I've met my first ever double double barrel named child!

[llamajohn]

I wondered when it would happen, when two people with double barrel names have a child.

I met Alice Smith-Jones Williams-Taylor*

*Not real names, but you get the gist ... In fact her surname is actually longer than the above!

Ha.
We were only talking about this yesterday.

Why would you do that to a child ?

Oh lord. DH and I could have done this but chose not to as form filling would be the bane of their lives!

Pretentious

Names that long often don’t fit on computer systems either.

I've taught two in the past few years and both had also given their child a long first name and a middle name which just made the whole thing even more ridiculous. One of them had a name that was 48 letters long!

Why wouldn’t you just Jones-Taylor?

It was a stigma on our council estate 50 years ago - everyone presumed parents weren't married

This is how you break computer systems when you try and enter a surname that's too long.

I was at school 30 years ago with a boy with a double-barrelled surname who then had a sister with a double-barrelled first name! Always felt sorry for Sarah-Louise Derek-Gregory! (Not her real name but similar in tone.)

Blippi

haha! I was just chatting to my friend yesterday saying with the rise of double barrelled names I wonder whether people would double-double! I’ve found my answer 🤣

I remember a teacher of mine at sixth form insisting that everyone should keep their own surname if they married and that their children should then be double barrelled. She was very insistent that everyone should do this. I did try to point out that it would only work for one generation as otherwise the next generation would have four surnames but she wouldn't listen!

Blimey. Wouldn't want to sew in those name labels!

Nothing wrong with double barrelling. Most people will drop part of their name after a generation. It works perfectly well in Spain. I think it's preferable to just taking on the man's name because it's traditional 🥱

I have to say, I agree with her! They do this in Spain and it works - the child just gets the first surname of each parent

British or not?

100% of the population in my country has 2 surnames (it’s not actually possible to only have 1), some will have 3.

Neighbouring country - most people have 4.

Totally normal.

I was just about to say the system in Spain works well - until they come to the uk, and people use the incorrect part when reading it.

Omanis do this, but only the maternal 4 fathers

Many many countries do this and manage. You’ll learn about them all when you are a bit bigger.

Are they actually 'surnames' though?
Strictly speaking, a surname is a family name. It's called a 'last name' but even that's wrong but because some cultures like the Chinese and Japanese have it in front of their given names.
In certain countries people don't have surnames - it's 'child's given name' son of 'dad's given name' - a patronym.
In others it's a given name, followed by family/clan/various levels of hierarchy. Technically not all of it is a surname.

As all official documents, even passports are first name /last name as an international format ,people modify their names to fit. But that doesn't mean that they are strictly speaking surnames

Just imagine if two double-double barrelled people married.

Hello, my name is Tom Smith-Jones Brown-White Mason-Thompson Lewis-Hutchinson.

I used to work in paediatric a&e and about 30% of the kids there had double barrel surnames. I used to always say ‘one day they’ll be marrying each other!’ Nice to see the day has come 😂

As all official documents, even passports are first name /last name as an international format ,people modify their names to fit. But that doesn't mean that they are strictly speaking surnames

Your post is a bit unclear so I hope I didn’t misunderstand what you meant, but yes those names I have referred to are all surnames.

We don’t modify names to fit on passports or other documents. Everything I have ever owned has the same version of my name - the equivalent of Susan Johnson Smith (given name, surname 1, surname 2).

When Susan Johnson Smith marries Robert Black Thompson their child will become <given name> Black Johnson, or Johnson Black.

Surnames are family names as in - we do get them from our families. But in the (European) countries I am referring to, they are strictly speaking surnames, yes, there is no patron or naming custom that differs from simply passing down the parents’ last names.

Many years ago my Spanish au-pair explained their system to me, but I can't remember it.

But it was something like everyone has a double-barrelled name but when you marry the children have certain bits of the parents double barrel, or something like that!

What is pretentious are the English gentry who have triple-barrelled names, like the Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes

I’m a double barrelled who met a double barrelled. I hate my name and have been sneered at for being pretentious. My kids love their name so I’ve been happier about it since then.

PS also to add that double-barrelled names - hyphenated ones - are not much of a thing in Spain and the other countries referred to on here. The surnames are simply independent and a hyphen is not used. The only case when you would use a hyphen is when wanting to pass down both names of one parent (and yes, this is usually done by “posher” families or the aristocracy).

Second the poster who mentioned arriving in the UK and people using the wrong surname. I actually had to drop using the second altogether at work / university, because everyone was defaulting to it - email address, usernames etc all set to Susan Thompson when my full name is Susan Black Thompson, shortened version would be Susan Black.