Where does the double barrelling stop

[DooWhaaDiddy]

If an unmarried couple give the child both of their surnames, and that child then goes on to have a child with a partner who also has a doublebarrelled surname what do they do? Where does it stop! Application forms or the register at schools must be a nightmare

Santa Palmer-Tompkinson-Sebag-Montefiore

Yes, but that helps when the surnames bring status and 'one' wishes to be associated with them.

No one care when I'm Babs Smith-Brown-Watson-Green

But...Babs Beckham-Middleton-Cameron-Jagger is a different matter.

Watchthefoxes I need to know, say, 5 of the 'multitude of reasons' that being married matters to people you know and also from your point of view, the 'definite advantages' to children. I'm intrigued, I obviously move in completely different circles.

It's all about ego. I honestly couldn't care at all what surname my DCs have. They can make one up if that's their preference.

I’m struggling to think of one reason, let alone a multitude.
The only advantage I can see is being easily identifiable to others of your ‘ilk’, which people who aren’t wouldn’t care about anyway.
I think it’s some sort of tribalism,borne out of insecurity. Probably because you’re worried you don’t present too differently form those you see as scorn worth, and are worries someone might lump you in with the ‘undesirables’

And Shelly no one with any pretensions above the lower middle classes would ever use a word like "chav", much less capitalise it.

Bizarre. You seem to think I aspire to be upper-middle class, or something...

I'm as working class as working class gets, by self appraisal.

My upbringing was more 'Kes' than 'Outnumbered' and even though I managed to have a career which has included being a senior director in a multi-national, I'll always be working class. And I wouldn't want it any other way.

Not sure why MN has such a thing about the word chav.

I'm married. As DH didn't want to take my surname, he kept his. And we didn't see a reason why kids could share their name with 1 parent only.

When kids are old enough to get married and decide they would prefer to combine their names with their partner, I'm sure they can figure something out.

I like the Scandinavian approach - so DD would be Wilma HassledDaughter and a DS would be Fred Bloggson.

Not how it works I'm afraid - first of all, the 'son/dottir' is used only in Iceland, and only man's name is used so Wilma Blogsdottir and Fred Blogsson. (it is changing somewhat and sometimes you also have Mumsname-son/dottir nowadays, but traditionally it's dads name that's used)

I'm currently not doing so well at producing babies, but if we ever do get there the resulting child will have a double-barrelled name, as we'd both like to share a name with them. I was hoping to raise a child with enough gumption that choosing their own name if they get married will not be a task of crisis-inducing difficulty.

Tara P-Ts sister married another with a double blue barrelled name so became. Santa Palmer-Tompkinson-Sebag-Montefiore. Can you imagine the chequebook! Thinks it's shortened now

No, she is called Santa Montefiore. She took her husband's surname on marriage. Having a double barrelled name doesn't mean you have to keep it. Her husband is Simon Sebag Montefiore. No hyphen.

I’m married to the father of my children. I kept my name after I married. He changed his when he was a teenager and took his father’s first name as a surname. If he hadn’t changed, we would have both had the same surname.

He wanted the children to have his surname. I wanted them to have mine. So we double barrelled. I imagine if my daughter/son get married and want to double barrell again, they could drop one of their surnames and take on one of their potential spouses. You can just mix and match, surely?

My mum had a friend with a double barrelled name who remarried and was then known as something along the lines of Jennifer Simpson-Hawden Brough.

I imagine that if two double barrelled people had kids they'd drop two of the surnames. For example if John Brown-Green marries Jane Smith-Jones their children could be Brown-Jones or Smith-Green.

One of the trainees I mentored at work had a double barelled surname. One day we were chatting and I asked if it was a combination of her mother and fathers names. She laughed and said "Well ... No...". It turned out her father (an academic) had been briefly married in young adulthood, to a keen feminist who had insisted they double barrel their names to (say) Smith-Jones. In that time he published some well read works in the name of Smith-Jones. Then divorced but he kept the name and the accolades that came with it. He then married (say) Miss Wilson but refused to change name again as "his " name was by then well known in his field. And Ms Wilson's children got lumbered with the name of their father's otherwise long forgotten first wife. Bizarre.

