Double-barrelled name

In the Western tradition of surnames, there are several types of double surname (also double-barrelled surname^[1]). If the two names are joined with a hyphen, it may also be called a hyphenated surname.

• In British tradition, a double surname is heritable, and mostly taken in order to preserve a family name which would have become extinct due to the absence of male descendants bearing the name, connected to the inheritance of a family estate. Such was the case with the Harding-Rolls family.
• In Hispanic tradition, double surnames are the norm, and not an indication of social status. A person will take the (first) surname of his father, followed by the (first) surname of his mother (i.e. his maternal grandfather's surname). The double surname itself is thus not heritable, but a true patronymic. These names are combined without hyphen (but optionally combined using y "and"). In addition to this, there are heritable double surnames (apellidos compuestos) which are combined with a hyphen.
• In German tradition, double surnames are taken upon marriage, written with or without hyphen, combining the husband's surname with the wife's (more recently the sequence has become optional under some legislations). These double surnames are "alliance names" (Allianznamen) and as such not heritable.

British tradition

A few British upper-class families have "triple-barrelled" surnames (e.g. Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe; Cave-Browne-Cave; Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound; Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby; Smith-Dorrien-Smith; Vane-Tempest-Stewart). Not all of those with multiple names were of the nobility; landed gentry such as George Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers consolidated the estates and wealth of several families in their multiple names. These are sometimes created when one spouse has a double-barrelled name and the other has a single surname. Nowadays, such names are almost always abbreviated in everyday use to a single or double-barrelled version. There are even a few "quadruple-barrelled" surnames (e.g. Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, Hovell-Thurlow-Cumming-Bruce, Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, Stirling-Home-Drummond-Moray, and the Danish Krag-Juel-Vind-Frijs family). The surname of the extinct family of the Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos was the quintuple-barrelled Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville.

Captain Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache is sometimes quoted as the man with the most ever "barrels" in his surname (six), but in fact all but the last two of these (Tollemache-Tollemache) were forenames.

Many double-barrelled names are written without a hyphen (this can cause confusion as to whether the surname is double-barrelled or not). Notable persons with unhyphenated double-barrelled names include David Lloyd George (born with Lloyd as a middle name, but self-transformed into a double barrelled surname), the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, astronomer Robert Hanbury Brown, actors Kristin Scott Thomas and Helena Bonham Carter (although she has said the hyphen is optional,^[2]) comedian Sacha Baron Cohen (however, his cousin Professor Simon Baron-Cohen opted for the hyphen), and Sylvia Llewelyn Davies.

Iberian tradition

When a person is born, the custom is for them to take the first surname of the father and then the first surname of the mother. Thus, when D. Julio Iglesias de la Cueva and Dª Isabel Preysler Arrastía had a son called Enrique, he legally was Enrique Iglesias Preysler. Where the optional conjunction y (and) is used, the example would become "Enrique Iglesias y Preysler" (never used in the case of Enrique Iglesias; see for example José Ortega y Gasset). On the other hand, actual double-barrelled names exist (called apellidos compuestos), such as García-Huidobro, Cruz-Coke or Pérez de Arce. For example, Luciano Cruz-Coke Carvallo is the son of Mr. Carlos Cruz-Coke Ossa and Ms. Lucía Carvallo Arriagada. In every day use Mr. Cruz-Coke Carvallo is Mr. Cruz-Coke, never Mr. Cruz.

In Portugal, where most of the population have two to four surnames (apelidos de família), the practice of using a double combination of surnames is very common. The person can either use a paternal and a maternal surname combined (Aníbal Cavaco Silva) or use a double last name that has been passed down through one of the parents (António Lobo Antunes). The last surname (normally the paternal one) is usually considered the "most important", but people may chose to use another one, often favouring the more sonant or less common of their surnames in their daily or professional life (such as Manuel Alegre or José Manuel Barroso, who is known in Portugal by his double surname Durão Barroso). The use of more than two surnames in public life is less common, but not unusual (see Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen).

One historic early aviator, Alberto Santos-Dumont, is known to have not only often used an equals sign (=) between his two surnames in place of a hyphen, but also seems to have preferred that practice, to display equal respect for his father's French ethnicity and the Brazilian nationality of his mother.^[3]

Continental Germanic tradition

In Germany a double surname (German: Doppelname) is generally joined with a single hyphen. Other types of double surnames are not accepted by German name law. However, exceptions are made for immigrants and for marriages where the double surname already was the official name of one partner before marriage. A 1993 law forbids surnames with more than two components.^[4] Prior to this, it was permitted for adults (e.g., Simone Greiner-Petter-Memm and formerly Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann-Maier-Leibniz^[4]) but their children would not inherit the name.^[4] The 1993 ban was upheld by the Constitutional Court in 2009.^[4] The crew members of the famous First World War light cruiser SMS Emden were allowed to add the name Emden with a hyphen to their surname as a special honour after World War I.

