understand why grandparents, friends etc think it's any of their business! Like, you've had your turn at naming kids, Grandma; let someone else have a go.

@alanabennett no, I’m married to my DH, as are our other friends who double barrelled. And all the wives, me included, kept our own surnames.

Agree. We had all this. My DS’s name is Joe Bloggs MySurname-DHsurname.

If anything I find the tradition of giving the child the man’s name to be the mad one. The woman carries the child, gives birth and then - let’s face it - usually does most of the childcare and the wife work for 18+ years - like hell was my child not having my name!

I think it depends
If your surnames are Cholmondeley and Hetiarachchi, it would be ridiculous to put them together as your child (nor anyone else`) is going to be able to spell, pronounce it or write it on something official.

Some names just don't go together either - my husband and my original surname sound wrong, there's no flow to them at all and individually they are not phonetically spelt.

If you have shortish common names, I don't see any reason not to, but it's much easier to all have the same family name.

My kids have a double barrel surname, no-ones ever said anything about it. It was either that or they just had my surname and I imagine I would have got more complaints about that. Some people are just funny about keeping traditions.

Oh, believe me, I've been half-tempted to send her cards addressed to the exact same Mrs Hisname title she bestowed upon me. It might be DHs name and title, but it's also her ex-husband (FiL's) title as she's now divorced and remarried with a different name.

She used that name for many years, I never have, so she has more of a claim to it than I do! The only reason I didn't is that I had no intention of sinking to her petty level. PA isn't me - if I have a problem I prefer direct communication (in the end I had to confront her directly for many more serious issues than this).

BUT even so -- wouldn't it have been a belter? 😂

Interesting.

In my experience it's the opposite. The women who insist on double barrelled names and indeed the men that are in favour tend to be better educated and consequently a higher class as a result. Common sense really.

Not rtft but can't figure out why people find this so ridiculous. When ds was born we weren't married, so ds has my surname and at the time dps surname. We also live abroad and I'm very very aware of the potential difficulties of me trying to register ds for certain things if I didn't share his surname. Lots of people in similar situations.
Also surely in this day and age women aren't expected to give up their name, and after carrying and birthing a child it's well within the womans rights to want her child to bear the same name as her.

I'm tempted to write cards to them under completely the wrong name. It's fucking rude.

Yes my FIL was similar. All this fuss about the "family name"