Jiggler sorry to disappoint, but no childhood issues. I'm also sorry that I seem to have touched a nerve. I can't see why else you would make a personal insult like that.

I can see why the OP asks the question. If there is no mechanism for simplifying the double-barrelness, the length of people's names will increase exponentially. The longest (in the UK, at least) is reputedly Major Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache-de-Orellana- Plantagenet-Tollemache-Tollemache (died 1917). I bet school registration periods were a riot.

Close I've told my DDs that they can choose whatever they want when they're older. If they marry they can keep their name as it is or add their husband's or ditch one of their names and replace with their husbands...up to them and DH and I have already agreed we don't mind at all.

So if they're currently Rachel Smith-Forrest (not real name) and marry a man called Tom Black...then they could stay Rachel Smith-Forrest or become Rachel Smith-Black or Rachel Forrest-Black.

But never Rachel Black-Forrest Because that's a cake.

My and DH's surnames were both double-barrelled by our great grandparents (mine without a hyphen but I added one as people didn't seem to get it). Before I got my feminist pants on, I changed my name to his when we got married. However, we've discussed it and DS would have got one from each name had I not changed mine. Some of DH's cousins have dropped the added on bit of their surname.

There's always a smug gotcha overtone to this question.

Absolutely agree. And almost no one other than the British (English?) think it's an issue. "Won't someone think of the space on forms??!"

MrsOverTheRoad

Or Rachel Black.

He wanted the children to have his surname. I wanted them to have mine.

Genuinely, why? What's in a name for you?

What do you think might be in a name for him, Harry?

They seem to manage okay in Spain, where most of the population have double-barrelled names. Someone thick like Shelly would never get her head around it if she lived there...

I fell asleep last night and appear to have woken up in the 19th century, where people still give a shit about whether a child's parents are married!

Like honeylou, my children have a double barrelled surname... because I wasn't going to be written out of the family's history, simply by the fact that I'm female.

My daughter (21) uses both surnames and says that it helps her name to stand out to her tutors at university/will be helpful if she goes on to work in the industry she's studying. She also says (because like the OP I have wondered the same thing about where it all ends...) that if she gets married/has children, then she'll keep the first part of her surname and double barrel it with the husband/father's surname (or, I guess, the first part of his double barrelled name...!). She's actually given this independent thought and it seems a very sensible attitude - although her father might be a bit upset about him being written out of her family history, we'll cross that bridge if we ever get to it!

My son (12) refuses point blank to use his full surname and dropped his father's half - by his own choice - when he started school. He says that he simply doesn't like the sound of his father's surname, but likes mine. Which we can't/don't/won't argue with.

Whatever surname a child has... it's their name and they have the right to do with it whatever they choose. If Miss Goring-Smith-Baring-Jones wants to marry Mr/Ms Fortingly-Askew-Smyth-Montague, and double barrel their names, then so be it. It's their choice. But any children are more likely to have the first surnames double-barrelled (so they'd be Master/Miss Goring-Fortingly, I guess...) in my experience.

And for the poster whose friend claimed to "know" that any children registering at her school were those of unmarried parents... how snobby is your friend?! And does she really think that all of the upper-class members of society are the result of unmarried parents, stretching all the way back to the 11th century?! My grandmother had a double-barrelled surname (well, actually, she had about five surnames all told at birth) and she certainly was not illegitimate! Nor were her parents, or her grandparents, or so on.

All the double barrel kids I know of belong to married parents so I'm a bit anyone could suggest opposite.

I always think people that struggle with the concept highlight their narrow mindedness/prejudice/lack of intelligence.

I mean it's really not that difficult.

Reading that last comment from Harry confirms that the mindset about women being inferior is still firmly entrenched. Seeing as schools have to teach everything under the sun these days why isn't sexual equality taught and practised as the norm? Keeping one's own name would be a good starting point for a debate. Probably doesn't help that only one or two women in schools keep their own name and title on marriage so might be a non-starter!

"I have a double barrelled name as I couldnt decide whether I wanted my dad or my step dads name. (My mum was never an unmarried mother!)."

So much to be sad about in this comment.