In Switzerland double surnames are traditionally written with a hyphen and combine the surnames of a married couple with the husband's surname at first place and the wife's at second. This doubled name is called "alliance name" (German: Allianzname). The first name as such, however, is the official family name, which will be inherited by their legitimate children. So, for example, if Werner Stauffacher is married with Gertrud Baumgarten, both can use the name Stauffacher-Baumgarten. Their children Heinrich and Verena, however, bear only the surname Stauffacher. Prominent bearers of an alliance name are Micheline Calmy-Rey (former Federal Minister for Foreign Affaires), Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf (former Federal Minister for Finance), or Johann Schneider-Ammann (Federal Minister for Economy). Lately, based on feminist pressure, wives have been permitted by law to place their maiden name before the family name. This doubled name is written without a hyphen and is borne by the wife only. So, in the example above, the wife's name is Gertrud Baumgarten Stauffacher, while her husband's name is Werner Stauffacher. Again, the children's names remain Heinrich and Verena Stauffacher.

Doubling of surnames is also practised by the Dutch. An example is the name of Dutch footballer Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink. According to The Guardian, his name derives from "the 17th century, when two farming families in the Enschede area of Holland intermarried. Both the Vennegoor and Hesselink names carried equal social weight, and so – rather than choose between them – they chose to use both. 'Of' in Dutch translates to 'or', which means that a strict translation of his name reads Jan Vennegoor or Hesselink."^[5][6]

Scandinavia

Denmark has a tradition of double surnames originating in the 19th century. This was a result of two naming acts obliging commoners to adopt heritable surnames, passed first for the Duchy of Schleswig in 1771, and then for Denmark proper in 1828. Most people chose their patronymic as their heritable surname, resulting in an overwhelming dominance of a few surnames.

In order to avoid the risk of mistaken identity, many Danes started using their mothers' maiden names as a heritable middle name (similar to the Russian or Hispanic system), rather than as a second given name (as in the Anglo-Saxon system). One such case in point is the fact that three successive prime ministers of Denmark all share the same last name, Rasmussen, and so they are usually referred to by their middle name, viz. Nyrup, Fogh and Løkke, respectively.

Today, however, the order of the names invariably places the patronymic -sen at the end, regardless of whether that name has been passed down by the father or mother, or adopted through marriage. Unlike in the Russian or Hispanic systems, this surname-style middle name is not considered a proper last name in official documents, unless hyphenated into one compound name.

Poland

In Poland a double surname (Polish: nazwisko złożone) is generally joined with a hyphen and by law includes only one hyphen. Polish surnames (nazwisko (N. sg.)), like those in most of Europe, are hereditary and generally patrilineal, i.e., passed from the father on to his children. A married woman usually adopts her husband's name. However, other combinations are legally possible. The wife may keep her maiden name (nazwisko panieńskie) or add her husband's surname to hers, thus creating a double name (nazwisko złożone). A married man can also adopt his wife's surname, or add it to his. Polish triple-barreled surnames are known to exist; an example is the one borne by Ludwik Kos-Rabczewicz-Zubkowski, a university professor and writer, living in Canada.

Recent developments

Since the late 20th century, increasingly liberal legislation on the inheritance of legal surnames in many Western countries has led to the emergence of various non-traditional or ad hoc coinages of combined surnames. For example, Hispanic American politician Antonio Villar and his wife Corina Raigosa adopted the "blended" surname Villaraigosa upon their marriage in 1987.^[7]

In some cases, courts in member states of the European Union have refused to register children under the surname given according to a foreign naming tradition.^[8]

In France a practice abolished in 2010^[9] was to use two consecutive hyphens -- (not the same as a "long hyphen" or dash, or with a double hyphen) to distinguish between recently formed double surnames and ancient hyphenated family names (French: nom composé). The use of double surnames is legal but not customary. Children traditionally take on their father's surname (or, more recently, optionally their mother's).

In Canada, especially Quebec, it is common for children born since the 1970s to bear both parents' surnames, with no established rules as to whether the father's or mother's name should come first. (In Quebec, under the provisions of the Civil Code enacted in 1980,^[10] both spouses must retain their original surnames upon marriage.) This situation was frequent enough that naming laws had to be amended in the early 1990s when those with double surnames began to marry, and wished themselves to give their children double surnames. In such cases, any combination involving at most two elements of the father's or the mother's surname is permitted.^[11]

Non-Western surname traditions

A Chinese compound surname is a Chinese surname using more than one character. Many of these surnames derive from noble and official titles, professions, place names and other areas, to serve for a purpose. Some are originally non-Han, while others were created by joining two one-character family names. Only a few of these names (e.g. Ouyang, Shangguan, Sima, Situ) survive in modern times. Many clans eventually took on a single-character surname for various reasons. A small minority of Koreans and Vietnamese also have compound surnames. In 2007, PRC officials suggested that parents should be encouraged to create two-syllable (two-character) surnames for their children by combining their parents' (one-syllable) surnames; this could make people's names more unique, and "could help solve the problem of widely recurring names".^[12]

In India, double surnames are comparatively common, especially in Bengal, examples including Roy Chaudhury (sometimes written as Chowdhury), Ghosh Dastidar, Das Gupta, Dutta Roy, etc.

The Filipino naming tradition is derived from the Hispanic system, but was influenced by the American (Anglo-Saxon) naming tradition when the Philippines became a United States colony in 1901. A child customarily will carry the mother's maiden name as his middle name and carry the father's surname. When the female marries, she keeps her maiden surname and adds the husband's surname, but does not typically hyphenate it. So, when Maria Santos Aguon marries José Lujan Castro, her name becomes Maria Aguon Castro and their children will typically carry the middle name Aguon, and the surname Castro.

See also

• Dual naming
• Double name
• Name blending
• List of double placenames

References