If your surname ends with a vowel and s, how do you refer to your family? (grammatically, I mean, obviously!)

[nighbynight]

If you are called Brown, you'll be "the Browns"

But what if you are called something like Vargas, for example? Is it "the Vargas'" or "the Vargases"

I have seen pedants using the former, but have never felt comfortable with it, it just doesnt look right.

any pedants around??

the vargas family

I'd say either! I don't think it matters.

The Vargases.

skidoodle, is that just your opinion, or do you have Sources?
(I prefer this one as well)

The Vargas family is good. I'll use that whenever I can, I think!

Imo, you can't say the Vargas' because it's just a plural, not a possessive, so you can't use the apostrophe, can you? Has to be the Vargases, which is how you'd say it if you were talking.

Keeping up with the Joneses.

That is my informed opinion

great, thanks for the informed opinions!
I feel happier about using "the Vargases" now, if I really dont want to use the word "family."

You could say the Vargas'- as you'd be using the apostrophe in its "indication something has been removed" function. So in fact the Vargases and the Vargas' are fine. You'd do the same with names ending in "s" - so we're having the Jones' for dinner, we're having the Joneses for dinner - same diff...

I have the feeling Jones' is old fashioned, but am not sure if Joneses is accepted as correct yet.

we go either latin
and add a stupid e
or latin american and add an s

like Vargae

we also havea diminutive
and a team name
(ahem)
that dh had NEVER thought of

If you google, you get lots of links saying 'never form a plural of a family name using an apostrophe' - it really is just for possessives. If it's denoting missing letters, I think it's usually where the letters are missing in the middle of a word, not at the end.

Am liking the team name idea [snurk] .

Sorry, forgot to add apostrophe can also be used for missing letters at the beginning of a word.

lol I am quite fancying the team idea too.

"Come on children, rise and shine, Team bynight is going skiing today!"

I could dress them all in matching ski gear [evil ]

Vargae is an interesting thought, though I think it would sound poncey with the name I have chosen (Im writing a synopsis of a novel that I want to send to agents).

lol
its a cool team name that i thought of
MIl was very envious

I'd generally say the 'Vargas' family, although only because we have more syllables than Vargas, so our version of the 'Vargases' is a bit unwieldy, and has too many 'esses'

If I even attempted to say Team 'Vargas', I think DH would fall on the floor with laughter before disowning me.

the Vargases