Hyphenated last *Na Sarawak to be growing in popularity. I have 2-3 in each class this year. So, today I got to thinking: If Mary Smith-Jones marries Bob Miller-Adams, what the heck do they do with their last names? What about their kids? Do they treat it like Hispanic surnames? Wasn't the original point to preserve the ancestry on ?both? sides? ::head explodes::
ETA: WTF, autocorrect?!?! *names appear
Re: Hyphenated Last Names?
Similar to us. We BOTH hyphenate socially (legally kept our our names - much easier with our jobs) and our kids have/will have hyphenated last names legally (a grand total of three syllables and sounds like VanHouten - aka Milhouse from the Simpsons). They can do whatever they want.
In some countries (like Switzerland) the tradition is for the couple to hyphenate their names but for the kids to get dad's name. Then, when/if they marry, both sexes hyphenate their names but give the kids dad's ln and the process starts again. I suspect if two kids with hyphenated names grow up and get married, they'll either have to do what they do in Europe and recombine their names together or have one just take the others' name.
But you make a good point... at some point hyphenation is impractical. Another tradition I like is for women to make their maiden name their mn and to give kids the same mn.
When DH and I got married, I kept my name and he kept his. When our son was born, I wanted to just use DH's name because I thought it would be easier and sounds nice with our son's name. DH absolutely insisted that we hyphenate. So, now all our children will have hyphenated names. (It's kind of funny because everyone thinks I was the one that wanted to hyphenate.)
Anyway, I always imagined if one of our children chose to marry someone with a hyphenated name they would probably drop my name and keep DH... but who knows. Ultimately they will be adults by then and can choose to do whatever they want with their own names.