Double barrelled surnames

[nappyaddict]

How popular are they as you go back in history? I heard hyphens are a fairly new idea and traditionally double barrelled surnames were 2 names without a hyphen?

Dp doesnt like the idea of us double barrelling cos its not "traditional"

What do mners think about double barrelled surnames?

About 1850 for one branch of our family.

Not sure how far back in history they go, but if you don't hyphenate is there not a risk the 'first' surname will be treated as a middle name?

If you don't hypehnate then that is true you wll be known as the last name not as both and one of the surnames ends up as a middle name, which also has happened with a few people I know.

Researched quite a lot of my family tree and only came across one case where the double barrelled name lasted more than one generation. I think the woman was from a relatively wealthy family so presume the name was important to her. After a couple of generations it appears to have been dropped and people just had the single surname. Other times, it was just that the woman kept her maiden name and double-barreled it with her husband's but didn't give it to the children. So I don't think it's a common practice historically in the UK.

What seems to be very popular with the Scots was giving the mother's maiden name as a middle name to the first daughter born.

Googling a few I know most seem to stem from mid 1800's

My DH and I both double-barrelled when we married - Hyphens aren't particularly a new invention (e.g. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gough-Calthorpe_family ) - but historically they were mainly used in upper-class families where significant property was to be inherited through a female line and the woman's husband was required to take her name if he wanted the money. They have enjoyed a resurgence lately as more people object to following patriarchal traditions.

Personally, while I feel the symbolism of having a shared surname with DH is very important to me, and it was good that we both changed rather than just one of us, living with a double-barrelled surname is inconvenient and combersome. People tend to assume that I'm posher than I really am, which I find embarrassing, and it takes forever to spell my name.

If I was making the choice again, I would have pushed harder to get him to agree to the other option we considered, which was to create a new, normal-length surname using some of the letters of each of our previous surnames. This would have the advantage that it can be repeated each generation - whereas double-barrelling is clearly unsustainable in the long-term.

I thoughy about blending, but don't like the idea of not carrying on the names. With double barrelling it feels more like joining 2 names together rather than just inventing a new name.

Or am I deluding myself? Am I still inventing a new name if I double barrell?